In a news week dominated by serial killers and child abuse, one particular story hit too close to home for my liking.
Last Friday I picked up the latest edition of Pluto, the student newspaper at the University of Central Lancashire, and found myself staring at a familiar face.
It took me a moment tear my eyes away from the image of Geeta Rao’s smiling face and read the shocking headline. Geeta had been stabbed to death.
Geeta was a fellow student on the photography course I completed in 2006. Although I didn’t know her well, the belief that “it’ll never happen to someone I know” was suddenly no longer true.
I scanned through Pluto’s double-page spread to find out what had happened. On the night of Tuesday, February 19th Geeta had been stabbed numerous times at her home in Standish, Wigan. Her 73-year-old mother had also been stabbed and was in hospital. One of them had called 999.
Pluto had dedicated a whole page to photographs of Geeta and tributes from her friends. As you would expect in a student newspaper, the article itself was dominated by quotes from other students. A shorter version of the article also appeared on the paper’s website.
Not satisfied with the information given in Pluto – I felt the hard news facts were overshadowed by the emotional and touching tributes – and wanting to know more about the events of that fatal night and the ongoing police enquiry, I turned to the BBC News website.
I wasn’t really expecting to find anything – still not believing that someone I once knew could be involved in such a terrible national news story – but from the BBC, I discovered that Geeta’s younger brother had been charged with her murder and was due to appear at Wigan Magistrates Court. The facts were given, plain and simple, followed by a tribute from her older brother – a straight to the point, ‘here’s what happened’, brief story.
Unsure of when John Rao was to appear at Court, I went in search of a ‘Wigan news’ website. The stories I found on the Wigan Evening Post website confirmed what I already knew, but went that one step further. Their stories struck a balance between those of Pluto and the BBC, with slightly more detail – both personal and factual. The Post’s stories were, of course, written for its local readers and included quotes from Geeta’s neighbours. Although I am not from the area, the ‘Wigan today’ website is the one I have found myself going back to.
It is almost a week now since John Rao appeared at Wigan Magistrates Court charged with his sister’s murder, yet none of the newspaper websites have updated their stories. I hope I’m not left wondering how Geeta’s murderer is brought to justice.
This is a tragic story which has shocked all the people who knew her. I know there are a lot more facts of the story that haven’t been reported but this is still a very tragic circumstance where two children have lost their mother. UCLan has lost one of their future stars.
And did you ever find out if her killer was brought to justice?
It seems that all too often we hear about these horrendous crimes and then never hear about the aftermath.
A young boy was beaten to death in my home town. There was an article in the local newspaper, the Todmorden News and Advertiser, about the incident but then nothing more was heard.
It was only because it is a small town that any information could be found out from idle gossip.
Surely, if it was publicised about the punishments these criminals get, then it would serve as a deterrent to others.
At the moment, the media gives the impression that you can attack someone, even kill them, without fear of retribution. It is dispicable.