“Ah … the power of mothers”: Bereaved mothers as victim-heroes in media enacted crusades for justice

Abstract

The display of maternal suffering is powerful, as the bereaved mother’s experience represents any parent’s deepest fear. When her pain is enmeshed with calls to support changes in our justice systems, it has the potential to bring about unconstitutional effects, for a mother’s love has no end and so her life sentence can only be addressed with equal amounts of endless suffering for the said offender (Valier and Lippens, 2004). This paper explores the construction of the bereaved mother figure as a victim-hero within contemporary media enacted crime narratives. It examines two murder cases in the New Zealand context where a bereaved mother’s displays of grief can be linked to changes made to the legal code. It will be argued that the character of the bereaved mother as a victim-hero has become a powerful agent of change that has implications for criminal justice system modification. It is argued that critical attention is required of criminology to the role of the good mother in criminal justice discourses, and in particular to the ways in which the good mother is characterised in mediated public discourses.

Keywords

Media melodrama motherhood narrative victim-hero

Introduction

The bereaved mother’s experience represents any parent’s deepest fear. The loss of a child is simply unfathomable to all of us who are parents as it grates against our sense of the natural order of things, and sharply brings to our attention that there are moments in our child’s day which we are powerless to control. As a result, we look upon the grief of the mother with horror, not only in sympathy for her, but with agony for the possibility that her pain could one day be our own. Scholars suggest that when her pain is enmeshed with calls to support changes in our justice systems, it has the potential to affect decisions made by lawmakers, for a mother’s love has no end and so her life sentence can only be addressed with equal amounts of endless suffering for the said offender (Valier and Lippens, 2004).

This paper explores the construction of the bereaved mother figure as a victim-hero within contemporary media enacted crime narratives. It examines two high-profile murder cases in the New Zealand context where a bereaved mother’s displays of grief can be linked to changes made to the legal code. One of these changes has been described by commentators as undermining legal history and as having potentially destabilising effects on the accuracy of the criminal justice system. Another has been seen as the most significant change to procedural matters of criminal justice in New Zealand in 50 years. A third – a new law – has been described as ‘legislative overkill’. It can be argued that the character of the bereaved mother as a victim-hero has become a powerful voice amidst a number of efforts by ‘ordinary people’ to highlight deficiencies in the criminal justice system in New Zealand and that part of this authority stems from the ways by which stories about them are told in the media. The paper examines the narrative of each bereaved mother and considers the practice of storytelling by the media with a view to consider each narrative’s ability to affect criminal justice practice. In this vein, it can be seen as an inquiry pertaining to a critical narrative criminology (Presser and Sandberg, 2015).

The structure of the paper is as follows. First, a brief outline of the emerging field of narrative criminology is offered. Second, the salience of ‘motherhood’ as a cultural narrative is discussed and an argument for why criminology needs to pay more attention to the character of the good mother is proposed. Third, the paper discusses the media as a key discursive agent insofar as it enacts stories and in doing so has the potential to affect political practices. Media enacted crime narratives are identified as melodramas that have the potential to affect such practices in particular ways. Fourth, the significance of the victim-hero character in debates about crime and justice in New Zealand since the late 1990s is discussed in order to give context in which the bereaved mothers’ stories were enacted (told). This is followed by a discussion of the method used to trace the stories of the bereaved mothers from across articles in the mainstream media, a description (a ‘re-telling’) of the stories that were told and an analysis of their structure and coherence. In the discussion it is argued that the stories extended motherhood into a crusade for justice beyond the death of one’s child. However, through the practice of telling them a call to action was advanced, and it is this call that can be argued to have been effective.

Narrative criminology

Narrative criminology is defined by Presser and Sandberg (2015: 1) as: “any inquiry based upon the views of stories as instigating, sustaining, or effecting desistance from harmful action. Narrative criminologists study how narratives inspire and motivate harmful action, and how they are used to make sense of harm”. Narrative criminology is an emerging discipline that draws from a growing emphasis in the social sciences on the ways by which narratives, as a form of discourse, produce subjects, texts, knowledges and authority (Gubrium and Holstein, 2009). Narrative criminology is focused on the stories of harm, deviant behaviour and criminal activity, and how these justify events, motivate actors and provide rationale for engaging or not engaging in particular acts. It views that murder, for example, can be a storied feat, insofar as an offender’s story justifies the motivation for the murder and influences its undertaking (Presser, 2012).

All scholars of narrative, including narrative criminologists, view that narratives are embedded within larger cultural discourses which provide the material for but also place boundaries upon the things that can be said. In this way, stories, storytellers and the act of storytelling are all socially situated (Gubrium and Holstein, 2009). Yet storytelling is also an act of power. Stories are assembled and told to someone, somewhere, at some time, for different purposes and with a variety of consequences (Gubrium and Holstein, 2009). It follows that what a story is about is bound up in the practice of its telling and that its effect is uncertain.

Narrative criminology is at present focused on the stories told by offenders and the ways by which stories are antecedents to criminal activity. The inquiry in this paper departs from this focus in that it looks at stories affecting practices by lawmakers. It examines and considers the power of larger cultural discourses to influence these stories as well as the practices of storytelling by the media.

