Man arrested for stealing sausage rolls killed himself after police labelled him a paedophile

[sl8]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/21/man-arrested-for-stealing-sausage-rolls-killed-himself-after-police-labelled-him-a-paedophile

Man arrested for stealing sausage rolls killed himself after police labelled him a paedophile

Cleveland police blame ‘genuine human error’ in release papers that brought Brian Temple months of threats and abuse

Matthew Weaver
Tue 21 Jun 2022 13.57 EDT

A man who was arrested for stealing Greggs sausage rolls killed himself after being mistakenly described by police as a paedophile, an inquest has heard.

Brian Temple, 34, from Redcar killed himself on New Year’s Eve in 2017 almost seven months after the alleged theft of a packet of Greggs snacks, Teesside coroner’s court was told, according to TeessideLive.

When he was let out of custody, Temple’s release papers wrongly stated that he had been suspected of inciting sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl.

Temple did not know of the error when he gave the papers to his then girlfriend, the court heard. When she then began spreading the incorrect information, Temple was subjected to verbal and physical abuse and his home was attacked, the court heard.

[...]

[Karadeniz]

1. Tragic...but did he try to get the error corrected?

[RockCreek]

2. That veers into blaming the victim territory.

We have no idea of what he may have gone through, or what shape he was in emotionally. He may or may not have had the wherewithal to try to have it corrected.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. That's pretty irrelevant

It's not that the people around him were all checking the latest police records before making the threats and assaults. They'd just heard the initial "his girlfriend saw it in the release papers". As the article says:

He also reported threats and assaults to the police, the court heard. But visits by police welfare officers to Temple’s home only fuelled unfounded suspicions about him, the court was told.

So he would have explained it to the police. But even if they had reissued correct release papers, it's not a situation where he can tell anyone "hang on a minute, I've got proper release papers here about sausage roll theft, ignore what you heard earlier, look, the police even gave me a written statement saying it had been a mistake". Vigilantes don't pause to ask the victim if he has evidence he's innocent.

[Emrys]

4. We're talking about a country where a paediatrician was victimized back in 2000 by a mob

who thought she was a paedophile:

Doctor driven out of home by vigilantes

Self-styled vigilantes attacked the home of a hospital paediatrician after apparently confusing her professional title with the word "paedophile", it emerged yesterday.

Dr Yvette Cloete, a specialist registrar in paediatric medicine at the Royal Gwent hospital in Newport, was forced to flee her house after vandals daubed it with graffiti in the middle of the night.

The word "paedo" was written across the front porch and door of the house she shared with her brother in the village of St Brides, south Wales.

Dr Cloete, 42, confirmed she had left the property after the "distressing" attack. "For the time being I have moved out of the area because when something like this happens you just cannot feel safe in your own home.

"We removed the graffiti within hours, but what happened was terrible and it has been extremely distressing."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/aug/30/childprotection.society

How receptive do you think mobs like that will be to any explanations after such an allegation has been spread, whatever the truth or lack of it behind it?