Ciaran Barnes Sunday Life

[Patricia]

I was reading on Slugger O'Toole that The CIPR Media Awards – or the Coca-Cola Chartered Institute of Public Relations Media Awards 2012 in association with SPAR - to give them their full title – were held on Friday 11 May 2012 and the Sunday Life’s Ciaran Barnes scooped two prizes for Print News Journalist and Scoop of the year.

Upon reading this I feel like saying publicly it is a disgrace that cretins like Ciaran Barnes are being given awards

I don't want to go into specific cases and I would ask nobody else does so here also, to show respect for the privacy of the individual escorts concerned, but Ciaran Barnes is a man who ‘exposes’ prostitutes and suspected victims of human trafficking in Northern Ireland with zero regard for their rights, welfare or safety.

He has published the full addresses and face photographs of numerous women he says are prostitutes or suspected victims of human trafficking. He has also had women he says are prostitutes or suspected victims of human trafficking strip for him (or a colleague of his) and then included photos of their breasts etc in the newspaper.

He gets all this material by posing as a client himself (or having a colleague do so), whilst secretly recording and filming the women. It is a gross violation of these women's privacy and human rights and it is literally destroying their lives in some cases, to be exposed like this in the media, for their family, friends, children etc to see.

And what happens here? Ciaran Barnes gets a journalism award!

It's a disgrace!

[Patricia]

Ciaran Barnes I hope you read this. A scoop of shite is what you deserve. Escorts are human beings and you are destroying lives.

[ber]

I was reading on Slugger O'Toole that The CIPR Media Awards – or the Coca-Cola Chartered Institute of Public Relations Media Awards 2012 in association with SPAR - to give them their full title – were held on Friday 11 May 2012 and the Sunday Life’s Ciaran Barnes scooped two prizes for Print News Journalist and Scoop of the year.

Upon reading this I feel like saying publicly it is a disgrace that cretins like Ciaran Barnes are being given awards

I don't want to go into specific cases and I would ask nobody else does so here also, to show respect for the privacy of the individual escorts concerned, but Ciaran Barnes is a man who ‘exposes’ prostitutes and suspected victims of human trafficking in Northern Ireland with zero regard for their rights, welfare or safety.

He has published the full addresses and face photographs of numerous women he says are prostitutes or suspected victims of human trafficking. He has also had women he says are prostitutes or suspected victims of human trafficking strip for him (or a colleague of his) and then included photos of their breasts etc in the newspaper.

He gets all this material by posing as a client himself (or having a colleague do so), whilst secretly recording and filming the women. It is a gross violation of these women's privacy and human rights and it is literally destroying their lives in some cases, to be exposed like this in the media, for their family, friends, children etc to see.

And what happens here? Ciaran Barnes gets a journalism award!

It's a disgrace!

Well u see the problem here is that the vast majority of society see the exposes that these journalists do as being a service
to society in general. It is easy blame the journalists but they are only providing what the general public want same as the
tabloids do targetting celbrities etc. All these type programmes get huge rating so that says it all
Until the attitude of the general public shifts this type of programme will continue. Whatever about u i cant see that happening anytime soon

[Patricia]

Well u see the problem here is that the vast majority of society see the exposes that these journalists do as being a service
to society in general. It is easy blame the journalists but they are only providing what the general public want same as the
tabloids do targetting celbrities etc. All these type programmes get huge rating so that says it all
Until the attitude of the general public shifts this type of programme will continue. Whatever about u i cant see that happening anytime soon

Very good point, but there is at least some questioning etc of the media regards how they treat celebritites etc, e.g. The Leveson Enquiry. Nobody is questioning the media's treatment of escorts.

Take another example - Eamon Dillon of the Sunday World - Just the other week he brought us a photo of the tits of some woman he said was trafficked that they'd done an undercover job on. And this is the journalist who won Ireland's leading prostitution and trafficking organisation, Ruhama's, award for journalism? WTF. Why is nobody questioning these journalists?

