Judge shows mercy to recluse who forced bleach into girl’s mouth - WINOL Week 8

A 61-year-old woman has been convicted of carrying out a campaign of abuse against a young girl in her care.

Winchester Crown Court heard that Christine Morgan, of The Tyleshades, Romsey, assaulted the young girl up until the age of ten by striking her across the face and pinning her up against the wall.

On one occasion Morgan forced a bleached cloth into the girl’s mouth, by pulling her jaw down and squeezing the chemical inside.

Judge Gary Burrell called Morgan "odd" and said that her actions were of a "bullying" nature, causing the victim who is now an adult to suffer nightmares.

Morgan was convicted of ill-treating and assaulting a child but the judge did not jail her as "an act of mercy". He added "there are concerns of you coping in custody" due to her medical conditions and age.

Morgan was given a 12 month suspended sentence, fined £1500 and ordered to carry out two hundred hours of unpaid work.

The judge said Morgan would have faced prison if she had been “younger and fitter”.

WINOL WEEK 8

The penultimate week of WINOL proved to be a slight challenge with regards to visuals. As usual it is always hard to visually display the story making it more engaging for the reader. This week I did a PTC outside the court similarly to what you would see on BBC South Today. Unfortunately I hit a few brick walls when I tried to get hold of a mugshot of the defendant. Firstly she did not receive a custodial sentence meaning the police cannot issue an official mugshot, secondly the only image of the defendant is in the daily echo but they couldn't issue this photo for copyright reasons. Lastly the original owners of the photograph shown in the echo is Solent News who charge a fee for their photography. This week I focused on my scripting and delivery.

Critique of Channel 5 News Bulletin

We were set the task to review Channel 5's 5 o'clock news by the editor Geoff Hill, who will similarly critique our WINOL bulletin tomorrow.

To begin with the first thing I was drawn to was the delivery of the headlines, I expected the presenter to sit down after the headlines were over, as I found it slightly distracting that she was stood up for the entire bulletin. I find the traditional news readers of BBC and Sky News are always sat behind a desk similarly to WINOL which I find more professional and engaging with the audience, as the eye line is more intimate and enticing.

Two flood related stories led the bulletin, this was ideal for the top story as it is the most current national story affecting a large audience who will want to be updated on the story. The bulletin lasted around 20 minutes, this is an ideal length to keep the concentration of the audience, however the floods took up 10 minutes of the bulletin and therefore I lost focus as it felt like it dragged out for a long time. I really liked the use of OB's from the reporters and the link/handover from the presenter, the fact it was live also enhanced the strength of the content, as it was happening then and there, making the news present, and it visually supported the story by having the PTC on location near the floods. I thought the range of interviews from emergency services, to Prime Minister to local residents really covered the entire scope of public opinion, in particular the interview with the man stood in the 2nd floor window added a humorous appeal but also demonstrated the extremity of residents being housebound.

I found with a lot of the interviews the reporter/interviewer was in vision, although this seems like a stylistic feature of Channel 5 I found it visually uncomfortable as I wanted to just focus on the interviewee and found the back of someone's head distracting - moreover seeing the gun mic (or fluffy dog as I call it) in vision was a little distracting too, but this is hypercritical.

I really liked the studio set, the opening music, and the neutral colour blue which added a universal appeal. I thought it was really effective that a photo illustrated what the presenter was saying in the screen behind her, it was visually pleasing and was a teaser for the viewer who is waiting to see the full footage.

The use of graphics in two of the stories: floods and the virus were a nice visual way of getting the statistical evidence across, it was punchy and clear for the audience to follow. In terms of the norovirus story, I thought the pictures were good, especially as they filmed inside the hospital without breaching privacy rights of Article 8 - Human Rights - simply filming hands and bodies rather then identifying peoples faces. However, I noticed that the package did start and end with the same image, which was a bit lacklustre.

The third story was about I'm a celebrity star Nadine Dorries, this added more a light hearted entertaining tone from the previous risks to property and health. I did question why there were still images used, and Nadine Dorries herself wasn't interviewed, but this was shortly answered when the reporter in Westminster explained that she couldn't be on screen, which I have not often seen.