The power of mothers

Motherhood is often depicted as an emotional state of being, most often predicated by a biological drive or instinct to become a mother and the physical event of birth that marks this becoming. When a woman becomes a mother, she is understood to experience a set of sensations that has a reach beyond space, time or deed, as reflected in the sentiment ‘a mother’s love knows no bounds’. Agatha Christie (1935: 218), in her book The Hound of Death, indicated the fury of practices that could accompany this reach: “A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path”. This suggests that the practice of mothering serves the state of emotional motherhood in a relentless, take-no-prisoners way. Yet most practices of mothering are daily repetitive tasks towards the loftier goals of raising another human being. Ruddick (1989) categorises this ‘maternal work’ in terms of three dimensions: the physical care of the child, the emotional and spiritual care of the child and the training of them to be social.

In addition to being an emotional state and a set of practices, motherhood is a social status that is assigned to all women. All women are either mothers or potential mothers. It is understood to be the ultimate sign of femininity, to be aspired to and achieved (Cecil, 2007). Women who can’t conceive are pathologised (Tsigdinos, 2010). Women who choose not to be mothers, an increasing trend across the developed world (Livingston and Cohn, 2010), are rebels against the ‘natural order of things’ (Roberts, 1995). These women are derided for their ‘selfishness’ and often subject to derogative terms that denounce their choice. That former Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard was given the nickname the ‘red barren’ is a testament to this negative ascription (Kitteh, 2011).

In this way, we may understand motherhood as a larger cultural story, one that provides a set of expectations for and places limits upon the lives of all women (Miller et al., 2015). Within this larger cultural story, there are good mothers and bad mothers. A good mother will protect her child at all costs (Slattery and Garner, 2011). This is the mother who will ‘dare all things and crush down remorselessly’ anything that might harm her child. The good mother appears in everyday cultural texts such as pregnancy pamphlets, parenting magazines and formula commercials. We see her doing the school run and at Saturday morning soccer games. We empathise with her creative efforts to negotiate with her defiant toddler at the supermarket checkout, as she is performing her daily maternal work.

Criminology regularly engages with the good mother, though mostly in vicarious ways. Research has focused upon the ways by which incarceration impacts upon the ability of a woman to practice appropriate mothering, and how a desire for the identity of being a good mother can be a factor in behaviour modification among low level offenders (see Sharpe, 2015). Feminist legal scholars have emphasised the way that the law criminalises actions that can be seen as failures of good motherhood. In family violence incidents, for example, women are often prosecuted for failing to protect their children, irrespective of who actually harmed the child and despite that the mother herself may also be a victim of the harmer herself (Roberts, 1995). After all, a mother’s love is supposed to know no bounds and part of her maternal work is to protect her child. The story of the good mother has also been found in narratives of drug addiction and recovery among female methamphetamine users, justifying both their use of the drug (to have energy to practice motherhood and to look good) and their desire to change their practices (to be a ‘mommy’ and to do things right) (Miller et al., 2015).

The good mother also provides the reference point against which criminology’s bad mothers can be assessed. Bad mothers are mothers of offenders (or potential offenders) who have vacated their role as caregivers, or have disturbed the maternal relation that has been deemed critical by scholars such to prevent the development of anti-social behaviour (see Sharpe, 2015; Young, 1996). Those who have offended against their children are the ultimate bad mothers. Indeed, these women are monstrous insofar as they have transcended not only the law but have disturbed the maternal relation (Young, 1996). As Jewkes (2011) points out however, our understandings of the bad mother are entangled with depictions of her in the press, which are determined by institutional news operations. Indeed, a bad mother meets all salient news values and so her story is inherently newsworthy (Jewkes, 2011). Young (1996) argues that the media constructs mothers in this way to ensure that ‘motherhood’ will continue to be imagined and performed according to understandings of the archetypal good mother. Indeed, the bad mother is not afforded opportunity to give ‘her’ story via public discourses as she is not to be identified with. We are to think about these mothers, instead (Naylor, 2001).

I argue that criminology needs to think some more about good mothers and their role in our discipline. I propose that we particularly need to think about the ways by which she is characterised in stories told about her and how this might have implications for criminal justice practice.

Media narratives

Media narratives, like any narratives, both reflect wider cultural discourses that we are embedded in, and enact them (Gilchrist, 2010; Peelo, 2006). Texts and utterances are relayed and conveyed, but also reworked and re-arranged to fit the media’s own news-making processes and agendas. In this way, the media are an agent in the practice through which discursive formations come into being (LeGreco and Tracy, 2009). At times they can be a particularly important agent. Audiences engage, interpret and resist discourses enacted within media narratives in relation to other available discourses (Hall, 1997). However, because most people do not experience crime, but learn of it via the media, the media are a particularly powerful agent in discourses about crime and justice (Garland, 2001; Katz, 1987).

