Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?

[John]

I dont confuse anything.. leyland posted up to 50 posts a day...have you seen them...many abusive posts towards the mccanns ...an absolute disgrace..she and others needed to be stopped

Stopped by who exactly?  Everyone has the right to opinions and the right to air those opinions. The last time I looked, the only people who have any right to do anything about it are the police. Sky News, Jonathan Levy or Martin Brunt had no right to involves themselves in what BL was doing just for the sake of a cheap scoop.

[Mr Gray]

Stopped by who exactly?  Everyone has the right to an opinion and the right to air those opinions. The last time I looked, the only people who have any right to do anything about it are the police.

stopped by the law... and if people decide taht the law is not sufficient they have the right to go to press or to a civil court

[Sunny]

stopped by the law... and if people decide taht the law is not sufficient they have the right to go to press or to a civil court

And creating a dossier with names and details of people and passing this information to the media fits into the above where?

[John]

stopped by the law... and if people decide taht the law is not sufficient they have the right to go to press or to a civil court

I understand the police looked at the dossier but found that no laws had been broken.  That should have been an end to it.

[Mr Gray]

And creating a dossier with names and details of people and passing this information to the media fits into the above where?

the police are far to busyy to police crme...so when they dont act...give it to the medai...totally justified imo

[misty]

And creating a dossier with names and details of people and passing this information to the media fits into the above where?

When someone suspects they are being stalked, they are told to log all suspicious events before the police can decide if any action needs to be taken against the alleged stalker. Very often the police do not act until it's too late & the victim has been attacked or killed.
Think of the dossier as a perfectly legitimate log of abusive & threatening online behaviour carried out in a warped sense of "justice for Madeleine".
IMO.

[Mr Gray]

I understand the police looked at the dossier but found that no laws had been broken.  That should have been an end to it.

no it shouldnt....wasnt OJ simpson found not guilty...should her family have left it there. ... total rubbish John

[Mr Gray]

I understand the police looked at the dossier but found that no laws had been broken.  That should have been an end to it.

I really cant undersatnd your blind faith in the police...

[misty]

no it shouldnt....wasnt OJ simpson found not guilty...should her family have left it there. ... total rubbish John

Then there was the Daily Mail & Stephen Lawrence case.......

[Mr Gray]

Then there was the Daily Mail & Stephen Lawrence case.......

yes its atotally laughable suggestion that the police are always right

[Robittybob1]

don't talk like that Davel.  We are only human.

[Brietta]

Brietta just reminding you I am still awaiting my cite.

You asked …   “Do you have a cite for "she did use the internet almost solely to excoriate the McCann family" please Brietta as I have seen she had a facebook page and may have been a member of forums on many other topics for all we know”

Unfortunately I am spoilt for choice as far as your cite goes.

But think on this, and wonder how you would cope were you to discover that an individual who had an unhealthy obsession with your family had allegedly gone out of her way to wander the streets of your town where they could be walking in ignorance of her presence or even her existence.

Kate McCann and her children could well have been going about their daily lives in their home village unaware that an anonymous individual who professed hatred for the family could be in closer proximity than the fifteen miles between her village and theirs.

I find that a chilling thought.

Snip
"When Madeleine first went missing she used to go over to her home village all the time.
She used to go to the local pub and the shops telling everyone what she thought about the family. It seemed very odd behaviour."
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2629697/exposed-mccann-troll-was-mired-in-loneliness/




The cite(s) you requested ...

'Snip'
However if the law cannot always bring these online offenders to justice then the task inevitably falls to journalists like Brunt. Some have criticised his decision to target Leyland because she did not actually threaten to kill the McCanns, unlike other trolls. But she did send thousands of hate tweets. Some days she would send more than 50 messages attacking the McCanns.

