"One take. Took 40 seconds."
October 6, 2010 5:28 AM Subscribe

'I looked into that camera. And I just said it.' Ray Gosling, a well-regarded UK journalist and activist investigated for mercy killing after an on-air confession, has been found guilty of "wasting police time" instead.
posted by availablelight (47 comments total)

"Ray spent a lifetime beautifully documenting life's ordinariness, but then a generation of documentary-makers like me came along for whom ordinariness wasn't enough. We wanted to document life's extremes, and so his gentleness became passé and he unraveled into chaos."
posted by availablelight at 5:32 AM on October 6, 2010

"They will now come to realise that the man they thought was a worthy and principled journalist is, in fact, a sheer liar and fantasist."

The particular cruelty he's done here is that the outcome of this will likely be the whole mercy killing movement gets cast in a more negative light. Wasting police time to the tune of 1800 hours is pretty serious, and he should have to pay for that too (I only gathered from the article that he's paying a paltry 200 pounds in court costs). But this will have lasting costs to the movement he was so hap-handedly trying to be a proponent of.

In the end he'll hurt many more families than just that of his former lover. Flawless fail.
posted by allkindsoftime at 5:50 AM on October 6, 2010

Wouldnt be surprised if he tops himself.
posted by the cuban at 5:54 AM on October 6, 2010

Gosling's story made him a face of the handwringing debate on euthanasia on this side of the pond as well.
posted by availablelight at 6:10 AM on October 6, 2010

Does that mean that police officers who are lazy can get convicted for "wasting police time"? Or that civil engineers who have a traffic light go on slightly longer than it should are in legal trouble "wasting police time"? Or that donut shops with long lines are "wasting police time"? This is an awfully vague thing to punish someone for.
posted by LSK at 6:13 AM on October 6, 2010

This is an awfully vague thing to punish someone for.

Not really, unless the donut shop knowingly faked a potentially criminal event that would have all but obliged the police to investigate.

(BLOOD ON THE JELLY ROLLS! No wait it was jelly.)
posted by bicyclefish at 6:19 AM on October 6, 2010

I'm sorry, I think there's a bit more to talk about in this tread than a hurf-durf-cop-stereotype tangent...
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 6:21 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

We've many of us embroidered a tale or two, but perhaps not on telly and involving an unlawful killing! Glad he got off lightly though - not sure it will do that much harm to acceptance of mercy-killing, which in my experience is pretty widespread and that seems borne out by the general sympathy he got when he was being believed.
posted by Abiezer at 6:21 AM on October 6, 2010

This is an awfully vague thing to punish someone for.

Agree with bicyclefish - how is it vague when you can easily quantify the number of hours that police officers spent investigating a crime that never occurred?
posted by afx237vi at 6:31 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

how is it vague when you can easily quantify the number of hours that police officers spent investigating a crime that never occurred?

Consequences like this exist in the US as well.
posted by availablelight at 6:37 AM on October 6, 2010

Jon Ronson, man, that guy can write.
posted by mwhybark at 6:46 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

OK, look, Gosling shouldn't have "confessed" to something he didn't do, but I don't like that he's being held accountable for "wasting police time."

He didn't confess to a police officer or a homicide detective, did he? I'm trying to imagine a situation where I post photos of my "pot growing operation" to my Facebook page, so the DEA busts down my door and finds out they were stock images, then trying to charge me for "wasting their time". What if I hang a pot-smelling air freshener in my car and then get pulled over by the cops? Is it "wasting their time" when they call in a police dog?

Investigating potential crimes is their job.

Balloon Boy's parents called 911. That's a different situation - that's making a false report.
posted by muddgirl at 7:00 AM on October 6, 2010 [12 favorites]

Him, or anyone else for that matter, should not be held responsible for the police effort. Society pays the police to do what they do, it's society's benefit. This is the equivalent of the fire department charging people to put out the fires at their houses.

He didn't make the police waste their time. They could have just said "Bloody hell, look at that." and gone about their business.

There is also a very clear moral hazard here. Paying the police to waste their time encourages them to waste their time. I mean that facetiously the way it worded, but it's still true. Allowing police to confiscate property and resell it has created a new law enforcement economy in the United States that is clearly abused.

