ANGRY MOB

There are two very unsavoury rape stories currently on the Daily Mail website. The first story is this: 'Boy, 13, who raped woman in front of his friends is jailed for just three years... because he said 'sorry'". The second story is this: 'First picture of teenager who sexually assaulted girl, 9, while on bail for raping 10-year-old'.

Clearly, both stories are horrific and you would expect the Daily Mail to cover them and for readers to assume that this is more evidence of New Labour's Broken Britain. You would also assume that both stories would have equal news value, although one story deals with a very young perpetrator, the other deals with the equally shocking aspect of the terribly young ages of the victims. However, one story makes the lead story of the Mail website, whilst the other story only makes a mention over half-way down the page - half the size and below the story: 'Living in Laa-Laa land? Man United star Gary Neville unveils plans for £8m 'Teletubby' eco-bunker built into a hillside'.

I think this can be explained when you realise that both of these awful stories are accompanied by a photograph of the perpetrators:

Naturally the white faced rapist is the one who doesn't make it halfway up the Daily Mail website - ironically he is placed next to another white faced sex offender. The brown faced rapist makes the lead story.