A few months ago, all hell broke loose in the Primark store, Leicester. You see, it turns out that a security guard – who was also a man (see feminist representation below) – had approached a woman who was breastfeeding and asked her to leave.
She refused, and the guard allegedly ripped the baby from her breast and effectively dangled it like a metaphorical carrot before the metaphorical donkey, telling her that if she wanted her daughter she’d have to go and get her.
At the time of the alleged incident, the woman – Caroline Starmer, 28, of Leicester – hurried on over to the Free to Feed breastfeeding campaign page and told her tale. She further wrote that she was in “complete shock” as a result of this “horrific experience” and in “a right mess” as a result of her treatment. Indeed, she was “shot” – which anyone would be after plundering the thesaurus so completely.
As you might imagine, there were plenty of people out there who believed the story immediately. They actually WANTED to believe it – starting with the kind of people who would join a website or campaign like Free to Feed*, and followed rapidly by those who host daytime TV shows.
Even in the first article, reporting the incident just after it had happened, Primark had pointed out that there was no CCTV evidence that she’d even been approached, let alone had her child torn from her breast. It concluded:
…that the customer’s allegation is not supported by the available evidence to date.
Quite. And the reason that the allegation wasn’t supported was that it never happened. None of it. You see, Starmer, whose Facebook page contains the “profile picture” below, along with loads of photos of children (of which she apparently has four) and little else, made it up.
In actual fact, they knew as long ago as five minutes after she made the claim that she’d made it up. CCTV doesn’t lie. It took just 14 days from the initial story to the 2nd one, announcing she was being taken to court.
Leicestershire Police investigated her claims but she was charged with intent to pervert the course of justice.
Primark initially said it would investigate the allegation but after viewing in-store CCTV footage denied the incident had taken place.
Her Facebook page is curiously empty since May this year, though it appears to have been regularly used up until that time. That isn’t surprising, though I’d have liked to have seen what had been written before it was taken down.
Starmer has been warned that she could be jailed when she is sentenced in December. Hopefully, she will be (God only knows the damage she could have done if anyone of the male persuasion had been named in all this). But don’t hold your breath – she holds the aces, being a woman and a mother.
All in all, someone who really should be up for a Darwin Award if it wasn’t for the fact her DNA is already out there.
Laughably, Free to Feed has responded. In the updated BBC story, they apparently:
…apologised to Primark and said there were “no winners here”.
Actually, there are. Primark won. The police won. Justice won. Starmer lost. And Free to Feed ended up looking foolish for joining the bandwagon so readily. They added:
Our good nature and intent was completely abused by someone that we believed in good faith, and wanted to help.
Perhaps if they hadn’t been so eager to believe without having the facts, the risky matter of faith wouldn’t have been an issue. And their other comment:
What possesses people to fabricate lies on this level and drag everyone else down with them, will always be a mystery to us
Isn’t such a mystery when you consider the amount of money a woman is likely to receive if there is even the slightest degree of implied discrimination against her.
* My opinion on breastfeeding in public is as valid as anyone else’s. Perhaps more so, since it isn’t warped by the flood of hormones that seem to follow the birth of some people’s children (and I include the fathers in that), forcing them to believe that everyone else should be glad to experience every noise and bodily function their child is capable of.
I don’t care how “natural” it is: breastfeeding should be done privately in cordoned off areas intended for the purpose – not in full view of everyone. And that’s just as true when the person doing it is part of the Militant Front. A baby is quite likely to puke (“spit up” is the Earth Mommy phrase) after feeding, and if I’m eating in a restaurant I definitely do not want that forced on me any more than I want to savour the smell of a soiled nappy while I’m in the middle of a steak. (and I experienced that once when I was in France).
I shouldn’t have to. Period.