Darren Rigby case: salient details left out of reporting

[AccordingToWhom]

Darren Rigby is a man who has been sentenced to 28 months in custody for sending hoax emails to three schools in Merseyside.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0e20ll9gz2o

https://www.merseyside.police.uk/news/merseyside/news/2026/june-2026/runcorn-man-sentenced-to-28-months-for-sending-hoax-emails-to-schools/

www.google.com/amp/s/www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/man-21-sentenced-after-sending-34047071.amp

However, unless you read The Southport Lead, you would be unaware that:

• Rigby targeted girls' schools
• His reason was the supposed opression of transwomen

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=southport.thelead.uk/p/hoax-attacker-threatened-violent&ved=2ahUKEwj15JG1vO2UAxXEWUEAHdBjG6YQFnoECFwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw30Tek3HWFdsOeYvHGm54

The explanation in the letter from Tim Burke is

"The omission of this information from the original version was a reporting failure. It arose because the relevant material heard in court was not incorporated into the first published version of the story, which was written from a police press release and a court check. Once that became clear, after an unacceptable delay, the article was corrected and expanded."

I would read that as saying, in effect, "trans ally saw notes from court, realised that they showed that a nasty bit of work was trans, and quietly failed to use them". It was the people at HQ rather than the reporters in court who were sucking up to the trans, going by that.

So, what do they do when a reporter creates a misleading story by omitting to report salient details?

I don't know, but I hope get rid of the guilty party somehow.

In this case it looks as if it was not a reporter, but a copy-writer or whatever those are now called: the ones who copy-and-paste press releases and slap a headline onto them.

Trying to be fair, the press releases will have been issued before the court case had happened, so that might be how it came about.

Is Tim Burke blaming the Police because they omitted these details from their press release? Unfortunately that's believable. The Police have published lots of wank where obvious men have been called women.

Tim Burke seems to be accepting that the blame/responsibility for this poor reporting lies with the organisation of which he is a part.

This may be a first for the BBC.

Oh so that makes it all okay then?

I think Zoonosis has forgotten that anyone who says s/he is trans is trans; no debate. Anyone who asserts that someone who claims to be trans is not trans, is a transphobic bigot.

We know now where Zoonosis stands, don't we.

Surely @Zoonosis knows that any malicious threatening communication towards pupils in a school will always be taken very seriously?

And going to prison because they make very amateurishly-covered-up death threats against women and girls? Gosh, the dedication. It's like the claims that JK Rowling spends her entire life trying to destroy trans people (when does she find time to write her books if that's the case): a straightforward lie.

It might be more plausible if the trans people in question had any actual arguments for anyone to undermine, but they generally don't seem to.

It's odd isn't it.

You'd think if bad actors were impersonating trans people to cause division, TRAs would want that well publicised, firstly to exonerate trans people, and secondly as evidence that the trans community are being made a scapegoat by culture war bad faith factions.

That's altogether too deep, I feel.

Easier to claim that evil terfs are doing this to give nice trans people a bad name, and ignore the fact that the crimes they commit to do it may carry a prison term (as this one did). However, I think claiming Darren Rigby is a terf in disguise might be a stretch too far even for Zoonosis, who doesn't seem to be among the brightest and best.

Nick Wallis in the Times, not sure if this has been shared somewhere else already:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/1d940dfa-bb62-4af5-90fe-49756bb0b269?shareToken=c41806f55ff2f41b84ad498f3938cbe9&ver=article

But no-one would go to all the trouble of pretending to be trans just to attack women and girls!

I dont really read the news in detail, I just see the odd headline pop up on my work computer and when this came up it was couched in terms of a hoaxer making threats in the name of transwomen.

So I dont know why its said that isnt clear in the reporting generally.

Exactly the trans thing could be a red herring (although I believe it to be true)

The fact is, he's getting a kick out of frightening female children. Not male children

The original version of the article did not mention that Rigby was a transwoman or that they had threatened 4 girls schools because they were TERFs who needed to be taught a lesson. The only hoax part was that they didn't actually have the weapons they claimed. Rigby claimed a trans identity and there is no evidence this was part of the hoax. The threats were taken very seriously and the Rigby is getting a custodial sentence. After complaints were made about the accuracy of the article, the BBC updated it to include the relevant details and added an apology/explanation at the bottom - if you read that part you will understand better how the reporting came to be problematic.

Some details:

"The story concerned a 21-year-old man called Darren Rigby who had indicated he was preparing to act on his apparent murderous hatred of women and girls. Over the course of a week, in January this year, Rigby sent terrifying messages to three all-girls schools on Merseyside. Rigby told one: “I am on my way… with a revolver and a machete and I’m going to shoot and stab all of your girls. You terfs are going to learn to stop mocking, deadnaming and misgendering transwomen like me.” Terf stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”, a derogatory term for women who do not accept that biological males can be women.

In another email, Rigby said his intention was “to injure and kill as many girls as I can”. This month at Liverpool crown court Rigby was sentenced to two years and four months in prison after admitting three charges of sending communications threatening death or serious harm. The specific nature of Rigby’s threats was made public during sentencing and there was a BBC reporter present throughout. Despite the newsworthiness of the details revealed in court, the BBC’s write-up of Rigby’s crimes ignored Rigby’s self-declared trans status. His apparent motive, so-called terfs “misgendering” him, was not mentioned. The article didn’t even make clear that Rigby’s violent threats were aimed exclusively at women and girls in single-sex schools. The BBC report bore a striking resemblance to a press release published on the Merseyside police website, which also elided all mention of Rigby’s emails"

really glad to see this being reported on.

The BBC has already been made aware of the failures on this issue; it hasn't learned.

"They argue that the longer the BBC remains equivocal about something as fundamental as sex, its audience is unlikely to trust it on much else."

Nailed it, if they can't (or won't more like) get the basics right nothing in their output can be trusted.

Settiing aside the abysmal handling of the initial reporting by the BBC, I can't help thinking about how lenient hos sentence was. He pleaded guilty to three counts of sending communications threatening death or serious harm, alongside minor weapons and drug possession. The primary communication offence falls under the Malicious Communications Act 1988 / Online Safety Act 2023, which carries a lower statutory maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment for threatening death or serious harm. He was given a sentence of about half that. This was a terrible vindictive targeting of girls that caused untold fear and great upheaval to the schools.

When you consider vat fraud carries sentences of up to 14 years with the monetary value involved setting the length of imprisonment justice seems unbalanced.

If he had been targeting schools by race or religion would the sentencing be higher? Shouldn't the fact he specifically targeted girls lead to a more severe sentence. It seems not here.

This nutcase could be back out causing harm in no time.

Claim to be a woman when you're a man with a penis and it must be accepted without question.

Claim to be a trans woman when you're a man with a penis and it's obviously just a hoax.

Make it make sense.

It wasnt the BBC I first read about the case, I wasnt specifically talking about the BBC. I know why the BBC are problematic, on this and many other matters.

I'm pleased with the definition 9f TERF in the amended bbc article - [an acronym of Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist which has been used as a derogatory term against women opposed to gender ideology]

Yes this

Doesn't the fact he targeted specifically girls count as aggravating the offense?

Is this another case where the sentencing needs to be looked at again?

(I'd generally prefer less people locked up, but for those that need it, it needs to be meaningful)

Perhaps it's because misogyny isn't one of the strands that exacerbate a crime, make it a hate crime? Unless the rules have been changed recently.