I loved the coming up news belt, it continued to build tension and interest to know what's still to come, this is something we have recently introduced on WINOL and I think it works really well in keeping viewers tuned in. Furthermore, it breaks up the bulletin from having solid packages one after the other. On return, the presenter reminded us of the top story which is a nice introduction and refresher for potential viewers who may have missed the start of the show.

I am not sure whether this is because I am not used to writing links, or because I have not had a great deal of practise with but I found the links that introduced the packages were very long, but this is only a personal preference.

The OOVs in the bulletin helped to break up the lengthy packages, compared to WINOL where we have recently incorporated an OOV belt of several OOVs lined up back to back.

The funeral of Coronation Street star was a story to touch the hearts of the nation, I felt it should of been situated above the story on Nadine Dorries. I've didn't feel like the package began with their best shots, the opening frame of the young child and the crowds stood outside didn't illustrate that it was instantly a funeral as it would of done if the first thing we saw was the coffin being carried into the church. I liked the use of fair dealing clips of the actor on the soap opera, giving the audience fond memories of his on screen performance. I felt the clips of the speeches inside the church and of other fellow actors outside added a touching and heartfelt message as well as seeing a lot of common faces for Corrie fans.

Archive footage was used on the Yasser Arafat story which was well handled considering it was hard to get pictures.

The final story was Sports Personality of the Year, which had some sharp and superb photography that caught my eye, I liked the effect of overlaying miniature clips of the Olympians over each other. During an interview with the reporter it would have been nice to see a more creative approach to the reporter being stood by the interviewee, for instance a walkie talkie instead of a long held shot that cut in closer to the reporters head. It would of worked better if the interviewee was framed in closer, or a sequence shot was done before introducing the interview. I liked the vox pops too, it added some light and shade from the lengthy interviews, getting an overall balanced opinion of who may win. This sporting story featured in the headlines which included action shots and natsot of crowd cheers which instantly grabbed my attention.

I personally would of liked to watch the bulletin back, but Channel 5 on demand says that it is not available  I think this should be altered so the presenter can refer the audience to the website for more information.

Overall, the bulletin flowed really nicely, the sound was continuous, the stories were relevant, covering a large scope and there was something for everyone covering beats on environment  health, politics, entertainment, crime and sport. I liked that it ended by promoting the 6.30pm news: "find out why..." which teased the viewer into tuning back in.

WINOL Week 7

This week was an unusual week for me compared to normal, the court report I was working on was open to a wider issue, which I felt was important to cover to add depth and scope to the story. The sentencing was an arson attack which was instigated because her 999 hoax calls were ignored. The issue of prank hoax calls is an extremely common occurrence which needed to be addressed, therefore I arranged an interview with the South Central Ambulance Service, in order to add an element of comment to my piece. I was in touch with their press office who arranged for me to come down to their office in Otterbourne and speak with the Area Manager of North Hampshire, this was a good experience, and it was a relief to have someone help film as I could have a comfortable conversation with the interviewee before hand. I also got to go into the control room where the 999 calls take place, and these GVs added a more interesting visual feature, introducing the interview quite nicely. Although the background interview was shot against a white wall, this was because the acoustics in the control room were too loud and there was risk of echo; so for sound quality purposes we went ahead with a quiet room. When It came down to editing I found a few sound bites which addressed the issue straight away "matter of life and death", in addition, I interviewed him on what he thought about the sentencing at the law courts relating the wider issue back to the current report at hand.

With court reporting the hardest issue is always pictures, however this week I thought it was a visually pleasing report. In addition to the interview and GVs of the control room, I had a mug shot from the police, a reconstruction of someone dialling 999, and a PTC on location of where the incident took place. When we arrived in Southampton the weather was certainly not on our side, it was pouring with rain, and the wind was ruining any hope of clear sound. We attempted a PTC near the road but this was picking up all the loud buses driving past, so we moved round the corner which was quieter but still had the flats in vision. When we came back to the newsroom it was clear that it had been rushed, the sound quality was good, but the framing and positioning of me could have been more central, but this is me being hypercritical so I'm told. With the help of the final cut pro colour balance tool I didn't look so blue in the end and it served the purpose of being at the scene which I wanted; compared to outside the law courts. I also used the lip mic to record my voice over for the package and to introduce the interview. I was told the piece on the whole had a sense of authority which I was extremely pleased with.

