An inquest just took place in the UK city of Leicester concerning the suicide of a woman who was confronted by a Sky News reporter for a story about Internet trolls.
As this story is being reported by the BBC, it should be raising serious concerns.
The woman was seemingly obsessed with the Madeleine McCann abduction case and had tweeted over 400 times on the subject between November 2013 and September 2014.
Now to me that does not sound a lot. Many people become drawn into the latest "Case Of The Century" and want to comment on it. Or be part of it. Or let the world know that they really, really, really know what happened.
These are sad people for the most part. And some like Nancy Grace get paid a shitload of money to pick at the carcass of the collective human misery such cases produce. And do it night after night after night. And why is Nancy special and this lady not? Because of a towering insight? Because of having the biggest microphone? Because she CARES so much more than regular folks? Of course not. Nancy is just so very special because she thinks she is.
So this woman in the UK made 400 posts over almost an entire year. And she didn't actually send them specifically to any members of the McCann family who eschew a social media presence. So where is the harm? Where is there any modicum of wrongdoing? How did the Sky News reporter track her down to confront her over her trolling? Did he find her by journalistic sleuthing? By serious gumshoe work?
No her name was on a list.
The reporter, let's call him Mr.B, told the inquest he and a cameraman confronted the woman after Sky News obtained a dossier of alleged Twitter trolls handed to
police.
So the cops gave him the list? Why would they do that? Is that even legal? Was it their list? If it was, why are they keeping lists of people who aren't committing any fucking crimes?
If the list came to the cops via some Internet busybodying "watchdog group", we need to know who they are so that in the future, we can stop them from making and passing on such lists to any law enforcement agency. They are the 21st century equivalent of meddling old people with nothing better to do than report their utterly groundless suspicions about shit they know nothing about to the authorities.
This woman took her LIFE because she was on that list. And the people who compiled it should be named and ashamed. And the police officers who gave it to the reporter should be ashamed.
And the reporter should be ashamed.
But like Nancy Grace when she hounded that poor Vietnamese woman to suicide, he isn't.
And the real tragedy is, no-one is.
And if anyone can explain this sentence from the BBC report, you are a better person than I :-
"Coroner Catherine Mason concluded she had killed herself and called for sales of helium to be regulated."
