‘My husband watched child sex abuse… it nearly killed him but he’s no paedo’, was the harrowing post published on X by The Sun at the weekend above a picture of a middle-aged couple sitting on a bench outdoors.
Over on TikTok, the paper was promoting the same story, this time with slightly more details: “Crouched over his computer for hours on end watching hours of sickening child abuse images and extreme violence, Paul Gullon-Scott had become a shadow of his former self and was on the brink of suicide. Now, he and his wife Fiona have opened up in an honest and brutal interview, as she reveals why she stood by him.”
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Given the awful nature of the story, it would be understandable that social media users may not have wanted to click on to the full article, in which case they would not know why Gullon-Scott’s wife “stood by” him – he was a digital forensic investigator with Northumbria Police, doing the thankless job of viewing the sort of videos and images which bring perpetrators to justice.
The story was also put behind the website’s ‘Sun Club’ paywall, meaning those interested in the story would have had to cough up two quid a month to actually get the context that “My cop husband was forced to spend hours watching child sex abuse for his job – the horror nearly killed him” (although lucky members would also be treated to “exclusive opinion from our top columnists like Jeremy Clarkson”).
The social media posts were so misleading that it even earned an increasingly rare “added context” post on X, the platform pointing out that “the husband in this story worked as a digital forensic investigator for Northumbria Police. It was his job to review child sex abuse material to identify and safeguard victims” and adding a link to an article Gullon-Scott had written on his work and its personal toll for the website Forensic Focus.
Comments on the post included “you fail to mention it was literally his job”, “What an appallingly misleading headline” and “Imagine doing one of the hardest jobs going and when you talk to the tabloids to tell your story they do everything they can to clickbait their readers into thinking you’re a nonce”.
In the event, the feature and interview by freelancer Laura Caroe was a sensitive portrayal of Gullon-Scott’s role and the effect it had on him, complete with links to suicide and mental health charities – but, given the wildly misleading social posts and the fact that the truth was hidden behind a paywall, a fat lot of use that will be to the Sun’s lawyers should he decide to sue for defamation.
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