Crime narratives in the media can be seen as melodramatic tales of villains, victims and heroes (Wright, 2015). It is through these stories that we are made aware of those outsiders who need to be expelled from our community and we are reminded about what could happen to us if we were to behave in such a way. In this way, crime news stories function to mark the moral boundaries of society (Cromer, 1978; Erikson, 1966). Any ambiguity about an event or an individual is eliminated as the battle between good and evil unfolds. The suspense that is a central feature of this battle enlists us into desiring that this heroic outcome be quickly enacted (Wright, 2015; see also Anker, 2005; Best, 1999). It has been argued that this feature of crime narratives in the media can serve to affect audiences in particular ways and can stimulate moral panics (Wright, 2015).

Victim-heroes in the New Zealand context

The term victim-hero is oft used to describe the primary victims of 9/11 who have come to be seen as heroes (Anker, 2005; Hume, 2004). Victim-heroes can also be secondary victims, such as intimate family members of primary victims. The victim-hero is characterised by his/her suffering and by his/her actions of retribution in an effort to redeem the virtue of his/her loved one or of themselves (Anker, 2005; Williams, 1998). Victim-heroes have played an important role in debates about crime and justice in the New Zealand context since the late 1990s. In 1997, Norm Withers, whose elderly mother had been brutally attacked by a stranger while minding his shop one afternoon in Christchurch, made a public call for harsher penalties to be handed down to violent offenders. Two years later Mark Middleton, the stepfather to a young girl who had been tortured and murdered in 1989, made threats on a television show to kill her murderer if a parole board was to release him (the murderer).

The appearance of these two figures helped to crystallise and direct public anger about perceived rising levels of violent crime and the apparent lack of appropriate government attention to these at a time when a realignment of power in penal affairs in New Zealand was beginning to take place (Pratt and Clarke, 2005). Understandably, many New Zealanders were outraged by the attack on Norm Withers’ mother and most could also empathise with Middleton’s plight. That Middleton was charged with ‘intent to kill’ and received a suspended sentence brushed abruptly against public feelings of what was ‘just’ (Pratt and Clarke, 2005). In 2001 an anti-crime group called the Sensible Sentencing Trust (SST) was formed. The group had an objective to place pressure on the government to respond to everyday New Zealanders’ concerns and use ‘common sense’ when making decisions to do with violent offenders. The impact of the SST on the shape of the public debate about law and order at that time was significant. Pratt and Clarke (2005: 306) contend that the law and order component of the 2002 general election campaign was effectively led by the SST, “with politicians running to catch up to their demands”.

It is against this backdrop that the figure of the bereaved mother, whose child has been a victim of a heinous crime, becomes an especially salient one (see Rock, 1998). Needless to say, the experience of the bereaved parent is a horrific one and his or her feelings of injustice at the behest of the criminal justice system are undoubtedly genuine. As argued, the death of a child goes against our sense of the natural order of things. Further, as Gekoski et al. (2013) point out, those bereaved by homicide are largely invisible as they are a group that is undocumented across history, unrecorded in criminal statistics and inadequately researched. The process of mourning involves dealing with criminal justice agents who may be insensitive as well as criminal justice processes that can be mystifying, which can compound one’s grief and magnify one’s feelings that what has happened to one is dreadfully unfair (Gekoski et al., 2013; King, 2004). Nevertheless, Garland (2001) has argued that the ‘return of the ‘victim’ in discourses about penal affairs has come about in part in relation to a media preference to report personalised accounts of being let down by the system, rather than present objective policy analyses of the system’s practices. The personal distress of victims is routinely presented to us as a form of entertainment, as a spectacle (Jewkes, 2011; Rock, 1998). So, while it is important to acknowledge a bereaved parent’s experience, it is just as important to examine the stories of this experience and to consider how these stories might affect those who receive it. A critical narrative criminology is concerned with such stories (see Presser and Sandberg, 2015). This paper examines media stories about two bereaved mothers who are characterised as victim-heroes crusading for justice in the New Zealand context with a concern to understand why these stories appear to have influenced a set of responses from lawmakers.

The first mother is Lesley Elliott. Her daughter, Sophie Elliott, was killed at her home by an ex-boyfriend in 2009. Lesley was at the house at the time her daughter was murdered. Only months after the trial for Sophie Elliott’s killer, the Crimes (Provocation Repeal) Amendment Act was passed into law, abolishing the partial defence of provocation. The defence had been unsuccessfully used by Sophie’s killer to argue that his brutal and sustained stabbing of her had resulted from her calling him obscenities and lunging at him with a pair of scissors. Lesley and her family had publically stated that the defence should be removed and that it could be ‘Sophie’s legacy’ if it was (Hartevelt, 2009a). Legal commentators have since argued that the repeal of the provocation defence undermines 500 years of legal history and has the potential to destabilise the accuracy of the criminal justice system (see Gale, 2010; Gay, 2009). Further, in 2011, the Criminal Procedure Act was passed by the New Zealand parliament. This Act purported to increase efficiency in the New Zealand courts and was heralded as the most significant change to procedural matters of criminal justice for 50 years (Finn et al., 2013). Its provisions include the promotion of out of court discussions, the early transfer of serious cases to upper Courts and the removal of some jury trials. Significantly, Lesley and her family’s experiences of the criminal justice system as bereaved family members, as told by the media, was said to have “deeply affected” key political bodies involved in the law’s implementation (Collins, 2009; New Zealand Herald, 2011). Lesley also wrote a book, Sophie’s Legacy, to honour her daughter and later established the Sophie Elliott Foundation which provides information and resources for young women experiencing abusive relationships. In October 2014, Lesley won a ‘Woman of Influence 2015’ award, and in June 2015 she was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the prevention of domestic violence.

