“A Dominican student at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus in Barbados was reportedly brutally attacked in that country, Dominica News Online (DNO) has been reliably informed.
“A source, with knowledge of the matter and who prefers to remain anonymous, told DNO the attack took place on November 12, 2015, when the student was walking home after a class.
“According to the source, the student was hit at the back of her head with a blunt object and dragged into a bushy area. She sustained injuries in the process . . . .
“The source further said the student’s arms, legs and mouth were bound with duct tape and her clothes ripped apart while she begged her attacker not to rape or kill her.
“‘She begged him to take all her possessions in exchange for sparing her life,’ the source noted.
“The attacker then took all the student’s jewellery and proceeded to pour kerosene on the student and made three attempts to set her ablaze, the source said. However, all attempts failed.”
THE ABOVE IS AN EXTRACT from the November 16 edition of Dominica News Online, an Internet publication, which highlighted the alleged attack on one of that country’s citizens while she was studying at the Cave Hill Campus of UWI last month.
The story was picked up by news establishments across the region, including the DAILY NATION of November 17, which quoted chief of security at the campus, Oral Reid, a former veteran police officer, as stating they had received a report and were investigating, along with police.
As is the case with every story of this nature, the social media chatter that resulted was robust, with not-so-flattering descriptions of UWI and its administration, the Cave Hill campus and its security force, the Royal Barbados Police Force and Barbadians in general.
Now, it turns out, there is strong evidence that the supposed attack was a fabrication of the student, who was failing academically and had been asked to withdraw from the campus as a result. Again, the reaction of the public has been quite robust, even if extremely narrow in focus.
We cannot explore the mind of the individual involved and in the absence of that information, it would be wrong to attribute motive to her. What the event does show, however, is that for all the benefits brought by our modern “information age”, there are some overwhelming dangers that we have to guard against.
Not so long ago, such a story would have been viewed primarily by a local audience, but as this case so clearly demonstrated, in just minutes readers all over the world have the opportunity to join the “discussion” and speak with “authority” on the “facts”.
Another compounding factor in these cases is that once one news outlet publishes such a report, it is “picked up” and republished across the region, in effect giving it credibility. And while local reports quoted campus security officials and police as confirming they had received a complaint from the alleged victim, it is clear that many who read immediately arrived at the conclusion that a crime had in fact occurred.
It is too easy to do irreparable harm to the reputation of individuals and institution today for all persons involved in the handling of such matters, including writers and readers, not to act responsibly.