Tragic deaths deserve respect

Aspects of both the reporting and in the Comment section (Kentish Gazette September 7) about the tragic deaths in Wincheap show scant respect for the men who died.

From the report comes this: “With their long messy hair and unorthodox attire, looked the part as members of the city music scene”; a sentence full of knee-jerk prejudice and patronising assumption. Later we’re told in Comment, “However it is clear that the scene of which these men were part very much involves alternative lifestyles and the use of mind altering substances, be they legal or illegal”..this paragraph is stated as a fact. With its blanket assumptions and the heavy handed innuendo it reveals the writer’s real attitude and intent. The writer continues: “The police have resisted discussing the circumstances of these deaths”, this should hardly come as a surprise as their investigations are not likely to be advanced by conversing with gossipmongers.

After having attempted to hijack the news of these deaths for the writer’s own agenda it then goes on to say “We can at least celebrate their lives’; perhaps a good start would be to abandon writing containing bigoted speculations regarding imagined “alternative lifestyles” and concentrate instead on factual reporting. Mr N Warton, by email