This morning the BBC took a late decision to drop the heavily-trailed interview between John Humphrys and legendary DJ Andy Kershaw. Kershaw’s private life has been pretty disastrous in the last couple of years and he was now ready to speak openly about his troubles and his recovery. The programme he was to do this on was Radio 4′s On the Ropes, in which people talk about how they got through some difficult personal times of life.
I was looking forward to hearing Kershaw in the repeat this evening, but it is not to be. Apparently, the decision to pull the programme was taken because it might compromise the legal arrangements between Kershaw and his ex-girlfriend who now has sole custody of their children. He has no access to them. His behaviour has been pretty bad and he has displayed the desperation any of us would feel if we had led ourselves down such a dark alley. It would have been good to hear his story from his own lips and give an opportunity to the public to encourage him in his recovery.
Andy Kershaw has proved to be a fantastic broadcaster, introducing millions of people to world music and stamping everything he did with his distinctive northern voice. His personal fall from grace deprived us all of some great insights into music and culture. No doubt there are those who will now scream at me, ‘Consider his estranged ex-girlfriend and kids who have had to be protected from him!’ Fair enough; I am not excusing his behaviour. But I sometimes wonder if (like with the case of Erwin James/James Monahan) the same people would feel better if these guys fell back into their problematic behaviour and lifestyle and continued to waste their lives. I prefer to celebrate the small steps such damaged people make into becoming positive members of society again. Why do we find people’s struggle for recovery or even ‘redemption’ so deserving of our sneering contempt?
This is pertinent today for a second reason. Yesterday the press were given access for the first time into the Family Courts in England. Hitherto they have been banned on the grounds that children needed to be protected from exposure to and by the media. In other words, the vulnerable had to be protected by law from being further abused by some of our less reputable journalists. Those journalists who went to the courts yesterday reported their disappointment that little had changed, that although they were granted access, they were not allowed to report what they saw and heard – even anonymously.
The response has been interesting – and, I think, worrying. Apparently, freedom to report proceedings in these courts would help expose injustices and make everything transparent – which is taken for granted to be a ‘good thing’. Why? And ‘good’ for whom?
Why do we allow the media to assume that they have the right to see and hear everything in our society? Why should there not be areas of life from which the media are prevented from going? Where did this ‘right’ to access come from? And why does the ‘right to access’ – based on an assumption that transparency is always in and of itself good – trump the right of a child to be protected from exposure by the press?
The Family Courts deal with some of the hardest and most complicated human judgements we can imagine. I have met judges whose commitment to this work is exceptional and admirable – who do not make judgements in a cavalier way and who try in the most difficult emotional circumstances to do what is right. They admit to the probability that they will sometimes get things wrong and recognise that the cost of doing so will be high for those who suffer as a consequence. Can someone tell me how allowing reporting of these proceedings and putting the process and people under media scrutiny will enhance the prospects of vulnerable children having a happier life.
I might be wrong in this and be missing some obviously crucial factor. But when I look at the tabloid newspapers in particular, with their lust for sensation and brutality whatever the cost to the ‘victims’, I feel no shred of confidence that allowing them access to sensitive court proceedings will do anything other than add to the scale of human misery that these ‘organs’ specialise in.
April 29, 2009 at 8:28 pm
As one who works in this area I confirm that many who represent children in such sensitive proceedings see little good coming out of the reports. At present the Judges appear to be allowing the observation but deferring the right to report the cases until the end of the proceedings by which time the Appeal Courts will have laid down a few guidelines and most of the interest gone off the boil.
The real test will come when a “celebrity” case becomes too tempting for the press to exercise child centered restraint. Most children do not want their family’ s failings made available to all and sundry.
Amongst the commentary of my colleagues one has pertinently asked that if one allows public interest access to the privacy of the Family Court, why not into the medical consultation? After all, don’t people die when those decisions go awry?
May 2, 2009 at 9:43 am
Nick, you say:
“No doubt there are those who will now scream at me, ‘Consider his estranged ex-girlfriend and kids who have had to be protected from him!’ Fair enough; I am not excusing his behaviour. But I sometimes wonder if (like with the case of Erwin James/James Monahan) the same people would feel better if these guys fell back into their problematic behaviour and lifestyle and continued to waste their lives.”
I think it may be a bit simpler than people wanting them to fail – perhaps just that people feel forgiveness is for their victims to give, not interested third parties?
I know this doesn’t stack up theologically in one way, but it does in another, in that only God can see into the heart. Doesn’t this imply that people shouldn’t judge either way?
Yes, we and should give people the benefit of the doubt. But asking that of the people who have been the most hurt might be rather unfair.
May 2, 2009 at 9:47 am
Thanks for this, Pam. Of course you are right about the victims of crime – only they can forgive. But crime affects more than the particular victims and there must surely be a place for wider society to respond. It is this wider community to which I was directing my question. (I also understand that forgiveness is usually a process rather than an event.)
May 2, 2009 at 11:55 am
Unfortunately I don’t think ‘wider society’ has ever responded with much understanding to the rehabilitation of offenders. I think it might be because being able to point at someone else and say they are in a different category of badness makes us feel better about ourselves. Ironically you see this very much in evidence in prisons where a lot of prisoners are incredibly judgemental about other people’s crimes!
It’s interesting that the original idea of prison (as far as I know) was to facilitate repentance – cells were intentionally named after monastic cells, the idea being that people spent time alone to think about their crimes. And prison used to be referred to as ‘paying your debt to society’.
Of course from a Christian viewpoint, in spiritual terms the debt is paid if the individual can accept Jesus as saviour – and when the sentence is completed the secular debt should be paid as well.
I’m currently dealing with someone whose attacker died before any proceedings could be brought, and who has been through a dreadful time living with the aftermath of the crime. I can see that being able to forgive will be the best possible way forward but I can see it will take time.
Churches do have a part to play in all this – many people turn to God in prison but have a lot of trouble finding a church where they can be accepted and encouraged once they’re out.
May 2, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Thank you for putting this so clearly. You areabsolutely right and this is a helpful response.