Once more I find myself castigating the BBC for the quality of its reporting. This morning the story was that of the woes beleaguering the home secretary over overfilled prisons and his advice to the judiciary regarding sentencing. So far, so good. Then a brief look at the newspaper headlines and how they reported the judges’ reaction. Then the voice-over asked “how many paedophiles will be released instead of going to gaol?”
What?!? Okay, so one person convicted of downloading child porn was given a suspended sentence this week. Another was released on bail pending sentencing. At least one, possibly both, should be incarcerated by now and that is a fair enough comment – if we were commenting on these cases (although as notsaussure points out, not necessarily). However, what was going on here was subtly different. The BBC was deliberately pressing sensitive buttons to create a reaction, rather than simply presenting the facts.
Of course, one could point out that a government that insists upon creating 3,000 new offences might also have had the foresight to realise that it would need more prison places…
More importantly, by trivialising the issue, the BBC allows a get-out.
Two points should have been raised:
1) Either the Lord Chancellor/Home Secretary et al were suggesting that judges are sentencing incorrectly – in that they were not following the guidelines and therefore needed reminding – or they were attempting to influence the sentencing decisions of judges. Which was it?
2) Even if the intention was the former – something that would be hotly disputed – the effect was likely to be the latter, unless the assumption of the writer(s) was that most judges are sentencing incorrectly (see hot dispute above). The latter smacks rather too much of an attempt to blur the separation of powers.
The BBC’s failure to raise the issue of the separation of powers – a theme onto which much government wrong-doing could profitably be hung – is scandalous.
I have the full text of the actual letter here.
Indeed – your point while noted here is likely to be missed in the wider BBC audience.