Paedos, perverts and the language of the lynch mob

On The Press: It didn't take long for a serious political story to turn nasty

It all started in The Observer two weeks ago with an inside page story headlined "Kelly faces sex offender row". Although he was not named, The Observer reported the story of Paul Reeve, the Norfolk man on the sex offenders register whom Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, had approved as fit to teach PE in a Norwich school.

The Daily Mail picked up on the story right away with a front-page splash and a leader pointing out the Government's failure to implement the recommendations of the Bichard inquiry after the Soham murders.

It took a day or two for the rest of the popular press to join in, and the qualities seemed reluctant to engage when the lynch mob had taken control. The language of the tabloids was certain, confident and extreme. There were to be no shades of grey around this story.

The Sun: "Child sex offender William Gibson ... is not a decent man who fell to temptation. He is a predatory, immoral, manipulative creep who takes what doesn't belong to him."

The Daily Star: under the headline "Pervs now rife in our schools" it reported that "hundreds of banned teachers including paedophiles could be working in Britain's schools".

The Daily Mirror's front page: "Kelly's praise for a paedo. She told sex offender: You're a loss to teaching." The Sun again: "Seven perv teachers ... one dunce minister".

But this was a situation in which restraint and moderation quickly became interpreted as complicity with the pervs. Nowhere was this better demonstrated than in the radio phone-ins. Callers were not in the mood for calm discussion: their children were under threat. The most-used sentence of the week, by politicians, presenters and callers alike, was: "The safety of our children is paramount", as though this was an original remark.The most loaded and repeated question of the week was: "Do you have children?" You could almost hear the muttered "Need more be said?" at the other end of the line when the answer was negative.

This was a time when some explanation would have been helpful. There was widespread confusion about the differences between the various lists and registers. It did need pointing out that an affair voluntarily entered into by a girl on the verge of the age of consent was not the same as assault; that a caution is not the same as a prison sentence; that sad and lonely gazing at images on a screen is not the same as arranging and taking pictures. This is not to condone any of these activities, but just to say they cannot necessarily be equated. But, with only a few exceptions, there seemed little room or inclination for such observations, even in the quality press.

In the end populism ruled and the tabloids got their result, if we understand Ms Kelly's statement properly. The language was unedifying; branding those who felt there was anything to discuss as almost as bad as the pervs was a little scary. Maybe the tabloids did no more than reflect, rather than influence, the views of virtually all their readers. Maybe the rights and safety of a few pervs is of no consequence. That would certainly be the view of the phoners-in.

The chain of events started by The Observer threw light on practices and procedures known to few of us, exposed government inaction post-Soham, alerted parents to rules governing who works around children, and provoked almost instant changes. All of that was down to the press, and could fairly be put in the "watchdog" column. Other things could be put in the "scarist/populist" column.

The last word goes to Ann Widdecombe (I never imagined writing that). In her Daily Express column last Wednesday she wrote: "Much of the reaction... has been a) hysterical and b) as much motivated by a desire to destroy a government minister as to protect innocent little children... So far there is no evidence that any child was put in danger as a result either of deliberate ministerial decision or of failure of the system."

Peter Cole is professor of journalism at the University of Sheffield