The second mother is Tracey Marceau. Her daughter, Christie Marceau, was murdered at her home by a former co-worker, on the morning of 7 November 2011. Like Lesley, Tracey was also present at the time, and her daughter died in her arms. Tracey and her supporters have campaigned for ‘Christie’s Law’, an anti-bail law. Christie’s killer was on bail for another offence at the time of her murder. The campaign would coincide with the introduction of the Bail Amendment Bill to the New Zealand parliament, which was later passed as the Bail Amendment Act 2013. While Christie’s Law aimed to implement a review system for decisions made by individual judges, which was not provided for in the Bail Amendment Act, Christie’s murder and the pain that her family had endured was mentioned multiple times during the parliamentary debate on the Bill as an example for why a review of New Zealand’s bail laws was needed (Hansard, 2013a, 2013b). The Bail Amendment Act 2013 reverses the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defence and so a defendant must now prove that he or she will not pose an undue risk to the community if released on bail. It has been criticised by one legal expert as an example of ‘legislative overkill’ given that it casts aside the right not to be detained arbitrarily, a right coded in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (Gledhill, 2014). Tracey also co-wrote a book with a journalist, titled Christie: A Family’s Tragic Loss and a Mother’s Fight for Justice.

Method

While there are many ways to analyse stories, the most common approach is to look for narrative structure and for narrative coherence. Presser (2012) describes structure as the organs or parts of a story and coherence as the blood, the bones and the connective tissue that binds the parts together. An analysis of a narrative structure involves examining six components: abstract (indicates a theme), orientation (identifies the context), complicating action (introduces an event or problem to be solved), evaluation (makes a point), result (tells audiences what happened) and coda (signals that the story has ended) (Labov, 1972). Abstract and coda may be left out (Presser and Sandberg, 2015). An analysis of narrative coherence involves looking at the themes of the narrative and the ways by which the parts of the text connect and build upon one another in a meaningful way (Presser, 2012). What was intended by the author and what was accomplished with the narrative might then be determined.

All stories have characters (or entities) who do things (acts) to bring about events. Characters and their acts are also affected by events in the story (Porter Abbott, 2008). We come to know the character through the author’s description of them (direct characterisation), but also through what we are told about what they say and do in relation to events (indirect characterisation). In this sense, there is a story of the character within the broader framework of the story that is being told. My analysis was concerned with how the character of the bereaved mother as a victim-hero had been developed in the two cases under examination to give insight about why they might be responded to. I was, thus, concerned with the story of the character. Following Smolej’s (2010) approach, I examined each of the stories as a narrative unit (a representation of a story of each mother as a victim-hero). To produce two independent narrative units I employed the database Factiva to source media content and used each of the women’s names in addition to each respective child’s name as search terms. I limited each sample to five mainstream print press sources in New Zealand (Dominion Post, New Zealand Herald, Southland Times, Sunday Star Times, The Press) and to a two-year time period following the date of each of the murders. Of each narrative unit, I traced the characterisation of the bereaved mother as a victim-hero by focussing on what she was depicted to have said and done. In doing this I was in effect re-crafting each narrative. I then examined the structure of each narrative via the components described above (excluding abstract and coda) and explored the coherence between the parts of each narrative. The results section, below, describes each of the stories of the bereaved mothers that I found (and re-crafted) in the narrative units. It then demonstrates what was common about their structures and about the ways they achieved coherence.

Results

The characterisation of each mother was strikingly similar. Both Lesley and Tracey were depicted as bereaved mothers, as victims of criminal justice practices and as heroes seeking justice.

Lesley

Readers are first introduced to Lesley in a report about her daughter Sophie’s funeral. They learn of the very private term of endearment Lesley used for her daughter as she signs off on a letter to Sophie she reads there “rest in peace, pussycat” (Hartevelt, 2008). Headlines speak of Sophie’s “life of promise” (Hartevelt, 2008) and reports quote friends who describe a bright, engaging and fun-loving girl who would be dearly missed.

Subsequent reports reveal that Lesley had heard her daughter Sophie’s screams and had tried to enter the room in which her ex-boyfriend was stabbing her. Readers are told of her desperation to save Sophie and her sense of helplessness at not being able to pry open the door to the room with a meat skewer (New Zealand Herald, 2008). She speaks of how the murder has shattered the lives of her and her family. All she wants to do is hug her child and be able to talk to her (New Zealand Herald, 2008).