However, little is done about it, because the general consensus is if you get your property confiscated, it's because you did something wrong.

I am not saying the police shouldn't investigate. The police should investigate. They should then charge the costs against their own budget.

I am not saying he shouldn't have to pay a fine or suffer consequences. Of course he should. Any fines levied should be paid to the court, though and distributed in a proper manner. The connection between prosecutions or investigations and financial gain - or the costs of offsetting a wild goose chase - should be severed completely. Otherwise, why not just charge every criminal for the cost of their crime? Traffic ticket? That's an hour minimum, plus overhead costs - on a slow day it could amount to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars.

As for what he did, and his attitude towards the interviewer....it seems to me he is a man who is lashing out because he has nobody to blame but himself. It's pathetic. I don't mean that pejoratively, it is the definition of pathetic. He made a mess, seriously damaged his reputation, and made a little circus out of a serious issue that can ill afford it. I can understand the temptation to say anything, in a moment of weakness. I can understand the fatalistic attitude that carries the charade on, lets others go through with what was almost certainly conceived on the fly. I can understand the self delusion that nothing will come of it, or perhaps some good. This is why people cut themselves. Sometimes you just need to feel something, anything, after a lifetime becoming emotionally numb, spent and wasted.

Sometimes, it's only afterwards you realize what a fool you have made of yourself, and who you have hurt in the process. Then you wonder what the last forty years were for, that you haven't learned a thing since you were four years old. He is ashamed and angry about it.
posted by Xoebe at 7:04 AM on October 6, 2010

In addition to the suspended sentence, Gosling was ordered to pay £200 towards court costs at a rate of £5 a week.

The sentence was suspended - he's only paying court costs.
posted by muddgirl at 7:08 AM on October 6, 2010

OK, look, Gosling shouldn't have "confessed" to something he didn't do, but I don't like that he's being held accountable for "wasting police time."

He seemed pretty determined to get a murder confession out there. From the actual article:

He could have stopped the broadcast. He had ample opportunity. "They ran the final cut through for me. We watched in silence. My editor said, 'Ray?' And I looked at her and said, 'Let it run.'"

He could have stopped it even after that. "The BBC warned me of the dangers. I understood. I'd had dangers before. I'm used to dangers." He smiles. Still, he told the BBC, "Let it run."

By then, he says, he'd convinced himself that he had, actually, smothered Tony. The programme was scheduled to air the night of Monday 15 February.
........
He pauses. "All right. I repeated the confession. Mea culpa mea culpa mea culpa…"

When he says he "repeated the confession", he's talking about his day at White City. He did indeed repeat it - several times, in fact – first on BBC Breakfast and then in interviews all over the world. "They marched me from studio to studio to studio. Buenos dias, Madrid. Bonjour, Paris. Hello, New York. Hello, LA."
posted by availablelight at 7:11 AM on October 6, 2010

He just sounds like a confused old man. Should the police investigate everything old men claim to be true?
posted by orme at 7:12 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I live in the region where this was first broadcast and though I don't remember him I get the impression that Ray was a great broadcaster in his prime and now, sadly, as I older relative of mine put it 'he's gone off his trolly'

It's sad in that with the ongoing dumbing down of television, regional broadcasting has suffered more than most and we are unlikely to ever see someone like Ray on the screens again. I get the impression that his come back was due to some producer feeling sorry for him.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:14 AM on October 6, 2010

He seemed pretty determined to get a murder confession out there.

Again, the police department's job is to investigate crimes. It's not "wasting their time" to confess to a crime that I didn't commit - it's part of their job description to find out whether or not I'm telling the truth.

This kind of reminds me of the Meridith Meran story writ a little larger.
posted by muddgirl at 7:16 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was trying to work out if the charges were levelled because he failed to admit he'd made his story up when he was formally questioned. Can't seem to find a clear description of the CPS's position, but that's the impression I get from a couple of articles - interviewed for a total of thirty hours and never held his hands up to the story not being true - though here it says it was because he repeated his claims on the BBC breakfast show (presumably the clip you see in the video at the FPP link) it also mentions the several interviews with plod he had.
posted by Abiezer at 7:35 AM on October 6, 2010

Again, the police department's job is to investigate crimes. It's not "wasting their time" to confess to a crime that I didn't commit - it's part of their job description to find out whether or not I'm telling the truth.

