Punish fame seekers with jail spell

DURING my trek online to read about various news stories, I always seem to stumble upon stories where people make up things just to get fame and attention.

My most recent read was when a woman in England made false claims that a teacher had abused and sexually assaulted her daughter. This was probably the most serious one I read. However, this nut job only got 80 hours community service.

Now, I’m not expecting she gets a life sentence handed down to her, but seriously, she was near 40 when she did it. Surely a bit of common sense would have done here.

In my opinion, I think these people should get a month in jail as well as a small bit of psychiatric care. I see it all the time, people go around, making up claims just so they can get their 5-10 minutes of fame.

It’s disgusting that someone’s reputation should be tarnished. Another example is when a guy in a Dublin nightclub accused Louis Walsh of groping him. It’s fine for kids to say ‘miss, he punched me’ and throw on the crocodile tears, but these people are grown-ups, out to destroy other people just so they can be famous for however long they want.

Thankfully, the guy who accused Louis Walsh was shown up to be a bit of an attention seeker, but imagine if that had gone on longer? Imagine the damage it would have done to Louis Walsh?

At the start these things are a bit of a laugh, but to use a simile, it’s like rolling a snowball down a snowy hill, it gathers momentum, getting things stuck onto it, and it eventually increases in size into this huge, out of control lump.

Go back to the teacher with the accusations of him being a pervert. That actually could’ve ruined his teaching career all because some idiot wants to grab headlines.

Is it just me that thinks these people should get psychiatric care? The best way to stop these things from happening is to frighten people, make them aware that this is wrong and they will be punished. Throw them in jail for a bit, see how they get along crying wolf in there.

It’s always a bit of craic at first and then it escalates. It happens in school constantly too — ‘she stole money or my boyfriend, now I will ruin her’. Enough! These people just need to get lives. As Criss Jami once said, ‘“Like crying wolf, if you keep looking for sympathy as a justification for your actions you will someday be left standing alone when you really need help.”

The sooner these people get punished, the better.