Once the trial process begins with a depositions hearing for Sophie’s attacker almost five mother later, reports relay that Lesley’s experience of giving evidence at the depositions hearing had been ‘traumatic’ and that she thinks it is ‘hideous’ that she’ll have to do it all again at the trial. She feels that her family’s lives are ‘on hold’ as the trial date is set for a year later. Lesley and her family are ‘in despair’ at the length of time between the first hearings and the trial. The delay is cruel and is prolonging her grief (Arnold, 2009).

As the trial date approaches the Elliott family were said to be ‘fortifying’ themselves for the ordeal (Meng-Yee, 2009). The trial had been moved from their home in Dunedin to Christchurch, a city almost 400 kilometres away. It meant that the family would have to find alternative accommodation. Lesley, readers are told, is already “drugged to the hilt” in order to sleep. The family feel like victims all over again (Meng-Yee, 2009). They want justice, however:

We just want justice to be done and for us to be able to move into a space that we can control and think about our daughter without this lingering cloud hanging over us. For Soph, we will fight on. (Meng-Yee, 2009)

Reports of events after the trial relay that Lesley felt powerless after she gave evidence at the trial for the first two days, as she had not opportunity to rebut what the defence team would say about Sophie (Hartevelt, 2009a). Reports remind at this time of how her life would “never be the same” (Southland Times, 2009). She plans to challenge the use of the provocation defence in New Zealand criminal cases and this will be a legacy to New Zealanders from her deceased daughter (Hartevelt, 2009a). She also has a gift for Sophie: she will do something to make young women aware of the warning signs of abusive relationships. “Lesley Elliott was unable to save her daughter from an ex-boyfriend’s murderous rage, but is determined to steer other young women away from abusive relationships as a legacy for Sophie Elliott” (Booker, 2009).

After the sentencing hearing some seven weeks later, readers learn that the horror of the day her daughter was murdered is never far from her mind (Hartevelt, 2009b). Lesley takes Sophie’s ashes with her whenever she travels and she shouts abuse at the prison where her daughter’s killer is incarcerated as she drives past it (Hartevelt, 2009b). She hopes that plans to speak to young girls as her legacy for Sophie will not be overwhelming. She is quoted: “I don’t know where it’s going to go. I have to be careful that I don’t get into something that I can’t cope with” (Hartevelt, 2009b).

National Sunday newspaper Sunday Star Times then runs a feature article on the criminal case, which documents the various ‘offences’ the Elliotts had been subject to at the behest of the criminal justice system. Lesley features in the report as the ‘spokesperson’ for the family and the public is called to act heroically for her:

Sophie Elliott’s mother, Lesley, told the SST last week that a huge emotional and financial stress has been placed on her family by the recent trial … she and her husband Gil have had to re-mortgage the house … the justice system needs a shake-up – it’s the least we can do for families. (Pepperell, 2009)

A little over a month later, Lesley is quoted as saying that there was no justification in bringing clear-cut cases, where the offender is found at the murder scene, to trial: “At the end of the day, the reason for killing is irrelevant. Thou shalt not kill. Why do we waste our taxpayer dollars on these?” (Cairns, 2009). Towards the second anniversary of her daughter’s death a letter written by Lesley to her daughter is published verbatim in the Sunday Star Times under the headline “Dear Soph …” (Sunday Star Times, 2009). It is a very moving letter. Lesley speaks of treasured artefacts and of memories shared with Sophie. She tells Sophie about things that have been happening that Sophie can no longer share in. She tells Sophie of the gulf that her death has left. She tells Sophie of her plans to help young women and how she knows that Sophie would want her to make a difference.

Tracey

The first headline in the narrative unit for Tracey Marceau reads: ‘Bail laws stole our daughter’ (Leask, 2011). In the opening paragraph of the accompanying article readers are introduced to Tracey and her husband Brian as ‘heartbroken’ parents, who want a change in bail laws “so that no other parent will endure such pain” (Leask, 2011). The Marceaus want several law changes: they want bail to be harder to secure; they want the experiences of victims to be further valued in criminal justice proceedings than they currently are; they want alleged offenders to be subject to rigorous risk assessment procedures when bail is considered for those persons; and they want for victims to be given full details of their alleged offender’s bail conditions (Leask, 2011). Tracey is quoted: “We’ve got to do this for Christie … It won’t bring Christie back but hopefully it will save other people” (Leask, 2011). The article also names the campaign – it is the ‘Christie’s Law’ campaign. Tracey makes a direct call to us to support it, as she is quoted: “We need the community, the country, to get behind us” (Leask, 2011). She and Brian had organised a rally to be held outside the high court supporting the Christie’s Law campaign. She is described as ‘teary-eyed’ as she addresses the crowd to thank them. It is reported that she wears a pendant containing her child’s ashes. “This is all I’ve been left with” (Fuatai and Gay, 2012), she is quoted to say while holding the pendant.

In April of 2012 readers are told that the Justice Minister has written to the Marceau family, encouraging them to make a submission on a bill to tighten bail laws. The letter has given Tracey hope that the work put into the Christie’s Law campaign has been taken seriously (Leask, 2012a). However, it has done little to dull the pain that they are anticipating to feel on Christie’s birthday, which is fast approaching. Tracey will buy a new charm for Christie’s charm bracelet and she has vowed to do this for every birthday (Leask, 2012a).

