"Nobody can believe it"
BBC Complaints has replied to my letter outlining my concerns about the corporation’s description of alleged Southport witness Joanne Niemen as a “local nurse” when she is absent from the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s register of qualified UK nurses:
“Unfortunately however we will not be able to address your specific concerns as your complaint doesn’t meet the requirement set out by our complaint framework.
Specifically, complaints should be made within 30 working days of the date on which the content was broadcast or published on bbc.co.uk. The article was published on 29 July and your letter is dated 7 September.”
I probably should have known this, given my history with complaints to the BBC.
However closer scrutiny of the BBC’s interview with Joanne Niemen enables me to answer the question for myself:
A “Senior Therapy Assistant” then - not a nurse, as Google’s AI obligingly clarifies:
My tardiness in contacting the BBC prevents me asking a number of follow-up questions:
Niemen’s supposition that the woman she allegedly consoled was a mother of one of the victims seems to be based solely on intuition:
“..and the mother that I was just.. consoling, just the look on her face cos she knew something had happened to her child..” 1
Why was the BBC confident to report Niemen’s speculation as fact?
Which of the women whose children were allegedly killed does Niemen claim to have consoled? Was it Lauren King, the mother of Bebe King? Was it Jenni Stancombe, the mother of Elsie Dot Stancombe? Or was it Alexandra Aguiar, the mother of Alice Aguiar?
Where is Niemen employed as a Senior Therapy Assistant?
Which BBC reporter conducted the interview with Niemen?
Niemen’s demeanour during the interview may raise further questions for some:
Transcript of BBC interview with Joanne Niemen, 29th July 2024:
Joanne Niemen: Nobody can believe it, you know all the local mums have checked in with one another, I’m sure we’re all going to know somebody from that awful, that poor group, uh but the parents, I just, I checked in on my girls and I just ran to the crowd cos I just thought – you put your NHS head on, don’t you.. erm, and the mother that I was just.. consoling, just the look on her face cos she knew something had happened to her child, it’s like oh my gosh, how do you even comprehend, there’s nothing you can do.
Interviewer: You told me that your daughter had been in the garden.
Joanne Niemen: She, she said she heard quite a sinister scream and literally… she’d got back from being with a frie.., er taking my daughter, we don’t know what, roughly what time it was but it was similar timing and then all the commotion had gone on so, looking back at the timescales that potentially could have been.. but she said it was a very untoward, unusual scream so, we don’t know.