[Sexy Samantha British]

its amazing to me that it would be seen as a public service to out escorts but i understand it sells sleazy so called newspapers.

However, in Manchester a few years ago a nutter who was in politics decided to set up a website called punterhunter. He sat outside massage parlours taking pictures of clients going in and out of various establishments and put them up on the site and even uploaded theircar number plates onto the site so you could scroll through and check if your partner/husband /whatever was on the site. As you can imagine the clients outcry and fury was immense. Threats were made to servers to remove the site etc. It stayed up for a while and had an impact for a short time.

My point is -this site was not tolerated because clients were exposed not the ladies.

[Patricia]

Re that photo of the tits of a supposed trafficked woman Eamon Dillon / The Sunday World published the other week, I see Ruhama have scanned the article in and are displaying it on their website, as they do with many of these articles that often aren't otherwise availiable online.

Hello Ruhama, we all know you read this website, WTF are you doing encouraging, supporting, spreading this type of journalism? You are supposed to be an organisation concerned with helping trafficked women. Has nobody in your organisation yet considered that journalists secretly taking photos of persons they believe are trafficking victims in a state of undress and printing these photos in the paper is down right disgusting?

[Patricia]

I am posting this message on behalf of an escort who wishes to remain anonymous:

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I've asked Patricia to post this on my behalf so I don't become a target for the press. That is how worried we are about expressing our opinions.

Nobody is questioning journalists as nobody legally challenges them. We're escorts, most of our families don't know what we do and we live in fear of being exposed so taking these low life bastards to court isn't an option for most. We're scared of being exposed and having our lives ruined.

That shouldn't mean we're easy pickings for the journalists. As for them winning an award for exposing INNOCENT women, the entire news industry is sales sales sales. So they sold many papers, their scum colleagues applaud them and now they have a shiny little trophy for their work. They ought to be sued for invasion of privacy and for filming within a private environment without someones knowledge. I actually hate the journalists.

One thing that makes me smile, imagine the journo turned up and it was his daughter. Wonder how he'd feel then. Low life prick.

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[LaBelleThatcher]

Ah Pat, this is just horrible...

This kind of journalism is just predation and bullying of individuals. Whatever about Coca Cola..WHAT IN THE FECK is Ruhama doing encouraging the persecution of individual sex workers and their families this way?

Sarah Benson ran the Women's Aid Helpline for 7 years, and was paid handsomely for it (primarily out of state funding) on the false pretence of standing against the private persecution and harassment of innocent women and their children...and...in case you haven't been hanging off every word that comes out of Ruhama lately, according to them "women in prostitution" are innocent victims.

Maybe I am old fashioned, but last time I checked, persecution and harassment was not considered a therapeutic approach to innocent victimhood!

[LaBelleThatcher]

Re that photo of the tits of a supposed trafficked woman Eamon Dillon / The Sunday World published the other week, I see Ruhama have scanned the article in and are displaying it on their website, as they do with many of these articles that often aren't otherwise availiable online.

THEY DID WHAT??? THAT is obscene!

Hello Ruhama, we all know you read this website, WTF are you doing encouraging, supporting, spreading this type of journalism? You are supposed to be an organisation concerned with helping trafficked women. Has nobody in your organisation yet considered that journalists secretly taking photos of persons they believe are trafficking victims in a state of undress and printing these photos in the paper is down right disgusting?

Too right!

[Patricia]

This stuff is basics Eileen. We have journalists targeting women privately selling sex, many of whom they say are victims of trafficking, secretly photographing them, and then publishing these articles... Sometimes the women are named, sometimes photos of the women are included, sometimes with their faces shown, sometimes with their breasts shown, sometimes with their full addresses are published. This is absolutely clearly very wrong and is destroying women's lives and putting them in danger. I don't believe for one minute that the likes of Sarah Benson don't know this is wrong. But these articles help Ruhama by whipping up a frenzy about trafficking, so Ruhama supports this practice. It is time for this to STOP.