Megan Stammers, the 15-year-old schoolgirl from East Sussex, was today found in the French town of Bordeaux. She was discovered along with Jeremy Forrest, her 30-year-old maths teacher after they left the UK last Thursday.
The story of this couple had sparked an international campaign to find Megan and Jeremy, encompassing both traditional and social media. For traditional media, the newspapers and television, it was a copy gold-mine. They spent the week delving into the background of Forrest, bringing up his career as a amateur musician and analysing messages he wrote on Twitter.
On the whole, the media behaved itself. It is perfectly acceptable in these sorts of stories to look into the background of a man who had become a household name. However, some media outlets took the opportunity to demonise Jeremy Forrest and slant their coverage to paint a rather negative picture of him.
The Daily Mail claimed that Forrest had "groomed" Megan Stammers for months before their disappearance, seemingly unaware that the Home Office's definition of "grooming" is "to lower the child’s inhibitions in preparation for abuse or exploitation." We do not know the details of their relationship but it is believed that Megan was happy to leave with Jeremy Forrest and did not need manipulating.
The Mail continued when a photo of the couple, arm-in-arm, was released. The caption read that Forrest could be seen with his arm "wrapped possessively around Megan's shoulder." Possessive is a bit of a stretch; when celebrity couples walk in the same way that Megan and Jeremy did, the Mail calls it "relaxed" or "affectionate."
The Mail was not alone in all of this. The Sun took the opportunity to call Forrest's tattoo of a female manga character "weird" and noted its "intricate childlike" posing. The Daily Mirror picked at another of Forrest's tattoos, a lyric from a Nirvana song, believing it "to be a tribute to Megan" and branded it as "chilling."
This is not a case of tabloid finger-pointing. If any other newspaper or media outlet had acted like this, I would have pointed them out too (if I have missed any, please feel free to comment). I also have no doubt that what Forrest did was wrong and should quite rightly face criminal charges.
But the demonisation of Jeremy Forrest from some newspapers verged on comical. Tabloids have had a history in reporting crime where they try to paint a picture of creepy villains, e.g. Christopher Jeffries. The circumstances surrounding Jeremy and Megan's relationship are still unknown and will be until the police begin their inquiries. But anyone who read the tabloid coverage might think they knew it all: the possessive, weird, chilling maths teacher who abducted the care-free 15-year-old. Slightly prejudicial? I certainly think so.
