Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito

Raffaele Sollecito released

I don’t know if they are innocent or guilty but we all know by now, that they have been acquitted of murder in the sensational Perugia case that has been in the news for four years. When American Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito were released yesterday, if you were watching British or American television news or reading English language newspapers, you could be forgiven if you thought that only Amanda Knox had been released.

Where was Raffaele Sollecito? Who is Raffaele Sollecito?

Well he isn’t American or female so it seems he merits invisibility. Maybe he is lucky that he was so studiously ignored by the English-speaking world – if he is indeed innocent and is not still to be convicted if the lawyers for the prosecution appeal, then he will be pleased to be out of the media spotlight – Amanda Knox may not be so lucky.

It worried me though to see our impartial news organizations going crazy for Amanda whilst, certainly on the BBC Ten O’ Clock News and on the newspaper headlines, Raffaele was hardly even name-checked. Is that because he is a “foreigner” or because he is a man? Or is it because even our most august news-gatherers are just a pushover when it comes to the salacious opportunities thrown in their path by images of a feisty young woman?

If this case does come to another appeal, I hope we will be better served by our media.

I’m trying to fit my poetry in around my fiction writing. I’m hoping to  finish the second draft of my new novel before Christmas and I’m getting ready for the imminent publication (31st October 2013)  of my first novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.