In addition to my package this week, I worked with George to cover the Jamie Dack trial, he went to court which established that there was reporting restrictions on the case, as it is now being re-trialled. I was in touch with the officer who sent us police photos, a mugshot of the defendant who confessed to murder and a photo of the victim. When I was in Southampton I filmed the location of where the body was found in a wheelie bin on Empress Road. This solved the issue of having no footage to illustrate the OOV. Here is this week's bulletin:

The guest editor this week was Ben Mitchell from the Press Association, who gave me some extremely valuable pointers on scripting my piece. As a man with many years of experience in court reporting he gave me some great advice on how to structure my written story, which I have taken on board. Here is what he had to say about WINOL-

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud’s theory like all other philosophers began with a problem, and the problem is that the human condition is miserable. We are all unhappy inside because we live in a world of suffering and pain. We are divided within ourselves because we don’t even know what we want. We live an alienated life of anguish, and then we die; how is this the reality of life Freud thought?

Freud wanted to explain everything. He had a solution to this problem, and this was psychoanalysis. Freud claimed to discover the unconscious mind, the part of our brain, which controls us. Although we may think we are in control of our actions, Freud said that we don’t even know that we are being controlled, and that the decisions and rational reasons we make are down to sexual desire.

Medical professionals would laugh at Freud, they consider him an embarrassment because there is no scientific evidence to support his theories; however, it is very important to the media. Sex is seen as the centre of motivation, it is the dominant force in the media, and this sort of scandalous sex content features in magazines and newspapers all the time.

When our real thoughts come out even though we don’t want them too we call it a Freudian slip, this is when people say things that don’t mean to say but it’s in fact what they are actually thinking. We access the dominant part of our mind through our dreams. Our dreams are an illustration of the real problem, whereas our rational mind cannot access this part of the brain, because it doesn't believe it exists. If you don’t face the underlying problems you will become neurotic.

Freud was an extremely pessimistic person, especially about humans; his theories were channelled by a dark vision of humanity. He suffered from cancer of the jaw, thus was in constant pain and fearful for humanity. He damaged the idea that we are noble creatures “man is the measure of all things” and said we when we think of his ideas we should think of the artist Rembrandt – a little light but a lot of darkness.

Freud attacked Plato and Marx’s theory of the tripartite self.

Attack on Plato -

Plato’s idea of the tripartite self is Reason, Spirit, and Desire. This is the ‘Allegory of the Chariot’ – there are two horses, the first is Spirit which represents bravery, and the second is Desire which represents the need for satisfaction. These horses are guided and controlled by the rider, which is Reason. However Freud didn’t believe that it is the rational mind that is in control, instead he believed we were driven by our desires. We are ruled by our desires without us being aware of it, and it is in fact the rational mind which is the weakest.

Attack on Marx –

Marx said that we alienate ourselves from what we really want, and that the tripartite self is Natural, Alienated and Species Self. He believed that in a communist society the needs of the species self would be most dominant. He had a teleological perspective, that we needed history to go somewhere in order to progress to a happier society whereby humanity can access the true expression. Marx believed human nature had the ability to develop and evolve. However, Freud rejected this as he believed it was too idealistic. Freud believed our deepest needs are fuelled by aggression, with the wilful desire to hurt others. He thinks that in a communist society we would still be ourselves, and we cannot escape this. We are out to hurt people. This relates back to Hobbes - “war of all against all” and “life is nasty, brutish and short”. Freud agrees with Hobbes’ outlook on human nature, and believes that inside our brains is a Hobbesians realm dominated by aggression, whereby we are at constant battle.

The Freudian Personality

The condition of human nature is full of pain and suffering, we cannot seek peace because we are at endless war with ourselves. Freud explains the reality of this is triggered through internal division, and the agonising interaction with other people. This division within ourselves is divided in to three parts, all of which conflict one another.

1. Id – This is the part of the brain which is the most dominating. We develop the Id from birth; it is a bundle of instincts aimed at gaining pleasure and avoiding pain. It is the reservoir of the unconscious; sex and aggression are merging in the Id dominating the personality. The demand for fulfilment and expression bubbles away in the “cauldron of seething excitations” but we are unaware of the power and inner spoiled brat.
2. Ego – This is the part of the brain which is the reality, the voice of reason and commonsense. It is the least powerful part of the personality that makes rational decisions based on what we think is the best option. Although we may think we are making the right decisions the ego is not in control.
3. Superego - This is the part of the brain that is irrational; it is the judge and the punisher of your decisions. We do not have the superego when we are born; it comes from our parents who impose ideas of perfection on us. It is the policeman in our head that punishes us with guilt. The morality principle often uses religion which imposes controlling morals upon us.