A month later it is revealed that Christie’s killer is also facing charges of threatening Christie and assaulting her. Readers are told that the family are ‘bracing themselves’ for ‘a double serve of heartbreak’ at the prospect that this could mean two separate trials. Tracey is said to be extremely upset and is ‘dreading the day’ she has to go to court to face the killer of her ‘princess’ (Leask, 2012b). Two trials would impede her grief process and intensify her feelings of guilt at not being able to save her daughter. “‘It’s going to bring up memories that my counsellors and doctors have been working so hard to relieve,’ she said” (Leask, 2012b).

Readers are told of a petition the Marceau family had organised as a way to gather support for the Christie’s Law campaign, and that they had presented it at parliament. It so far had 58,000 signatures. Readers are told of the depth of Tracey’s pain at losing her daughter as she addressed the crowd there: “In tears … Mrs Marceau said the death of her daughter had ruined her life. ‘The pain we endure every day is horrible and almost unbearable, a true life sentence’” (Cowlishaw, 2012).

Just over two months later, as she makes an oral submission to a select committee hearing on the Bail Amendment Bill: “‘We will never recover,’ said Mrs Marceau, holding the box containing Christie’s ashes. ‘But her death was preventable. Christie and our pleas for safety were ignored. This resulted in an unimaginable nightmare’” (Leask, 2012c). She is also quoted as saying to the committee: “‘You can’t save my baby or me but you can help the people’ of New Zealand” (Johnston, 2012a).

In October 2012, Christie’s killer was found not guilty of her murder by reason of insanity and sentenced to three years jail, which was to be served concurrently with an indefinite confinement in a psychiatric facility. Readers are told that the Marceau family find the sentence ‘insufficient’ and that they will continue with their crusade: “Mother Tracey Marceau said she would continue to fight for harsher bail laws and judges’ accountability in the name of her daughter. ‘That is very strong on our agenda,’ she said” (Johnston, 2012b). A month later the Bail Amendment Bill was approved by the law and order committee. Tracey is ecstatic and she is quoted to say: “I feel that perhaps they are starting to listen to the voice of the people (Davison, 2012). A year later Tracey is telling ‘Christie’s story’ at a symposium on homicide in Adelaide and hopes to affect changes in law there (New Zealand Herald, 2013).

Campaigning mothers

To examine the characterisation of both Lesley Elliott and Tracey Marceau within media narratives of crusades for justice is not to deny that each of these women sought to have their experiences of loss and injustice publically validated and addressed. Each mother deprivatised her grief for the sake of a sense of a greater good (see Edwards and Brozana, 2008). Each of them engaged in practices to prevent the kind of events that had led to the death of their child from happening to others. Each mother also spoke to the media when afforded the opportunity. An examination of their characterisation by the media is also not to suggest that there is something extraordinary about their activities or that causes that arise from personal experiences may not lead to more just practices or policy. Bereaved mothers have headed a variety of campaigns for change, many of which have led to more equitable outcomes for victims. Examples include Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in the US, Mothers Against Impaired Driving (MAID) in New Zealand and Mothers Against Murder and Aggression (MAMAA) in the UK. In Australia, Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) campaign against the continued removal of aboriginal children from their homes. Mothers who protested against the US-Iraq war and those who are currently mobilised in demonstrations against police brutality in the US are other cases in point. Moreover, the changes to the legal code in New Zealand have been seen by some commentators to be positive ones. The removal of the provocation defence in New Zealand was a result that many felt was long overdue (see Gay, 2009), and the Criminal Procedure Act would mean some drug cases could be heard in a district court (and not a high court, which was hitherto the case) saving hours of unnecessary court time (see Dominion Post, 2008).

The concern of this paper was to unpack the characterisation of each mother by the media with a view to consider why key changes to legal codes in New Zealand could have come about in relation to calls for justice made by them via the media. Each mother was characterised and her suffering was narrated in a particular way by the media. As such, her appearance in the media must be seen as something more than ‘her story’, as told by her in a strategic move on her behalf to garner attention for her fight for justice, though arguably being in the media may have advanced that interest (Edwards and Brozana, 2008).

Two ‘stories’

An examination of the structure of each narrative found that each told two separate stories: (i) a story of the mother as a victim and (ii) a story of the mother as a hero, each of which was central to her characterisation. I consider the structures of these stories before I examine the ways in which they were meaningfully put together in the narratives. In the story of the victim each mother was both a secondary victim of the murder of her child and a primary victim of criminal justice practices. The orientation, or context of the story, is of profound heartbreak, which has been compounded and prolonged. Sophie was Lesley’s ‘pussycat’ and her murder has shattered Lesley and her family. Christie was Tracey’s ‘princess’ and her death feels like a life sentence has been handed down to her family.

