David Wilson – long supported by the Jeremy Vine Show – passionately made the case for looking at serial murder from the perspective of victims, rather than psychoanalysing the perpetrators. Excessive media focus on killers does nothing to help victims, and can lead to people killing for the notoriety it brings – of which there is clear evidence in recent cases. Taking arguments from his book, David made his case in part by discussing murders which did not receive media attention, the reasons for this apparent lack of mainstream interest and the lessons we can take from that.
Looking for Laura – which looks at the construction of the news agenda for crime and punishment, takes the reader to major crime scenes to examine the way they in which such events are portrayed by the media and scrutinises police-media relationships in the scramble for ‘hot news’ about serious crimes – featured on BBC Radio 2’s ‘The Jeremy Vine Show’ on 18 April 2011.