I do not get this. How am I not wasting a chunk out of a finite amount of resources, paid for by public money, by willfully lying like this? The ultimate effect is that we will need more police to produce the same amount of result in actual crimes - the only people who benefit are the cops getting paid to investigate a make-work nonexistent crime. It is obviously not a major concern (something I believe is reflected in the slap-on-the-wrist consequences for this guy) but I don't see how it's bad to acknowledge this is not an OK thing to do. Unless of course we start from the premise that all police is useless and bad, and jerking them around is a good thing.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:43 AM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

He didn't confess to a police officer or a homicide detective, did he?

I think it is pretty obvious that he was questioned by police and lied to them. That is where the charge comes from.

I am not saying he shouldn't have to pay a fine or suffer consequences. Of course he should. Any fines levied should be paid to the court, though and distributed in a proper manner.

Which is what happened.
posted by ninebelow at 7:45 AM on October 6, 2010

Can't we acknowledge that it's not an OK thing to do without implying that the cops MUST take every suspect at their word?

FFS they actually arrested this guy, apparently without even finding out if he was in the country first!
posted by muddgirl at 7:47 AM on October 6, 2010

I think it is pretty obvious that he was questioned by police and lied to them. That is where the charge comes from.

I only know what I read in news reports:

Ray Gosling, 71, of Nottingham, was charged over claims he made to BBC Breakfast's Bill Turnbull in February.

Is there a better source that actually discusses whether or not Gosling signed a false confession or anything along those lines? It is entirely unclear to me at what point Gosling began to admit that he hadn't done anything.
posted by muddgirl at 7:50 AM on October 6, 2010

I suppose that people who make a false confession, spend years in jail, and are then found to be innocent should also pay for their lies. (And not the cops who forced the false confession.)

Oh, wait. That's pretty much how they do it.. Insert WTFBBQ here.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:10 AM on October 6, 2010

(There are other examples but on iOS it's just too painful to locate and link them.)
posted by five fresh fish at 8:12 AM on October 6, 2010

Again, the police department's job is to investigate crimes. It's not "wasting their time" to confess to a crime that I didn't commit - it's part of their job description to find out whether or not I'm telling the truth.

This seems like a very strange argument.

Of course, you might disagree that what he claimed to have done should be a crime; you might argue that he was mentally disturbed in such a way as to not be responsible for what he said; or you might feel that lenience should be shown to a harmless old man.

But putting those three aside, it's absurd to argue there should be no punishment for a consciously made confession of murder on a TV show you present, whereas there should be for ringing 911 to report your son is being carried away in a weather balloon. In both cases people are freely and knowingly doing things they have every reason to suspect will squander police resources (our resources!) to no possible valid end.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 8:24 AM on October 6, 2010

...and as others have said, it's not clear that any charges would have been brought if he had told the police at interview that the claim in the TV show was untrue.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 8:26 AM on October 6, 2010

five fresh fish: The man in that story didn't make a false confession.
posted by afx237vi at 8:28 AM on October 6, 2010

...it's absurd to argue there should be no punishment for a consciously made confession of murder on a TV show you present, whereas there should be for ringing 911 to report your son is being carried away in a weather balloon. In both cases people are freely and knowingly doing things they have every reason to suspect will squander police resources (our resources!) to no possible valid end.

On my highly popular blog, I post pictures of my "grow operation". The DEA uses this information as justification to search my house, where they find that I have no grow operation. I continue to insist that the pictures were taken at this very house of a continuing grow operation. The DEA gets further proof that the pictures were from, I don't know, a recent Time Magazine article that they find in my scanner. Clearly I am mentally disturbed - should I be responsible for the time spent by the DEA agents who found my blog post.