There are several complicating actions of the story. Lesley tried desperately to save her daughter from her killer, but couldn’t. Tracey feels as though her daughter was stolen from her, and that bail laws were to blame. Both mothers dread attending court to face her child’s killer. Lesley finds having to give evidence twice hideous and the delays between these trials cruel. Tracey feels the sentence handed down to Christie’s killer is inadequate.

The evaluation (the point of the story) therefore, is that the justice system re-victimises those who have already suffered horrendously. The resolution is for each mother to leave a legacy for each child by seeking changes to the system. Lesley vows to challenge the provocation defence. She will also speak to young girls about abusive relationships. Tracey plans to fight bail laws in the name of her daughter.

The evaluation and resolution of the victim story sets the context for the hero story, which also places focus on the mothers’ agency. Lesley is gearing up for a battle. She will fight for justice, for Sophie. Tracey sets about campaigning for an overhaul of bail laws, for Christie and for other New Zealanders. Lesley wants victims to feel empowered throughout trial processes. She makes claims about the efficiency (or lack thereof) of the system. Tracey speaks at rallies, appears before select committees and organises a petition to gather support for Christie’s Law. She calls for community support. She then transports her crusade to Australia. These are the complicating actions (events) of the hero story. The evaluation of the hero story is that the justice system requires systemic change. The resolution is for each mother to directly act to bring about such change.

The theme of ‘justice’ (or lack thereof) was thus prominent in both the victim story and the hero story. In the victim story, justice was depicted as something denied. In the hero story, justice was to be fought for. However, it was the larger cultural story of motherhood that provided a connection between the stories. The stories came together in each narrative as each mother was shown to continue being a mother. Lesley wrote letters to Sophie, and Tracey bought gifts for Christie. Each narrative depicted changes in the state of emotional motherhood and illustrated new practices of mothering. Mothering in the wake of a violent death involves carrying ashes and shouting at prisons. It also involves sitting through trials, organising petitions and addressing political subcommittees. The pursuit of justice became part of their mothering and their motherhood was extended as a result.

Nevertheless, the narratives did not move from the victim story to the hero story in a linear way, as the analysis of the story structures suggest they might have. Instead, in each narrative the hero story was entangled in the victim story. Lesley would fight for justice although in despair and drugged to the hilt. Tracey was hopeful after receiving the letter from the Justice Minister, but would feel the pain of her daughter’s loss on her birthday. Lesley was additionally concerned that her plans to speak to young women about abusive relationships might overwhelm her, and Tracey feared that a double trial could undo the progress she has made in dealing with her grief. This served as a reminder that each mother remained a victim and that her heroic practices were tentative. Hence a central feature of each narrative was an uncertainty; a sense of suspense.

Discussion

I have argued that the media characterised each bereaved mother by telling two stories about her: a victim story and a hero story. Each of these stories featured the theme of justice and they were connected by the theme of motherhood. Indeed, the pursuit of justice became part of an extended motherhood in each narrative. However, it was the way by which these stories were told – that is, interspersed with each other – that can be seen to be significant for their ability to affect decisions made by lawmakers. What might account for this practice of telling? As argued, crime stories in the media tend to be melodramatic tales of a battle between good and evil. Melodramas illustrate their central characters – victims, villains and heroes – in highly exaggerated ways so as to clearly illustrate which side of the battle each of these characters are on, and whose side we, the audience, should also be on (Anker, 2005). Anker (2005) argues that a melodrama displays to audiences the depths of the victim’s suffering so that they (audiences) will come to empathise with them as well as be angry at the villain. Audiences are held in suspense as the drama between the characters ensues and they become anxious to have a hero step in to save the day. A sense of suspense keeps news consumers interested and so the corporate interests of a publication can be met by facilitating it (Johnson-Cartee, 2005). I am not suggesting that the five publications I drew the narrative units from consciously worked together to produce a particular narrative to meet particular objectives, though it is notable that both ‘stories’ featured in many of the individual articles in the narrative units. Nevertheless, I am concerned with what the narratives accomplished irrespective of any intention behind their construction. I submit that it is possible that audiences felt anxious for lawmakers (the heroes) to alleviate each mother (the victims) from the pain she felt during her engagement with the criminal justice system (the villain). Indeed, the public were called upon to act heroically for Lesley at one point (Pepperell, 2009). However, I propose that it is more likely that audiences would feel nervous about the bereaved mothers’ commitment to continue the new, heroic practices of mothering. By weaving the story of the hero and the story of the victim together, both narratives suggested that the victim-hero character was an unstable one. It was not a drama between characters that ensued, but a drama between the features of a characterisation.

I suggest that this drama very possibly enlisted a desire on behalf of audiences for her to continue mothering, despite her pain, concern and fear. And that in order for her to continue her mothering, her call for justice, as enacted in the media narrative which featured her, necessitated a response. As discussed, motherhood is the ultimate sign of femininity. It also serves the prevailing social order that is structured around the nuclear family unit (see Young, 1996). Therefore, while each of the bereaved mothers’ sense of being a victim as she negotiated her way through the new practices of mothering might have been empathised with, it was imperative that she continue to do them. Indeed, because motherhood is understood as a state that ‘dares all things and crushes down without remorse’, any other action on her behalf could potentially bring motherhood under question. If motherhood can be seen to have an end point, we would have to rethink how we discipline women who opt out of motherhood. Criminologists would have to consider what other identities might be available to assist young women who have engaged in low level offending to change their ways. We would also have to reconsider the ways by which we criminalise those women who fail to protect their children and demonise those who offend against their children. In this sense, the call for justice enacted by the media was in effect a call to maintain motherhood. In turn, with changes made to the legal code, cultural understandings of the good mother were upheld.