Society is full of suffering; Freud outlines three reasons for why we are full of pain:

1. Decaying body – we live life with aches and pains, and as each day passes we are getting older and our cells start to die, this is part of human nature.
2. The external world – this is what happens on the outside and around us.
3. Other people – this is the greatest pain of all, everyday interaction with others is full of pain because people are out to hurt us, but we are all irrational beings who are inclined to hurt others.

Freud thinks the answer to this all is Psychoanalysis which strengthens the ego, but this is not open to everyone and it is very expensive. He offers some ways to deal with these urges, a coping mechanism to distract you from reality of life:

1. Intoxication – get drunk but this is only a temporary solution, we cannot remain drunk forever.
2. Isolation – stay away from others, but this is also temporary and only appeals for a few people
3. Religion – type of sublimation* it is a mass delusion and distraction away from the desires of the id.

*Sublimation – socially acceptable release for our aggression, e.g. sport or work, which diverts our energy away from aggression. However, these only give mild satisfaction, the only way to give oneself real satisfaction is to destroy the enemy.

Civilisation is a collective superego, which imposes moral limits on the id – “love your enemy” – however, men are not gentle creatures, they are aggressive forces “man is a wolf to man”. Religion is a super ego which imposes impossible demands on us. 

Psychoanalysis

The key to psychoanalysis is to hide something from yourself. Freud claimed he had found a way to deal directly with the id and this was the royal road to the unconscious – hypnosis, free association and dreams. When we are asleep, the ego is like a “sentry asleep at its post”, our dreams are fantasies, a repressed wish, when we dream the id can let loose and show its true self. If we are creative we are releasing our inner aggression, if we are not creative we may have a block and not feel ourselves.

The free association exercise is where patients speak about what comes to mind, Freud's believed this revealed the underlying pattern of the unconscious mind, and infantile sexuality is key to this pattern. Freud believed Psychological traumas dates back to infancy, there are 5 psycho-sexual development stages:
Oral Stage - birth < 1 pleasure is focused on the mouth - Weaning (mothers breast milk)
Anal Stage - ages 1-3 pleasure is focused on the anus - Toilet training
Phallic Stage - ages 3-6 child focuses on genitalia. This is a crucial stage in the emotional development of every boy who concentrates upon their desire to sexually possess their mother and kill their father. But, there is fear that the father will castrate him. Girls ave penis envy because without a penis she cannot possess her mother, this is called the Electra Complex.
Latent Stage- age 6 - puberty
Genital Stage - puberty - death - Sexual interest matures in this stage

The Freudian unconscious was manifested in three different ways, though trivial everyday mistakes, reports of dreams and neurotic symptoms.

Attacks on Freud

Falsifiability – Karl Popper – There is no scientific proof that it psychoanalysis works, even so scientific predictions could be proven wrong. He was not the discoverer of the unconscious, as he claimed. It was discussed in academic circles in the 19^th Century before Freud came about.

Schopenhauer – He also spoke of the unconscious mind, and the struggle to control sexual urges. He believed man was irrational, guided by internal forces, of which we are unaware of. The universal will is “the secret antagonist of the intellect”.

Reich – believed in the complete opposite, he thought unconscious forces inside the mind were good, and that the underlying energy was sexuality. If this is released then human beings would flourish. Reich believed sexual pleasure is the ultimate measure of human happiness. He thought sexuality and politics were intimately connected – sexual repression is a weapon of political domination. Unlike Freud who taught patients to keep it in and control their feelings, Reich encouraged people to be open and just scream this is Reichian Therapy. He also influenced the hippy movement “free love, free sex”. 

Prank caller jailed for attention seeking arson

An alcoholic attention-seeker has been jailed for six years for setting fire to an elderly friend’s home after a judge branded her a “significant risk to the public”.

Winchester Crown Court heard that Victoria Makey, of Latham Court, Southampton, started the fire in order to get the attention of the emergency services after she made a series of drunken hoax calls.

