I really do not get on with grammar.
We were told to do the grammar question for our GCE, but I did the comprehension and I remember it was a poem about a tree and I scored over 90%.
I read the first article. It’s sloppy journalism based on unsupported hearsay. There may be a problem in the Home Office - with Pritti Patel in charge, it would be astonishing if there weren’t - but the first article is bad, even for the Guardian.
What do you think is wrong with it, exactly, Stevie?
It says the sources are ‘campaigners and travelers interviewed by the Guardian’, many of whom are identified and quoted directly. They include not only victims, but named immigration lawyers and the organisations they work for.
That’s not ‘unsupported hearsay’ - it’s evidence!
And another thing…
If a witness A tells you something which someone else B told him, inviting you to believe what B said, that’s hearsay.
“At least a dozen European citizens – mostly young women – were detained and expelled at Gatwick airport alone over 48 hours last week, two female Spanish detainees told the Guardian.” (para 4) - looks like hearsay (but because of the poor journalism it’s impossible to tell)
“It is understood one French man was held at Edinburgh airport for 48 hours recently …” (para 5) - hearsay on the face of it (why not identify the source?)
“… while the Bulgarian ambassador to the UK confirmed a number of his nationals had been held at immigration removal centres.” (para 5) Irrelevant, because we don’t know why they were being held, but included to bolster the Guardian’s case
“Maria” and “Eugenia” are entitled to tell their stories, but they seem to have arrived with the intention of looking for work, which is not permitted
“Eugenia” tells you what someone else told her - hearsay
“Other travellers with Italian, Portuguese and eastern European passports were also being expelled.” - unsubstantiated
“Eugenia said she was told her airline, Vueling, was to blame” - hearsay
“Eugenia said cabin staff on her return flight had seen several similar cases” - again, hearsay
As I said, I would be astonished if the Home Office were functioning efficiently or humanely given who is - and who has been - in charge over recent years, but reporting like that isn’t going to persuade independent observers.
But you’re ignoring many factors here Stevie.
First, most of the victims are quoted directly about what happened to them - not hearsay.
Some of their evidence is about their conversations with others - which included accounts of similar experiences - this again is not ‘hearsay’.
Their experiences in broad outline were confirmed by specialist lawyers consulted and the organisations supporting victims of the Home Office - again not hearsay.
You seem to have fundamentally misunderstood the actual meaning of ‘hearsay’ - it means rumour, and implies invention - it does not mean a first-hand account of one’s own experience, which might legitimately include reporting conversations with others.
Moreover, you’ve entirely missed the key points - which are that the Home Office even by its own admission is misunderstanding and miss-applying the law, and that its actions are by any standards draconian - unless of course you think that all the details, dates, etc about sending innocent people to Yarl’s Wood, etc are simply invented. As articles subsequently linked above show, even the government seems now to have admitted these injustices.
So I’m left with @graham 's question: ‘Are you saying the articles are untrue?’
And supplementary: ‘On what grounds?’
Actually I think Stevie has the correct legal definition of hearsay evidence - which is, essentially, that which you have been told by a third party rather than that of which you have direct experience. It is rarely admissible as evidence in court even though it might well be an accurate depiction of events.
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But we’re not talking about evidence in court Paul - we’re talking about a Guardian report of people’s experiences, recounted in interviews with the journalist, which include accounts of their own conversations - we’re talking about ‘hearsay’ in normal speech - it’s another word for ‘rumour’.
I half agree with Stevie here - good journalism should involve interviewing direct witnesses to events wherever possible.
However it seems very unlikely that these detentions did not occur - for one thing, had they not, I’d expect the HO to be issuing strenuous denials and corrections - not a standing order to avoid detaining EU nationals unnecessarily.
Given that we may assume the basic veracity of the reports it is a pretty damning revelation as to how far we have sunk as a nation.
This is precisely what the bulk of the article consists of. In the course of recounting their own experiences some of the interviewees also report conversations with other people - other victims or flight crew that had seen similar things. It’s a relatively minor aspect of the reporting, and in my view very believable: if you were a victim of injustice like this, you would talk to others about it, wouldn’t you?
Which, technically, is hearsay.
It is weaker evidence because it cannot be tested, we have only two direct accounts - how do those girls know that they were not lied to by other detainees.
