It’s unwise to treat victims of tragedy as universal sages
It really is no surprise to learn that Sara Payne favours restrictions to keep online pornography away from children. There cannot, after all, be a sentient adult who would not prefer our babies to spend more time with Peppa Pig than with Swedish Dolls. But although you and I might think that internet service providers should stick their greed where the sign don’t shine, our thoughts would not make headlines like last week’s: ‘Sara Payne backs call to block online porn’ — headlines which, given a moment’s thought, can only invite the question, well, so what?
This is a woman who knows a great deal more than we do about things that we must pray we never know better. The anguish when her eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and killed, in 2000, is beyond our paltry imaginings, while her subsequent stoicism — surviving, as it has, a broken marriage and a debilitating stroke — puts to shame our own feeble whimpers. Nevertheless, I’ll wager that she knows no more than any other amateur about pre-pubescent synapses, the cause and effect of commercially sexual filth — or, come to that, about anything much concerning the various campaigns that she has been asked to ‘back’ or ‘call for’ since Sarah’s death.
It might perhaps afford Mrs Payne some small comfort to be so used (she probably calls it ‘useful’), and about that we mustn’t carp. It is not, however, Sarah’s personal tragedy that her mother’s high profile represents: it is just an example of a peculiar trend which promotes the automatic elevation of ‘victim’ to ‘expert’.
Also last week we heard from Denise Fergus, the mother of James Bulger who was murdered by two other children in 1993.
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