Facebook vigilantes identify mother of Baby P
By Cahal Milmo, Chief reporter
Saturday, 15 November 2008
The identity of the 27-year-old mother of Baby P was last night being circulated on the internet with the names of her boyfriend and the third man convicted of causing the child’s death, after online vigilantes began a campaign calling for violent retribution against them.
An order issued by the judge who oversaw the trial of the woman and her boyfriend forbids details about them, including their names, photographs and addresses, from being made public. But yesterday the information was listed on unofficial news websites and social networking sites.
Facebook shut down pages carrying threats and abusive comments about the mother after thousands of users subscribed to groups carrying the names of the couple and Jason Owen, 36, who were convicted at the Old Bailey this week of causing the 17-month-old boy’s horrific death. The judge’s order allows Owen’s identity to be made public.
One Facebook group was entitled “Death is too good for [the mother’s name], torture the bitch that killed Baby P”. Another that carried the name said “Baby P killers should be hanged Drawn and Quartered”. The page contained graphic threats of violence and the addresses of the three.
Facebook said that although many of the comments on the chat groups it hosted reflected conversations taking place “from the House of Commons to the man on the street”, it was making sure that comments breaking the court order and its own rules were removed.
Another social networking site, Bebo, removed the mother’s profile page after abusive messages were posted, while her Friends Reunited profile was also being circulated.
The difficulties of policing the internet were highlighted when the mother’s name briefly appeared in a discussion thread about Baby P hosted by The Sun. The information was removed.
But unofficial news sites were last night continuing to offer information about the defendants. One carried photographs of the mother, the names of all three defendants and that of Baby P.
Mark Stephens, of the Internet Watch Foundation, said: “There is a ... problem with trying to enforce court orders that apply to the UK ... We either need to develop more sophisticated ways of dealing with this kind of information when it is posted or we decide to recognise the permeability of information once it reaches the internet.”
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On 22nd Nov 2008 at 10:36 AM michaelmac said...
She should be known and the step father, But what will happen is loads of money will be spent on keeping their IDs secret
On 1st Dec 2008 at 07:02 PM A well wisher said...
This wasn't a vigilante group or person who named the people involved in this case, but someone who has used the resources available to them. Checking the web I was quite able to find out the identities of these individuals as when the case was first reported by the Beeb, the names were there as large as life for anyone to see.
Why shouldn't they be known. Give the siblings new identities by all means but why should the "Evil" ones have the luxury of the protection of "human rights" when poor baby P had none.
On 2nd Dec 2008 at 12:01 AM Teresa said...
Hi wellwisher
Those 3 deserve all they get but there are other children involved as pointed out in a newspaper.EDITED
There is so much information on the net naming them that no amount of police activity to try and prevent it is going to stop it now, The ongoing case against Baby P's mother (not that she should be called a mother) and her boyfriend which is owen's brother is probably going to be kept out of the public eye from now on although it will be interesting to see what happens on the case against them re the other children (also mentioned all over the net). It would be wrong if the tax payers money is used to give them new identities.
Child abuse has got to the stage that its rife in the UK now and the sadly alot of the public and politicians sat and ignored child abuse for years and this is the result of ignoring it because child abuse is now out of control. It will be interesting to see if the public now keep up the pressure to make changes and protect children once the story quietens down. I think vigilantees will now start taking the law into their own hands because its out of hand and the UK law is a serious failure to children. MP's have got off with a slap on the wrist for serious child abuse images and these are the men making decisions in this country. A fair few Police, senior police officers, drug company director, judges are into child abuse or ensuring abusers get away with child abuse or abuse images of children too and they maybe less reluctant to abuse children or protect abusers if they thought the public would deal with them direct. It would be hard for them to do their hand shakes and misuse their power or wealth to abuse children or hide it. As for the cps who let thousands of child abusers off they ought to be held accountable for their part in allowing abusers to walk away without a care in the world.
It is a concern re the amount of totally inexperienced people setting up groups and how many peodophiles do you recon will now lurk in those groups? a fair few thats for sure and they sit and wait for young girls to say they were also abused, or young single mums and they will sit and look for the vunerable ones posting and the inexperienced wont even notice its happening nor will the potential victims.
Abusers will lurk in those groups as its inevitable