When ‘Trial by Media’ shows itself for the disaster it really is
Sounds like a particularly nauseating episode of Panorama right? Well in the past week I’ve been noticing more and more the extremes to which our particular fascination with the media in the UK might take us.
A lot of my worry hinges on the continued fall out from the Baby P Case. We were all rightfully shocked and appalled at the cracks in our social services that this child was able to fall through, but the continued coverage – especially by the tabloids – of the people at Haringey Council who were involved with this case is beginning to amount to a frenzied personal assault on these otherwise solid professionals. I am not alone in believing that people such as Sharon Shoesmith do not originally get to these positions without a strong degree of professionalism and an ability to be extremely good at the job she does. It is true that her position in the wake of this tragedy is untenable and that she has to go, however the legal proceedings in how she will leave that position are in motion and no amount of nonsensical bear-baiting from some areas of the Press will speed up or change that legal dismissal procedure.
That said we should let sensationalism have its rightful place in what is a free and opinionated country, as long as it is accepted for what is and not courted by politicians who we demand facts from. The real problem begins when our Political Leaders wilfully play up to what amounts to attention-grabbing at a time when their own policies are under scrutiny. Due to the current climate and the particular fragile nature of our government, this is perhaps why I have been particularly disturbed by some of the statements made by our Parliamentarians during the development of this particular story.
Yesterday Ed Balls, the Children, Schools and Families Secretary, came out and said that the suspension of the Senior Social Workers at the heart of Haringey’s failure was ‘not good enough’ as they will still be receiving their full pay until their review period is at an end. At the end of this period I should reiterate that they will undoubtedly lose their positions as they are completely untenable. It baffles me that a Secretary of State would say such a thing, when he knows well (at least I assume he would as he is at the heart of the legislative body of the country) it is illegal to suspend someone without pay unless they are dismissed for gross misconduct, something which Shoesmith and her colleagues cannot be brought to account for. He knows the law of the land (the review period which I will not detail here) but it appears he would be willing to suspend this knowledge and insight for a cheap grab at a headline. David Cameron also made the claim that the people involved should be suspended without pay, knowing full well that such action would involve the suspended Civil Servants taking their case to an employment tribunal and winning upwards of £60,000 as well as their salary – as was reported on one news broadcaster last night – in their individual cases.
My question to these men and to both major parties is why not make the public aware of these most simplistic of employment laws part of your educated responses to an event that hasn’t just brought pressure on the government but the general public’s trust in our system of governance? Help society find that justice is being served by way of the law of the land.
First and foremost we should be interested in protection of the vulnerable and in improving this mechanism of our society. After this latest failure I can’t help but think the civic mindedness that has led to many great successes in the past in Haringey has grown in the unsung heroes that make up the boroughs social workers not involved directly with this one failure. Instead we are being subjected to mob-like calls for ‘justice’ to be served to the dead child involved in the case. My inverted commas are in no way meant to undermine the pain anyone involved in the case feels, but to accentuate the fact that justice in a legal sense has been served – as the two people who did commit the crime in this particular case have now been imprisoned. We cannot fix what has been done by subjecting ourselves to a course of action that is outside the rule of law, anymore than our elected leaders should subject themselves to being involved in this latest gross display of trial by media.
Lynne Featherstone, the local MP for Haringey, should receive credit for the way she has kept a cool head in this fiasco. In every interview I have seen Lynne conduct she has kept calm, acknowledging the seriousness of the situation without subjecting herself to the finger pointing that has gone on around her by all major political parties including her own. At the weekend, she made the call for the ‘Serious Case Review’ into the death of Baby P to be made public, most importantly because Sharon Shoemith was one of the Chairs of the Board that conducted this review and it may grant the public more insight into the facts of the case and the actions of those who now maintain untenable positions within Haringey’s Child Protection Services.
The bottom line is that right now we do not need more headlines and reaction aimed to save falling approval ratings on all political sides. What we need now is a reality check and the only way we can do that is take control of the realities of our own society and the way we function within the rule of law. As Dickens wrote at the beginning of Hard Times 'What we need are facts!'
Well these are our hard times, and we need more guts and intelligence in equal measure from our politicians and socially savvy journalism from our media, knowing that our belief in justice and liberty is inherent in all of our causes.
Write a comment