Had she hurled this abuse at the couple in the street, she would have been hauled off in handcuffs. Instead she continued to publish with impunity, safe from scrutiny at home in Burton Overy, just 15 miles from where the McCanns live in Leicestershire. Yes, these were the acts of an obsessed loner but "being an oddball" is not a defence to this sort of criminal behaviour.
https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/camilla-tominey/521746/Camilla-Tominey-McCanns-trolls-wake-up-selfies-the-real-Prince-Phillip


"Snip"
When Martin Brunt, the Sky crime correspondent, interviewed Brenda Leyland about her nearly 5,000 tweets which formed part of a vitriolic campaign against the parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann, she declared that she was doing nothing illegal.
https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2014/10/07/why-skys-martin-brunt-was-right-investigate-story-mccann-twitter-troll-brenda


"Snip"
First, the entire Twitter history of Ms Leyland’s @SweepyFace Twitter account can currently be viewed and downloaded via GrepTweet  (or here as a .txt file).  There are over 4,000 tweets in the account and all of them appear to be about the McCanns… or rather, about #McCann, the ongoing “he said, she said” debate between pro- and anti- tweeters. 
http://www.robertsharp.co.uk/2014/10/07/brenda-leyland-and-twitter-storms/


"Snip"
Yet, hiding behind the alias @sweepyface, she insinuated that the McCanns were implicated in their three-year-old daughter's disappearance during a family holiday in Portugal in 2007 - a theme that had obsessed her for four years. According to the website BuzzFeed, she was sometimes posting more than 50 tweets a day, even on Christmas Eve, from 7am until midnight.
She claimed the McCanns were trying to silence their critics. The accusations were not original but her turn of phrase was blithe and deadly. "You will be hated for the rest of your miserable, evil, conniving lives, have a nice day!"
and she developed such an obsession with the McCanns that almost all the 4625 tweets she sent from December 2010 were about the case, many taking issue with their supporters.
It was an industrious hidden life.
Emboldened by disguise, she shared the assumption of all internet trolls that she could say anything she pleased without being held accountable.
As Professor Mary Beard told the London Daily Telegraph when she was campaigning last year against misogynist trolling: "Anonymity has disguised the nature of authorship.
It has allowed these evanescent creatures on the web to blast off without thinking of the victims.
Somehow no-one in this conversation is real. They are just names."

Mrs Leyland tweeted triumphantly at the height of her persecution: "You can move to France, anywhere, but social media is everywhere! Our memories are long, Maddie deserves it."

Her message seemed mild compared with some of the foul-mouthed stuff that has continued to rain down on the McCanns - but there was menace in it, too. Questioned by Sky News reporter Martin Brunt, she said she was "entitled" to tweet as she did - though her justification, without the protective cloak of anonymity, sounded far from confident.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2629697/exposed-mccann-troll-was-mired-in-loneliness/

[Sunny]

You asked …   “Do you have a cite for "she did use the internet almost solely to excoriate the McCann family" please Brietta as I have seen she had a facebook page and may have been a member of forums on many other topics for all we know”

Unfortunately I am spoilt for choice as far as your cite goes.

But think on this, and wonder how you would cope were you to discover that an individual who had an unhealthy obsession with your family had allegedly gone out of her way to wander the streets of your town where they could be walking in ignorance of her presence or even her existence.

Kate McCann and her children could well have been going about their daily lives in their home village unaware that an anonymous individual who professed hatred for the family could be in closer proximity than the fifteen miles between her village and theirs.

I find that a chilling thought.

Snip
"When Madeleine first went missing she used to go over to her home village all the time.
She used to go to the local pub and the shops telling everyone what she thought about the family. It seemed very odd behaviour."
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2629697/exposed-mccann-troll-was-mired-in-loneliness/




The cite(s) you requested ...

'Snip'
However if the law cannot always bring these online offenders to justice then the task inevitably falls to journalists like Brunt. Some have criticised his decision to target Leyland because she did not actually threaten to kill the McCanns, unlike other trolls. But she did send thousands of hate tweets. Some days she would send more than 50 messages attacking the McCanns.

