Gerard Baden-Clay was found guilty of murdering his wife 2 days ago.  Yesterday we were flooded with articles about what his first day in jail (having spent over 400 days on remand that is a bit incongruous isn’t it?) and the evidence that the jury didn’t hear.  Today we have again seen a plethora of articles detailing a visit by the defence lawyer to the Baden-Clay home, a visit by his parents to the jail and again more “secrets” about his conduct.

This was a heinous crime: of that there can be no doubt.  That said, the ongoing coverage of the trial and its aftermath has to stop.  I have three reasons for this:

1. There are three little girls in the care of their grandparents who do not need to read now or at some point in the future when they get access to google the sins of their father or the way their mother died.
2. I concede that we live in a society where celebrity seems to come from doing the most unseemly things but granting to celebrity to a murderer and his various paramours is something that should not be accepted or even countenanced by us as a society.
3. The massive focus on this case could, arguably, be seen as an affront to other victims of serious crime and their families who do not receive press coverage like that seen in this case.  Here are some names for you: Alexis Jeffrey, Tia Landers and Tony McGrath.  These individuals were also slain in Queensland in the last 12 months however I would doubt that the trials of their alleged murderers would as closely followed before during and after than this case has been.

It time to get this story off the front pages and to let the victim’s family get on with their lives.  It is also time to let the perpetrator rot in jail anonymously because that is all of the air time he deserves.