Media reporting on child homicide victims: consultation analysis

Introduction

Background

In July 2024, the Scottish Government launched a public consultation on media reporting on child homicide victims. This was prompted by concerns raised by bereaved families about the traumatic impact of intense and continuing press and social media coverage of the death of their loved ones as a result of a crime, particularly child victims of homicide.

It is essential that the policy developed in this area is evidence-based, learns from what has been done in other jurisdictions, and, crucially, listens to the voices of those with lived experience of this issue. The Scottish Government has already taken forward work to develop a body of evidence to inform consideration of these issues, including:

• an evidence paper looking at the Scottish context and international examples of victim anonymity
• hosting a roundtable in February 2024 involving victims organisations and media representatives amongst others, and publishing a report of the discussion
• engagement with bereaved families

It was clear from this work that there are a number of complexities and that a fuller understanding of the potential consequences of any change in policy or legislation was required before any decisions were taken on future developments.

Therefore, the purpose of the consultation was to build on the existing evidence base and draw together views so that next steps can be informed by a wide range of insights and experiences.

The consultation was open from 9 July to 1 October 2024. The consultation was also available in an Easy Read format, and respondents were invited to respond in a number of different ways, including online, via email and via post. The analysis of responses received was conducted by Scottish Government officials from the Criminal Justice Reform Unit and quality assured by analysts from Justice Analytical Services. The findings from that analysis are presented in this report.

Methodology

The consultation consisted of 24 questions including a number of closed questions, (inviting respondents to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement) and open questions inviting respondents to provide comments.

Responses to the consultation were submitted using the Scottish Government’s online consultation platform Citizen Space or by email. Where responses were submitted by email, these were entered manually onto the Citizen Space system to create a complete database of responses. All responses were screened to ensure that they were appropriate and valid. The Citizen Space database, containing all submitted responses, was then exported to a qualitative data analysis software package for detailed analysis.

The consultation received a number of ‘campaign plus’ responses. These responses either contain the same or very similar wording as another submitted response as well as some additional detail or comments or they are responses that explicitly state that they “endorse” another submitted response, again with additional detail or comments provided. These ‘campaign plus’ responses are not the same as ‘campaign’ responses which are identical to another submission, with no additional comments or details.

In total we received 4 responses that we categorise as ‘campaign plus’. For the purposes of analysis, ‘campaign plus’ responses have been analysed as individual responses on account of them being submitted by different individuals or different organisations and containing distinct detail and/or comments. With regard to the quantitative questions in the consultation, these ‘campaign plus’ responses have also been analysed as individual responses and have been counted in the totals.

Not all respondents answered all questions and many provided a response with their overall views addressing their main interests and concerns instead of responding to the specific questions in the consultation paper. Therefore, whilst we state the number of responses for each question presented in this report, this does not always match the total number of respondents. While responses varied in their length and how they were presented, all were treated with the same weight.

All comments made by respondents were considered and the issues raised relevant to the consultation topic were grouped into key overarching themes. These themes are explored in this report.

Quotations have been included where they illustrate a point of view clearly and every effort has been made to use quotations across the range of respondents. When attributing quotations, names of individuals have not been included but organisations have been named where they have given permission. Where respondents requested anonymity and/or confidentiality, their views were analysed but quotations have not been taken from their responses.

As respondents to public consultations are self-selecting, the analysis presented in this report cannot be considered to be representative of the wider population.

Who responded

There were 46 responses to the consultation. Of these almost two-thirds (30) were received from groups/organisations and one third (16) were received from individuals. The largest category of respondent was media organisations who submitted 11 of the responses. 41 respondents gave permission for their responses to be published and 5 did not. Where permission has been received to do so, responses have been published on the Scottish Government website.

The table below shows the breakdown of responses, according to respondent category. Respondents were asked to select whether they were individuals or organisations. Individuals were given the option to identify themselves as either interested member of the public, journalist, bereaved family member/friend, legal professional or other and could select more than one category if applicable. The organisations were not asked to identify themselves as belonging to a specific group/type and have been grouped as part of the analysis process.

A list of all those organisations that submitted a response to the consultation and agreed to have their name published is included in Annex A.