Chris Jefferies and a loss of faith in the morality of the British press

The media’s coverage of the investigation into Joanna Yeates’ murder has been distasteful, to say the least.

As Greg Reardon, Miss Yeates’ boyfriend, has said in a statement released yesterday:

Jo’s life was cut short tragically but the finger pointing and character assassination by social and news media of as-yet innocent men has been shameful. It has made me lose a lot of faith in the morality of the British Press and those that spend their time fixed to the Internet in this modern age. I hope in the future they will show a more sensitive and impartial view to those involved in such heart-breaking events and especially in the lead up to potentially high profile court cases.

According to the BBC, the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, is:

considering issuing a notice to remind the media that coverage of the arrest in the Jo Yeates murder inquiry must be fair.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4, he said:

I would simply ask them to reflect carefully on how they can provide proper coverage on a matter of public importance whilst at the same time, mindful of how our legal system works, they can also ensure that a trial process, if one were ever to happen, will not be prejudiced by material being published which may be irrelevant to any case that comes before the court.

To take just one example, this is how the Mail were reporting the news of Christopher Jefferies’ release on police bail last night:

The cruel nickname of “Prof Strange” comes from the Mail’s own attempt at muck-raking into Mr Jefferies’ past in:

The article began:

Police were today granted another 12 hours to quiz the landlord of Joanne Yeates who is being held on suspicion of her murder as former pupils revealed they believed he was gay.

Are these claims from Mr Jefferies’ former pupils relevant to the investigation? I doubt it. Most of the press’ coverage of Mr Jefferies has consisted of tittle-tattle such as this.

On Wednesday 29th December, before he was named by the police as a suspect, the Mail reported that Mr Jefferies’ could “hold the key to Joanna’s murder”. They claimed:

Wearing a long coat with fur collar and carrying a Waterstone’s shopping bag, he told reporters: ‘I definitely cannot say that I saw Joanna Yeates that evening. No.”

The same article also said:

An only child who has never married, Mr Jefferies – originally from Grimsby – was considered one of the ‘luminaries’ of Clifton College’s English department in the 1970s.

He was particularly fond of the work of the 19th-century romantic poet Christina Rossetti.

A former pupil, James Harris, wrote on a social networking site: ‘Jo Yeates’s landlord was my English teacher at school 20 years ago. He was very flamboyant and had blue hair at the time.’

Mr Jefferies was four years ago appointed the chairman of the Bath and Avon Prayer Book Society, which promotes the continued use of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. He resigned four months later.

A year earlier, he set up a campaign group to fight plans to replace a rifle range and squash courts belonging to his former college with two semi-detached houses.

This kind of background information, if a little excessive, is fairly standard practice… or it would be if Mr Jefferies was considered a suspect at the time the article was written.

It’s clear that the Mail almost immediately considered Mr Jefferies’ to be something of a “character”, or, rather, a suspicious character. Hence the Mail’s rather over-detailed detour into Mr Jefferies’ private life.

At 7am on Thursday 30th December, the police arrested Mr Jefferies and brought him in for questioning. The character assassination continued…

In an article published on the 30th, we were told again that:

He was particularly fond of the work of the 19th-century romantic poet Christina Rossetti.

This will become important later…

We were also told again that Mr Jefferies, when first encountered by reporters, was:

wearing a long coat with fur collar and carrying a Waterstone’s shopping bag

And that a former pupil described him as “flamboyant” and as having blue hair.

In the bullet point summary of the article, at the top of the page, the Mail obviously felt it vital to point out that:

He campaigned for gun range and prayer books

The following day, New Year’s Eve, was when things really got nasty. The article from this day came with the following headline:

In the article’s summary, the Mail point out that:

Former pupils say he would get angry, shout, and throw books

And in the fourth paragraph, they say:

Described as a ‘nutty professor’, the bachelor used to dye his hair blue and has an obsession with Christina Rossetti, a 19th-century poet who often wrote about death.

By mentioning this, along with the addition that Rossetti “often wrote about death”, the Mail clearly want its readers to add two and two to make “guilty”.

The article is accompanied by two old photos of Mr Jefferies, one with his blue hair and one without, as well as a photo of him walking past reporters and a distant shot of him entering his flat.

It’s this article that includes the real muck-raking:

I won’t go into detail on the “revelations” about Mr Jefferies that are included in this article. Needless to say, the headline above perfectly summarises the way in which most of the print media has covered Mr Jefferies.

It’s his hair, his literary interests and the comments of his former pupils – over and over again.

Thrown in for good measure are continuous references to his sexuality, his bachelorhood and even an insinuation that he might be a “peeping tom”.

(Anton at Enemies of Reason has written a post detailing the press’ coverage of Mr Jefferies.)

I should say that Mr Jefferies’ guilt or lack thereof is irrelevant when it comes to any criticisms that could be made about the media’s coverage. At the time all these articles and headlines and photos were printed, Mr Jefferies was only considered by police to be a suspect.

The presumption of innocence is a vital part of the British justice system and is something that certain newspapers claim to hold dear, and rightly so. Yet almost all of them, from the Daily Mail and The Sun to the Daily Mirror and the Telegraph, have treated him as if he were guilty.

His past and his present have been dug up and paraded around for all to see as putative proof that Mr Jefferies is, if not guilty of murder, at least guilty of being “strange”.

If this isn’t enough to snuff out any last remaining belief that you may have in the morality of the British press, then I would be very surprised indeed.