Papers giving alleged criminals nicknames

BarneyMagee

A lot of the Sunday papers and their criminal reporters use nicknames liberally and in some cases even invent them for alleged criminals.

ie. Brian ‘The Tosser’ Meehan and Patrick ‘Dutchy’ Holland and if they are overweight they are inevitable referred to as ‘fatso’.

I know Patrick Holland says that nobody ever called him Dutchy and that the media simply made it up.

The problem as I see it is that it has seeped into the rest of the media also. RTE and the national dailies all copy these names using them regularly.

It’s a bit dodgy as far as I’m concerned. As any person could really be tried by the media and essentially libelled if they wake up one day and are being labelled like an character from a comic book.

Judt

Makes the world feel more mafia. It's a great aid for the crime writers - why go totally in-depth on someone to paint them as a criminal when you can simply give them a nickname and describe one or two of their crimes. It's the nicknames the guards have for them that I'd like to hear...

wer*

I think this practice was initially used as a means of circumventing print media libel laws

blue4ever

A not too dissimilar banter I engaged in an earlier topic regarding John ‘Frog’ Ward – whilst the latter is a much traveller route (titter, titter), let me lead you down the road of the former.

A good example of this is in fact Brian Meehan. Mr Meehan had many a run in with the establishment. He was ‘suspected’ (the euphuism for ‘we know he is at it but is too high up the food chain to get his hands dirty and thus caught) of being a major drugs dealer and a strong arm for one of Irelands ‘suspected’ Drug Lords. He then became suspect No 1 for the killing of Veronica Guerin along with others. This made him a much more profile individual and thus newsworthy for the media

But there is no way in hell he could be named or image published in any media – so, in order to protect his anonymity he was given the colorful sobriquet of ‘The Tosser’. Mr Meehan had some previous convictions, but nothing to do with large scale drug pedaling you see.

May I add that this name was not one arrived at lightly or without some intervention by Mr Meehan – no. Mr Meehans colorful name came from action he allegedly pursued whilst in a custody at one point (in the presence of some other members).

The ‘nom de plume’ is an important facade so that the media can spell out the dirty secrets of your parishioners – whilst still protecting a secure conviction.

The nickname is not always a media invention but a previous ‘given name’ of a criminal or subversive. Mad Dog ‘Adare for example and a lot of the traveling community have ‘nick names’.

Now here’s is the rub – if the media use a ‘given’ nickname of a criminal in order to disguise his identity to the majority of its readers BUT he/she is known in his/her manor by that name (as ‘Fatpuss’ in Finglas tried to argue) then they could be in trouble!

Flukey

In light of current events we also get things like the "Suffolk Strangler" or the "Yorkshire Ripper"; generic names, but nicknames nevertheless. As a feature on Sky News said, people remember the criminals in this regard, more than the victims. We could all name people like Peter Sutcliffe, Ian Huntley, Myra Hindley etc., but how many of their victims could we name. If the Suffolk murders are solved, a year afterwards people will be able to name the perpatrator easily, but the names of the victims that we all know now, will be harder for people to remember.

jdivision

I don't think you're correct that newspapers make them up, they're usually the person's nickname. RTE and TV3 have on occasion used them but wouldn't refer to a guy as say George "The Penguin" Mitchell, they'd say George Mitchell also known as The Penguin. The Irish Times wouldn't use them because it's not their style, certainly the daily tabloids do use them. Not sure about the Indo or Examiner.