How the coverage of Learco Chindamo has had a material impact on his case (and not in a good way)

'Hysteria' is a word used all too regularly about media coverage. But it would be hard not to apply it to the last 48 hours coverage of Learco Chindamo. Yesterday's and today's front pages have been dominated by his imminent release and by the decision not to deport him to Italy.

But today's stories have a strange circularity to them. Most talk about the Home Office papers that claim Chindamo's 'offences were so serious that he represents a genuine and present and sufficiently serious threat to the public in principle as to justify his deportation'. The Home Office claimed this partly because he was defined as 'high risk' by the multi-agency protection arrangements.

But as The Telegraph points out, 'this ranking was largely due to the media interest he would receive on release and the risk of a "backlash".' Not surprisingly since, when on day release last year, Chindamo was hounded by the press (e.g. see John Kay, 'Outrage').

Fears of media coverage also led the tribunal which decided not to send Chindamo to Italy to hold its hearings in secret - 'after extraordinary evidence from the governor of Ford open prison that "hysterical misinformed articles in the gutter press" were undermining their attempts to protect the public in Chindamo's case' (from Alan Travis, The Guardian).

So now we have yet more hysterical reporting, and yet more outrage at the supposed absurdities of the Human Rights Act.

When Chindamo is released we can assume he will be pursued by the press, that he may well respond, and that this will provoke further headlines saying the press were right all along and he should never have been released in the first place.

It's difficult to see how this benefits either Chindamo or wider society.