Back on UK Mothers Day, which in 2020 fell on the 22nd of March, there was a most terrible murder in Bolton in the North of England. A seven year old girl, Emily Jones was brutally murdered in a park, allegedly by a woman and for no apparent reason. This murder has left the girl’s family devastated but it also brought out people who commented on the case and did so none too accurately as it turns out.

Social media and alt media was full of claims that the murderer or rather as it at this stage alleged murderer, was a Somali migrant. Furthermore these accounts who made this claim also alleged that the police were ‘covering up’ the real identity of the allege assailant on the grounds that the attacker was a Muslim. This was probably to those who made this claim a reasonable one, after all we’ve seen how because of political correctness, police have failed to tackle crime when it is committed by Muslims, especially organised sex crime.

Being a former court reporter and having some knowledge of media law and practise as well as being aware of the impact of previous scandals that have involved innocent people being named prior to charge, I counseled those claiming that ‘it was a Muslim who did it’ to be cautious. I told several of them on social media to be careful, that naming prior to charge is highly improbable in English law and that as there is a Mental Health Act aspect to the Bolton case, there will probably be a lengthy delay before charging could be considered. My pleas for reasonable caution I’m afraid fell on deaf ears. Lots of people claimed that this was an Islamic murder and a variety of memes did the rounds of the web claiming that Emily Jones was the victim of a Somali Muslim migrant. The case and the memes even got picked up by very high profile individuals such as the political commentator Katie Hopkins.

Some individuals, when I challenged them on the veracity of the meme about this girl being murdered by a Somali Muslim, claimed ‘local knowledge’ or ‘inside knowledge’ of the investigation. I told such individuals that for me this was not proper provenance for the claims that were being made and that it would be best all round to ‘wait and see’ what happens and because of my qualms about this case, did not to my knowledge or recollection knowingly share the Emily Jones meme. Because I know how the charging and reporting of crimes works in Britain I knew that there was a fair chance that those claiming that this murder was the result of a freak out by a Muslim migrant might be drastically wrong. Unlike some, I’m not prepared to stake my reputation on the contents of a mere meme or unverifiable claims of ‘local’ or ‘inside’ knowledge.

Fast forward to yesterday, May 20th, and the person alleged to have carried out the murder of Emily Jones has been charged and therefore named.

The press, who are required by both law and custom, to not name suspects prior to charging are now able to report the name of the alleged murder in the Emily Jones case. It turns out that the alleged assailant is not a Somali Muslim at all but someone with a name that is most commonly found in the European nation of Slovakia. Sky News said: A woman has been charged with murdering a seven-year-old girl who died after being stabbed in a park on Mother’s Day.
Eltiona Skana is accused of killing Emily Jones in Bolton, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said. Skana has been remanded in custody and she is due to appear before Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court on 26 May.

It is now plain that those who were claiming that ‘a Somali Muslim did it’ have been woefully wrong and that a lot of people, including high profile ones like Katie Hopkins, are going to have a lot of egg on their faces. These individuals who shared the ‘a Muslim did it’ meme not only distributed a story that has now been shown to be a complete falsehood, but also damaged the image of the counter jihad and counter Islam community. In this piece I will not publicly name those private individuals who made the false claim that a Somali was the suspect, I will instead leave them to examine their own consciences in private at this stage and I hope that in future they will think twice before sharing stuff that is to say the least, iffy in its provenance. Whilst there is still the possibility (a small one) that the alleged assailant could be another mentally ill convert to Islam, the whole claim that the alleged murderer was a Somali migrant has now been blown right out of the water.

There are probably going to be some consequences to the sharing of what is now shown to be completely false information. This will be seized upon by the anti-British political Left and by various Islamic grievance mongers. They will use this mistake to try to discredit those who try to highlight the many genuine problems that the ideology of Islam has brought to the West.

We are all human, we all make mistakes, we can all, if we are not careful, make factual errors or be taken in by charlatans with hidden agendas. It’s happened to me in the past but I have hopefully learned from those mistakes and where necessary have shown contrition for them.

The whole ‘a Somali migrant did it’ cock up could have been quite easily avoided. It could have been avoided by those who made and distributed the memes in question having some knowledge of how the British criminal justice system and the rules regarding reporting of it works. If they had had this knowledge and had been less quick to distribute stuff that smelled factually bad from the outset, then it would not have handed a political weapon over to our political enemies.

Memes can be funny, they can be entertaining and sometimes informative, they are the political graffiti of our time, but they are not credible sources. If nothing else I hope that this massive cock up by those who treated memes as proper sources will cause them to think not only of their own personal reputations, but also to think of the possible damage that can be done by treating an anonymous meme as accurately reflecting the real situation on the ground. We do in the West and in Britain face problems with Muslim migrant crime and with Muslims who engage in acts of sedition and these problems need to be tackled. But these problems can only be properly tackled with truth and accuracy and any attempt to use lies as weapons will, as in this case, I’m afraid end up being turned on the liars themselves and probably cause damage to the wider counter Islam and counter jihad movement.