Week 7

Week 7

• Paper 1: The Guardian

The story that I am looking at in the The Guardian this week is "Man planned to eat 14-year-old, court told". This article is written by the Press Association, and looks at a man formerly from Canterbury, Kent, who planned to eat a 14-year-old girl he met on the internet.

A nurse, Dale Bolinger,57, used the Dark Fetish Network to discuss beheading and eating women and girls for sexual gratification. Bolinger was propelled to do this by his cannibalism fetish. On 17^th September 2012, the day before he was due to meet his alleged victim he bought an axe from Broadstaires, Kent, and told the girl that all she needed to do was get on a train to Ashford International Station. 

The New York field office of the FBI, which was investigation chats about the rape, killing and cannibalism of women, found chats between Bolinger and who he thought was a a 14-year-old Mexican girl called Eva, who was living in Germany. During these chats, Bolinger proposed to meet the girl, as well as discussing the sexual acts he would perform before and after her death. Police seized Bolinger's phones and searched his home. They found computer discs containing indecent images of children. The prosecutor Martin Yale told the jury that "He said he would murder her with an axe or a cleaver and then he would eat her." The court was told that during chats with other users, Bolinger also claimed to have eaten a 39-year-old woman and a 5-year-old child, and statements were made to the police admitting that the images found on the computer discs, were his. It was also discovered that an email address, meatmarketman@rocketmail.com was being accessed from a computer in Kent.

Phone records have shown that on the day he arranged to meet Eva, 18^th September 2012, Bolinger was in the Ashford area between 11.56am and 12.08pm. Eva, whose identity has never been established, never arrived, leaving Bolinger to return home. Yale said, "It's clear from the chat logs that Mr Bolinger believed he was speaking to, and was going to meet, a 14-year-old girl." Bolinger said that he had only gone to Ashford because he feared for the girl's safety following the conversations they'd had, claiming if she had arrived he would have gone straight to the police. 

• Paper 2: Daily Mail 

The story that I am looking at in the Daily Mail this week is "Male nurse 'told girl of 14 that he would kill and eat her'". This article's author was Chris Greenwood, the Crime Correspondent. 

Greenwood starts the article with the sentence, "A nurse told a 14-year-old girl he planned to kill and eat her as he groomed her for sex online, a court heard." Dale Bolinger, 57 even went to a local DIY shop and bought an axe the day he was due to meet his victim. However, the girl didn't turn up and he was arrested after his sick boasts were discovered by investigators on a sinister internet chatroom. Bolinger went by the name of "meatmarketman" next to a profile picture of model Naomi Campbell.  

The NHS hospital nurse was a regular user of the Dark Fetish Network where he chatted about rape, murder and cannibalism, grooming young girls for sex. He claimed to have eaten a 39-year-old bkack woman and a 5-year-old child, saying the meat of children is much more "tender". 

In September 2012, he exchanged messages with a girl called 'Eva Gonza', whose true identity has never been discovered. The pair agreed to meet at Ashford International rail station, but the teenager did not turn up. 

Bolinger, a nurse since 1979, has been arrested at the Kent hospital where he worked. Police found photographs of himself posing with the axe on his computer. 

• In Conclusion...

I feel that, as I've noticed before the article in The Guardian touched lightly on the subject, whereas the Daily Mail on the other hand, as usual went into greater detail, using more quotes and providing a lot more information within the quarter-page article. 
I found the Daily Mail's article more enjoyable to read as I learnt new information that The Guardian hadn't told me. They communicated the information in an informal way that seemed chatty.