Yes, I think there is a difference between confessing in a public venue and calling the police hotline or 911 to report something that did not happen. The police are required to respond to 911 calls. They are not required to take my blog post or my TV confession seriously.
posted by muddgirl at 8:34 AM on October 6, 2010

Yes, I think there is a difference between confessing in a public venue and calling the police hotline or 911 to report something that did not happen. The police are required to respond to 911 calls. They are not required to take my blog post or my TV confession seriously.

No, but if once they do, you don't immediately confess that you were lying (and in the absence of the other mitigating issues I mentioned) you surely don't think this should go unpunished?

Whatever your feelings about the actual behavior of the police in any given locality, it really isn't a basic freedom of a suspect to make life as difficult as possible for the police to keep them on their toes.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 9:27 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

The connection between prosecutions or investigations and financial gain - or the costs of offsetting a wild goose chase - should be severed completely. Otherwise, why not just charge every criminal for the cost of their crime? Traffic ticket? That's an hour minimum, plus overhead costs - on a slow day it could amount to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars.

Brazil, the movie, is propelled by the story of a refund check for a mis-applied bill for the costs of being arrested, tortured, and disposed. Later, our hero is advised to confess quickly before he ruins his credit rating.
posted by Babblesort at 9:27 AM on October 6, 2010

it really isn't a basic freedom of a suspect to make life as difficult as possible for the police to keep them on their toes.

You are assuming a motive here that seems unjustified in this case.
posted by muddgirl at 9:30 AM on October 6, 2010

Clearly I am mentally disturbed - should I be responsible for the time spent by the DEA agents who found my blog post.

If you actually believe that your grow operation is real and not imagined, then you are mentally disturbed. If you know full well that your grow operation is bogus, yet you continue to pretend that it is real even after police questioning then you are a dick and should be held responsible for wasting the DEA's time.
posted by stefanie at 9:34 AM on October 6, 2010

I don't feel confident making a judgment about anyone's mental state, including my own or Gosling's.
posted by muddgirl at 9:39 AM on October 6, 2010

game warden to the events rhino : No, but if once they do, you don't immediately confess that you were lying (and in the absence of the other mitigating issues I mentioned) you surely don't think this should go unpunished?

That depends - Did he actually lie to the police, or did he just refuse to cooperate in their investigation?

Whatever your feelings about the actual behavior of the police in any given locality, it really isn't a basic freedom of a suspect to make life as difficult as possible for the police to keep them on their toes.

Agreed, not a "freedom" - An obligation.
posted by pla at 10:00 AM on October 6, 2010

How do they know whether something is a real burglary, a real rape, or a real murder until they investigate it?

By this logic, when they track down a suspect and he says, "Oh, it wasn't murder, it was suicide," it is fiscally irresponsible to continue the investigation.
posted by muddgirl at 10:43 AM on October 6, 2010

Anyway.

That's a great piece. If you follow Jon Ronson's Twitter account, he seemed genuinely conflicted and upset at the time of his interview with Ray Gosling's behaviour.

The entire thing does seem to have the makings of a John Osborne play: the regional outsider who makes it by being honest and truthful before being supplanted by peddlers of distortions and exaggerations, making a comeback and then being brought low by his own falsehoods.

Man, I remember when Gosling first came up on the Blue everybody wanted to give him a hug. While this article makes him sound pretty far from huggable, I feel even more sympathetic towards him now.
posted by Hartster at 11:07 AM on October 6, 2010

How do they know whether something is a real burglary, a real rape, or a real murder until they investigate it?

Well, they don't, so they investigate. If they find it wasn't a real murder/burglary/rape and it was just a false alarm due to e.g. miscommunication, everybody goes home happy. If they find out some jerk was leading them on, to the point where they have to spend 1800 man-hours until he admits to having made kind of a dick move, they give him a 200 pound fine.

What's your take, for example, on people who make prank bomb calls? Let's say I call up a mall with a bomb threat. They shut down for the day, everybody heads for the emergency exit and the bomb squad comes, goes over the place and finds nothing. By your logic, I should not be held liable for anything since everybody is just doing their job and there was no bomb after all, right? Also, if you think shutting down the mall makes a significant difference in terms of lost business, I can call at three in the morning.

By this logic, when they track down a suspect and he says, "Oh, it wasn't murder, it was suicide," it is fiscally irresponsible to continue the investigation.

