South Africa

Back when I first read about this I was a bit dubious about the whole "they had South African accents" thing, now the truth is out and it seems the girls were fibbing all along. In fact the girls in question had apparently never even interracted with South African's before they made their allegations and were "basing their allegations on an assumption of what a South African accent might sound like. This fact was not reported by the British media"

But hey, never let the facts get in the way of a good story! Many TV stations and newspapers including the Guardian, the Telegraph, BBC online and Sky News chose to follow the South African angle of the story. One newspaper in particular had the following to say about these "incidents" -

"[the women] were abducted and raped in a tactic familiar in South Africa...[This marked] the arrival in Britain of a notorious South African violent crime known as 'jack rolling', where gangs of youths in cars blocked off streets and raped every woman caught in their net...[in South Africa] boys as young as 15 thought jack rolling was cool".

 

You're thinking a tabloid right? Nope, try The Times of London. This really is gutter journalism at its best with its use of such inflammatory language without getting the full facts. South Africa already has a problem with its image abroad without the UK Press sexing up tales of "tall black men in BMW's" and their SA rape connection.  I think the Northamptonshire police spokesperson put it best when he said, "It was a shame that it was given this kind of publicity...It was unfair that South Africans end up being maligned by this and it was never our intention when releasing the information. Unfortunately, that happens when one line of inquiry is taken out of context and pushed to the fore."

As a side note I wonder to what extent these two assaults were related to this whole debacle.