Talk:Murder of Wendy Sewell

A fact from Murder of Wendy Sewell appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 July 2008, and was viewed approximately 0 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Stephen Downing case, also known as the Bakewell Tart murder, has been described as the longest miscarriage of justice in British legal history?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/July.

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Explanation of "Bakewell Tart" reference

Although obvious to UK denizens, non-UK readers may need to be told that in the UK the word tart, as well as referring to a round, open-topped pastry case with a (usually) sweet filling, is also a slang term for a prostitute or promiscuous person (usually female), and that a Bakewell tart is a particular type of the former originating from Bakewell. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:44, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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Does anyone else notice the issues with this page?

Is it just me, or is the contents of this page slightly POV-heavy? The article seems to me to be overly-focussed on impugning Stephen Downing and trying to imply at every turn that he's guilty rather than giving an objective summary of the facts. For example, the section about Downing's trial says that he "willingly" signed a confession, which is a highly questionable statement given that the police assaulted him and questioned him for nine hours without a lawyer present, context that is not fully given until several paragraphs later. Relatedly, any mention of Downing's lack of a solicitor is always followed by a statement that his parents had told him he did not need a solicitor. As this has little bearing on whether he should have had a solicitor with him, it's probably something that should just be mentioned once rather than repeatedly stressed to legitimise the police's interrogation tactics. I also question whether Downing needs to be referred to as "the prime and only suspect" in the section on double jeopardy, as if readers of the article need to be constantly reminded that police consider him the only suspect. Some of the section headings, such as "Downing found to be the only suspect" and "Discounted 'Yorkshire Ripper' claim", are also quite concerning. In the former case, surely "Police reinvestigation" should be the heading for this subsection rather than the section as a whole, given that this is the only part of the article to deal with the police's reinvestigation. In the latter case, describing the Yorkshire Ripper theory as 'discounted' implies that it has been conclusively disproven, which is decidedly not the case. This seems to me to point to the article being riddled with bias in favour of the police's highly disputed version of events. TRCRF22 (talk) 10:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

have just read the page and agree with you. it seems to have been written by someone who strongly believes he was guilty and wants you to "read between the lines". W guice (talk) 06:24, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I had occasion (here) to revert a bunch of spurious non-neutral additions to the "See also" by a sockpuppet going variously by "The Good Dante", "BarehamOliver", "Classic Middlesex", who had done the same on multiple other UK murder articles. Looking at the page history it seems the biased content you noticed was added by this same disruptive individual and needs stripping out. I haven't time immediately so feel free anyone? Cheers, Captainllama (talk) 16:30, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to say I'm too busy to take this on, but the article needs a machete taken to it -- reads like a true crime novel. Random observation: none of those BBC links in the EL belong. Either use them as sources in the article, or get rid of them. E Eng 16:44, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to see it's not just me who sees it this way. I've made a start on removing some of the most egregious bias, but more work might be needed. TRCRF22 (talk) 16:26, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]