No, because there is more to it than the suspect's word, particularly when he has good incentive to lie. But people have little incentive not to abuse police resources if they can come clean at the end with no consequences, so they need to be held responsible for it in an appropriate manner.

Note also that it is not strictly a financial matter: If I come up with a million dollars, they won't let me use the police to play cops and robbers, because they have more important things to do.

Actually they might, if the money goes to the right people, but that's another matter.
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:26 AM on October 6, 2010

What's your take, for example, on people who make prank bomb calls?

Who was in danger if Gosling truly was a murderer? Gosling's other lovers dying from AIDS?
posted by muddgirl at 11:30 AM on October 6, 2010

Who was in danger if Gosling truly was a murderer? Gosling's other lovers dying from AIDS?

Nobody I guess. Which means I am free to kill one (1) person, repeatedly confess via public TV and the police should not do anything about it, right?
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:34 AM on October 6, 2010

Hartster, I came in to say almost exactly that.

This is so much more poignant for having been delivered by a broadcaster who spent his life meticulously documenting the real lives of ordinary people, only to be overtaken by Big Brother and other meaningless distractions. Then, closing his career with an entirely false confession, a desperate plea for attention in the face of his own obsolescence and imminent mortality, filled with regret for the lovers whom he failed to help in their hour of need. I don't think I've ever seen a clearer example of the medium being the message.

It's an existential masterpiece, an astounding late work by an old master. Rage, rage against the dying of the light, Ray Gosling.
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth at 12:01 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh, and by the way, here's what the UK Criminal Law Act has to say:

"Where a person causes any wasteful employment of the police by knowingly making to any person a false report or statement tending to show that an offence has been committed, whether by himself or by another person, or to give rise to apprehension for the safety of any persons or property, or tending to show that he has information material to any police inquiry, he shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for not more than six months or to a fine of not more than level 4 on the standard scale or to both."

It's a fair cop, guv'ner.
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth at 12:06 PM on October 6, 2010

One of the key symptoms of the form of alcoholic brain damage called Korsakoff's (or Korsakov's) syndrome is confabulation - filling in holes in your memory by making stuff up and believing it, inventing memories. It's a much under-diagnosed condition, caused by someone drinking heavily enough to cause a deficiency of thiamine in their diet but it's more common than has previously been recognised. In the article it points out that "His first rough patch came in the mid-90s when he started drinking too much." It's hard to diagnose, but by the sounds of it he should have been tested for it by professionals before these charges were brought.
posted by Flitcraft at 4:13 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

One jolly day I espied a Policeyman, out awandering his beat.

"Haha," says I, "let us have some japery at the expense of Mr Plod." Soes I ambles up to Captain Bacon and I says "Afternable, Consternoon - how lucky for you to be out about today - for before you is a scallywag what is committing a crime at this very now!"

"Wotwotwotwotwot?" said the PoPo.

"It's true. And a clever pig like you should be figurabling it right onto it. Go on, then. I'll just wait here til you irish stew me in the name of the law."

And Sergeant Piggily Wiggily looked up and down and round and round but could find no density of evidence to jot on a fresh page of notebook. I swore till I was rasher pink that the breaking law was being carried out beneath his hairy nostrilage, but despite his frantique perusals of the scenic crime he could neither collar nor cuff no crims.

"So wot law are you in factuality breaking?" he finally said, all a-pigglypuff from his investigations.

"Whys I is wasting Police time!" I said. And I laugh and laugh and was beset by truncheon to repetishness
posted by Sparx at 7:14 PM on October 6, 2010 [8 favorites]

Hartster: "If you follow Jon Ronson's Twitter account"

Of course. Of course he does that. Thanks!
posted by mwhybark at 11:55 PM on October 6, 2010

Sparx that is also prime hilarioushness, thank you
posted by mwhybark at 11:57 PM on October 6, 2010

« Older The Universe, with relative scales.... | According to Tom Daschle, the ... Newer »

This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments

"One take. Took 40 seconds." October 6, 2010 5:28 AM Subscribe

"One take. Took 40 seconds."
October 6, 2010 5:28 AM Subscribe