Pure Evil and the Power of Language

Old news now. Over a week it’s been since Karen Matthews was found guilty of kidnapping her own child. Yet I feel compelled to write as something that was said during one of the post-trial statements has been bothering me. In his opening remarks, Detective Superintendent Kevin Brennan (above) says ‘Karen Matthews is pure evil.’
He then goes on to describe the events which grabbed the attention of the nation throughout the early months of this year. For those not familiar with this sad tale, Matthews, who lives in Dewsbury, a former industrial town in the north of England, reported her daughter missing one night last February. For three weeks extensive police searches revealed nothing until finally the little girl was discovered in the apartment of Michael Donovan, a relative of Matthews’ partner, a mere mile or so from her home. Joy quickly turned to confusion and then anger as it became clear Matthews was being held as a suspect. These events culminated with the guilty verdict last week.
If he’d described her actions as being pure evil I’m sure most would have either agreed or hardly noticed the comment. It was that labelling of the individual themselves that jarred. Applying the ‘evil’ tag to Matthews herself as opposed to her crime not only makes the comment more damning (which could have been the intention) and permanent, it also adds several unhelpful layers of complexity.
Some time around the birth of political correctness I was working as a teacher. Part of my job was to administer criticism and apply suitable sanctions when pupils did something wrong. During that time it was stressed that admonishment should always refer to the misdemeanour and not the child themselves. Put simply, ‘You are a bad boy/girl’ was frowned upon and discouraged whereas ‘The thing you did was wrong’ was favoured. Generally speaking, this made a lot of sense to me, unlike much of the other petty liberalism of the period. Clearly the crime in question here is far more serious than any child’s prank.
I would want to emphasise I have no argument with investigation or verdict. Matthews and her accomplice undoubtedly deserve to spend a long time in prison and already I have spent too much time and thought agonising over those five short words. Suffice it to say the case was complex and stressful enough without adding comments that raise questions of philosophy, theology and eternal damnation.
There are many more issue connected with this case that are far too complex to go into here: crime and its connections with poverty and unemployment, responsibilities of the social services, the role of the media and stereotyping to name but a few. Do a search. You’ll find plenty.