It is notable that both Sophie Elliott and Christie Marceau were young and attractive. Each of them was at her home, her normal place of safety, and each suffered a violent fate at the hands of a deranged killer.¹ They were thus, in effect, ‘ideal victims’ (Christie, 1986). Each of them was also Pākehā, a feature not incidental in a society with a colonial history and significant social-cultural disparities between the indigenous Māori and the settler peoples (Walker, 2004).² Additionally, both Lesley and Tracey were archetypical ‘good mothers’ before their bereavement. As one commentator wrote in an opinion piece that appeared in the media right after the trial for Sophie Elliott’s killer:

Over the years, few court cases have got under my skin as much as Clayton Weatherston’s trial. That’s probably because from the sounds of it, Lesley Elliott had the same sort of relationship with her daughter, Sophie, that I have with mine. A loving relationship. An honest one. A relationship full of fun and common interests and one that you imagine will sustain you for years to come. (Woodham, 2009)

Should Lesley (or Tracey) have been another kind of mother, of a different kind of child, then it is likely that a different engagement with the narrative would have occurred. The story of another bereaved mother in the New Zealand context at about the same time demonstrates this well. Leanne Cameron’s son Pihema was chased and stabbed to death by 50-year-old Bruce Emery. Pihema had been writing graffiti on Emery’s property which had made Emery angry. Leanne also felt aggrieved at the justice system after Emery was convicted only of manslaughter and given a four year sentence. Yet, despite Leanne’s public pleas for justice, there was no sustained move for legal change following the case. In fact, it was argued that a great deal of New Zealanders could identify with Emery and that while the death of Pihema was sad, it was time to “see the brighter side of life” (Comesky, cited in NZPA, 2009). After Emery’s release from jail after serving only two years, Leanne is quoted to have said:

Holy hell, I am gutted with New Zealand justice. This is disgusting. He didn’t even serve half his sentence. So he can kill a kid and get away with it. He’s white and me and my boy are brown …. That’s how it works. (Meng-Yee, 2010)

It is also significant that Woodham (2009) indicates that her knowledge about Lesley comes from an abstract, elusive site: ‘from the sounds of it’. This may be a way to distance the media characterisation of Lesley, either consciously or unconsciously. This distancing is made particularly overt in one editorial:

Ah, the power of mothers …. Last week, the combination of an upset mother and a frustrated judge helped return the Criminal Procedure Bill … the bill will allow occasional exceptions to the double jeopardy rule, 11-1 jury verdicts and for methamphetamine trials … to be heard by District Court juries. It will also dispense … with pre-trial depositions hearings …. That such hearings will largely end owes much to a seemingly calculated decision by Lesley Elliott. (Dominion Post, 2008)

The editorial goes on to explain that while Lesley complained about having to give evidence at a depositions trial and then again at the actual trial, victims were not by law required to do so (Dominion Post, 2008).

‘Distancing’ might be said to re-establish the sense that the media are ‘objective’ and ‘impartial’ conveyers of ‘news’, which in turn suggests that the ‘crusades’ of each mother are authentic. It can be seen as a strategy of denial by the media that they have played a part in creating a story (Durrheim et al., 2005). Indeed, each of the above passages remind us that the media are active in multiple ways in defining reality (Ericson et al., 1987) and that one of these ways consists of deterring audiences from a critical engagement with their discourses.

Conclusion and implications

I call for a more sustained level of attention in criminology upon understandings of the good mother. An understanding of the good mother underpins much of our practices and we should reflect critically upon these in upholding the cultural narrative of motherhood. We must also be wary of the extension of motherhood into a battle for justice beyond death. What implications might there be for the practices of restorative justice, or for the provision of parole, if a ‘good mother’ is understood to be one who does not accept her child’s death, or, say, will not forgive an offender for deeds done against her child? We additionally need to unpack the practices by which the good mother is characterised in stories about her in the news media. These practices may produce features that have the potential to affect audiences. I have argued in this paper that the storytelling of two good mothers who were bereaved by homicide have effected changes to the legal code in New Zealand, changes that have been interpreted as undermining legal history, destabilising the accuracy of the criminal justice system and as ‘legislative overkill’. We also need to regularly reflect upon the authority of the press both to characterise and to create distance for itself from practices of characterisation. Ultimately, we need to think more about good mothers in our discipline as there are social, legal and practical consequences of an understanding of a mother’s love as something that knows no law or pity.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biography

Sarah Wright is a Lecturer in Criminology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research is focused on three interrelated areas: the crime/media nexus, the processes and practices of moral panic and the nature of contests between claims about harms against the environment.

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