Had she hurled this abuse at the couple in the street, she would have been hauled off in handcuffs. Instead she continued to publish with impunity, safe from scrutiny at home in Burton Overy, just 15 miles from where the McCanns live in Leicestershire. Yes, these were the acts of an obsessed loner but "being an oddball" is not a defence to this sort of criminal behaviour.
https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/camilla-tominey/521746/Camilla-Tominey-McCanns-trolls-wake-up-selfies-the-real-Prince-Phillip


"Snip"
When Martin Brunt, the Sky crime correspondent, interviewed Brenda Leyland about her nearly 5,000 tweets which formed part of a vitriolic campaign against the parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann, she declared that she was doing nothing illegal.
https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2014/10/07/why-skys-martin-brunt-was-right-investigate-story-mccann-twitter-troll-brenda


"Snip"
First, the entire Twitter history of Ms Leyland’s @SweepyFace Twitter account can currently be viewed and downloaded via GrepTweet  (or here as a .txt file).  There are over 4,000 tweets in the account and all of them appear to be about the McCanns… or rather, about #McCann, the ongoing “he said, she said” debate between pro- and anti- tweeters. 
http://www.robertsharp.co.uk/2014/10/07/brenda-leyland-and-twitter-storms/


"Snip"
Yet, hiding behind the alias @sweepyface, she insinuated that the McCanns were implicated in their three-year-old daughter's disappearance during a family holiday in Portugal in 2007 - a theme that had obsessed her for four years. According to the website BuzzFeed, she was sometimes posting more than 50 tweets a day, even on Christmas Eve, from 7am until midnight.
She claimed the McCanns were trying to silence their critics. The accusations were not original but her turn of phrase was blithe and deadly. "You will be hated for the rest of your miserable, evil, conniving lives, have a nice day!"
and she developed such an obsession with the McCanns that almost all the 4625 tweets she sent from December 2010 were about the case, many taking issue with their supporters.
It was an industrious hidden life.
Emboldened by disguise, she shared the assumption of all internet trolls that she could say anything she pleased without being held accountable.
As Professor Mary Beard told the London Daily Telegraph when she was campaigning last year against misogynist trolling: "Anonymity has disguised the nature of authorship.
It has allowed these evanescent creatures on the web to blast off without thinking of the victims.
Somehow no-one in this conversation is real. They are just names."

Mrs Leyland tweeted triumphantly at the height of her persecution: "You can move to France, anywhere, but social media is everywhere! Our memories are long, Maddie deserves it."

Her message seemed mild compared with some of the foul-mouthed stuff that has continued to rain down on the McCanns - but there was menace in it, too. Questioned by Sky News reporter Martin Brunt, she said she was "entitled" to tweet as she did - though her justification, without the protective cloak of anonymity, sounded far from confident.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2629697/exposed-mccann-troll-was-mired-in-loneliness/

Thank you Brietta, your post shows she was very interested in the case and made up to 50 posts per day (some days) but what your post does not show is that "she did use the internet almost solely to excoriate the McCann family". It does not show the time on facebook, shopping on the internet, reading other news, watching videos, listening to music.  So no your cite will not do IMO, sorry.  Almost solely implies at least 90% of her time on the internet was spent looking at things McCann related. Your cites do not do that. 

So I ask again  “Do you have a cite for "she did use the internet almost solely to excoriate the McCann family"

[slartibartfast]

Can people who don't subscribe to social media be a victim of online abuse?

The reality about twitter is that if you are not a subscriber, the only way you would know if someone was posting abusive messages about you is if you were to go looking for them or someone who is a member went looking for them and thereafter told you about it.

It’s a bit like someone who repeats libel being guilty of libel.

[Venturi Swirl]

It’s a bit like someone who repeats libel being guilty of libel.

Doesn’t that rather depend on the context?