However getting too bogged down in the quality of the journalism is (in this case) not that useful - no-one seems to be in much doubt that European citizens have been detained when they could have simply been returned on the next available transport and some whom who were attending interviews, which is allowable, have been incorrectly detained. I’m surprised that the EU, or individual countries, have not been more robust in pointing out that detaining their citizens without cause is not acceptable.
I am sure if it were the other way round with “Brits” being detained in an EU country against their will that there may be the odd article written about it. I could predict that reference to the vindictive EU may also be mentioned.
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Geof, I gave a layman’s definition of hearsay because the statutory one is a bit obscure, but here is one: “A statement made out of court that is offered in court as evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.” (The statutory material for criminal cases is here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/44/section/114).
I used the term “hearsay” deliberately because it illustrates the idea that evidence must be reliable. That’s why, in a criminal trial, hearsay evidence is excluded except in very particular and closely-defined circumstances. I think the legal definition is important because it helps one understand why evidence might be excluded.
(I’m editing this as I write it because I see the discussion moved on while I was curled up with the cat. Apologies for more than the usual incoherence!)
The reason hearsay evidence is excluded (and, using the definition, you can see, I hope, why I identified key parts of that article as hearsay) is that it’s unreliable. The person you heard from may be telling the truth, or may be making it up; wherever on the spectrum s/he is, the problem is that, when you tell me what you were told, I have no way of assessing the reliability of the person you spoke to.
If something is going badly wrong at the HO (and, as I said, I wouldn’t be at all surprised given the people who have been running it since 2010) it needs to be reported honestly and effectively, and not incompetently and as a mishmash of rumour, hearsay and nudges.
(I reckon the Guardian has adopted the post-truth approach that Donald Trump found so useful. Never mind the evidence, feel the passion!)
The problem is that now we have a culture where every word and sentence printed in any paper is taken apart and analysed by all and sundry to find any chink. Therefore now almost everything said/printed is couched in ‘allegeds’ ‘it is believed that’ ‘our sources’…
I don’t agree. If I tell you something my neighbour told me had actually happened to her, or she had personally witnessed, that’s not the same as repeating a rumour. It might not qualify as a substantial enough basis for conviction in a court of law - but that’s not relevant at all. There’s a world of difference between these different standards of proof. And you’re ignoring that the broad truth of the first and secondhand accounts was confirmed by lawyers working in the field.
If only the murdoch/tabloid press had anything like these standards of accuracy!
EDIT: - same reply to @Porridge.
What is all this stuff about courts? How is it relevant? There is no individual here on trial. Have you really never come across the word ‘hearsay’ outside the court system?
Here’s what I think has happened: you’ve tried to brand a perfectly decent bit of reporting of real events as unsubstantiated rumour either because you don’t like the truth it portrays, or you don’t like The Guardian. Honestly, I can’t think of any other reason for singling out this example among all the poor journalism to be seen everyday in the UK media.
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If you tell me something that your neighbour reported to you it is, for evidentiary purposes, hearsay.
I cannot question your neighbour to probe her statement and, no matter how many years you have known her, or however reliable a person she is normally she might have chosen to deceive you on this occasion - I cannot test this.
So, yes, something learned 2nd or third hand from you neighbour probably is better than nth hand rumour, or it might not. Either way courts rarely accept hearsay (perhaps when the first hand witness is dead, for instance).
But I didn’t - I expressly pointed out that there were other factors (specifically the lack of strenuous denial from the HO) which satisfied me the accounts, in all probability, were accurate.
It’s relevant a) to the precise definition of hearsay and b) to the fact that Stevie feels that investigative journalism should apply the same or similar rigour as the courts in establishing the truth of a story.
I’m not sure I’d go that far - I think you can draw inferences from other aspects (the fact the HO were not screaming about the falsity of the accounts speaks volumes) but reports made up of vague rumours and “my neighbour told me that her cousin had heard…” do not ultimately make good journalism.
Or he could have an axe to grind where the Guardian is concerned, I couldn’t say 
See my reply above - you’re still stuck in court!
Only with its definition of hearsay.
As I said, I have no trouble accepting the Guardian report is true - I think I was one of the first posting the links.
Don’t you just love pedantry?
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Given that, several posts ago I suggested we stop digging the rabbit hole any deeper I wonder which of us has the bit more firmly wedged between our teeth?
Can we just agree it is lousy treatment of people who have made honest mistakes?