Absence of facts and partial reporting is spin by any other name

"Teenager who tried to rape girl, 11 avoids jail in 'pathetic' ruling" screams the Daily Mail this week.

These kind of stories make me so fed up. No because I think that hordes of criminals are being let off lightly by our courts - they are not. I get fed up because the absence of facts in these article is just as bad as any piece of spin dressed up as a news article.

The writer wants us to believe that a violent sexual criminal has been let off and poses a huge threat to his victim and society at large. He does this by leaving out any of the relevant details.

For example, why did the judge in this case believe that a non-custodial sentence was more appropriate? What mitigating facts might the defence have put to the court? What was the position of the prosecution in this regard? What were the personal circumstances of the boy (the defendant) and his family?

I used to work in the policy department of Victim Support and have sat on Home Office Committees and worked on the development of the Victims Charter. I entirely support moves to strengthen the position of victims and witnesses of crime within our criminal justice system.

What I do no think is helpful are the shrill and partial accounts of the businesss of our courts being paraded around by the Daily Mail as factual reportage. If I were the judge in this case I'd seriously think about bringing the author to court and asking him to explain why his reporting of the case was so full of holes as to render the article meaningless.