Sentencing the 27-year-old for an offence of arson reckless as to whether life was endangered, Judge Evans described her as an “attention seeker”.


She added that Makey’s actions endangered the lives of the residents at the sheltered housing complex as well as the emergency crews which attended the blaze.

The sentence has been praised by South Central Ambulance Service for sending a message out to the public about the seriousness of prank calls.

Paul Jefferies, North Hampshire Area Manager, said: “It is nice to see society and the law courts are taking it seriously and acknowledging that the ambulance service is a precious resource.”

The court heard that Makey was visiting her friend’s flat at Ironside Court in Southampton, on March 30, when she made several prank 999 calls to the emergency services. When she got no reaction, she set fire to the curtains, forcing the firefighters to come to the scene.

Makey was sentenced to 6 years in prison with an extended licence period of 4 years.

Claudia Murg - Guest Editor for WINOL

This week's guest editor was Claudia Murg, an undercover investigative reporter for Panorama. We were very privileged this week to have Claudia assist us in our news conference, and debrief. We were given a lot of professional advice to help us on our path to becoming a journalist; some lessons well learn't for the future.

Murg lead the debrief by discussing the reporters as individuals themselves, explaining how it is important to look comfortable on screen, and "be who you are", we can only be ourselves, and find our own style that we feel comfortable with. If we look comfortable on screen, the audience will feel more comfortable too. As journalists we are the "eyes and the ears of the public", we need to be aware of the agenda and ensure our story is of public interest. She also urged that we develop a quick obsession for note taking - we should treat every meeting and conversation as an opportunity for quotes, we should constantly have a notepad and pen to hand, we cannot rely on our memories!

In terms of finding stories, a lesson well learnt this week, is that we should not be relying on other papers to lift stories. We should be signing up to press releases, talking to people, making calls and networking to find our own stories, "you're not copywriters - you're journalists". When it comes to looking for stories, we should be thinking about how we would pitch the story in 30 seconds (90 words) to our news editor, and who will actually care about the story? The best way to get a story is building up relationships with contacts, who can grow to trust you. Once you have earned the trust of someone they will be more willing to assist you, this way you can get fresh evidence, and potentially hear about something no one else has. When it comes to interview's, explain to the interviewee the agenda and why is it in their best interest to answer your question.  "Don't take no for an answer". 

The real question is, if you want to be a journalist - "Are you curious?". - Claudia Murg

WINOL BULLETIN 14/11/12

Cannabis Courier Caught WINOL Week 6

14/11/12. By Christina Michaels, Court Correspondent:  

A courier has been sentenced for "doing a drug run" with £48,000 worth of cannabis in his boot.

Matthew Arthur, from Byron Avenue Margate, Kent, was stopped on his way to Gosport, where a suitcase with 12 kilos of cannabis was found in the car boot.

Winchester Crown Court heard that the drugs had a street value of around £120,000. Judge Patrick Hooton said that Arthur must have known what was in the suitcase.

The 39-year-old father pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year in prison.

Week 6

This week marked the half way mark through the semester, and our roles. I have grown in confidence from the start, and I finally have started to feel like Court is 'my' beat, and despite the complications of court reporting I have built up experience and skills giving me the drive and determination to follow a story through. I find that this news beat is one that is a challenge, but one that I have a genuine interest in. Each week I am trying to take on the criticism I hear in the de-brief and put it in to practise to do new things and improve my package each week. This week the main desire was for a sequence, therefore I thought I would give this a go, and incorporate a sequence shots as a 'Reconstruction' of the case. I have wanted to do a reconstruction for a while, but the cases I have covered have been quite hard to re-enact  but this week's props were far more accessible  I did a sequence shot of the car, the wheels, opening the boot, seeing the suitcase, and opening the suitcase. This allowed me to experiment with different angles and realise the beauty of editing when you have plenty of GVs to play with, it certainly beats having just a PTC for the entire court report. So this week I was happy with the reconstruction making it more visually interesting, and with a mugshot also, identification was not a problem.

When I went down to court this week, I went in and sat in the Jamie Dack case, an ongoing trial that has been followed by a lot of press publications. This was a change from a sentencing, as it allowed me to hear the facts in more detail, and follow it through. However, there are dangers of contempt of court when the case is active therefore I tend to cover a sentencing to ensure the case is closed and no longer active.