title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: In his opening statement, Kerrigan stated his client would plead guilty to all charges. The Lord Advocate of Scotland, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC then outlined the facts of the case, terming the implements found in Black's van a clear sign of premeditation, and citing a medical expert's testimony that the girl would likely have suffocated within 15 minutes had she not been rescued.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Testimony was given that Black drove his victim to a lay-by to sexually abuse her, then returned through the village. In a statement read to the court, the victim stated she "didn't know [Black] was a bad man" as Black had stared at her before bundling her into his van.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: In rebuttal, Kerrigan asserted again that the abduction had been unplanned, and that Black had intended to release the girl after assaulting her. He pointed out that Black freely admitted his paedophilic preferences, and claimed to have successfully fought against the urge to abduct young girls prior to the incident at issue. He also said that Black accepted that he was a danger to children and wished to undergo treatment.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Prior to imposing sentence, Ross paid tribute to Herkes, whose vigilance had led to Black's arrest. Sentencing Black to life imprisonment for what he described as "a horrific, appalling case", Ross said he was greatly influenced by the opinion of the psychiatrists, who had concluded that Black was, and would remain, an extreme danger to children.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: In September 1990, Black announced his intention to appeal against his life sentence, but he later abandoned this. In November 1990, he was transferred to Peterhead Prison.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Two weeks after the Stow trial, Clark conducted a second, recorded interview with Black. He had appointed Andrew Watt and Roger Orr to conduct the interview, with instructions they were to tell Black that they would not be judgemental.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: In the six-hour interview, Black freely discussed his early sexual experiences, his experimentation with various forms of self-abuse, and his attraction towards young children; he also described his penchant for wearing young girls' clothing, and admitted to having sexually assaulted in excess of 30 young girls between the 1960s and 1980s. He was largely uncommunicative in response to questions even loosely pertaining to any unsolved child murders and disappearances, but said he had enticed two young girls into his van in Carlisle upon the pretext of asking for directions in late 1985, then allowed them to leave when eyewitnesses appeared.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: In the latter stages of this interview both men steered their questioning to the subject of child abduction and murder, specifically in relation to the murder of Caroline Hogg. Informing Black that police had already established he had been in Portobello on the date of Hogg's abduction, Watt and Orr then tacitly informed him they had eyewitness accounts and petrol-station receipts, further proving that he was near Portobello on the date of Hogg's abduction. Orr then produced a composite drawing of the man with whom Hogg had left the funfair, and placed this composite alongside photographs of Black dating from the early 1980s—highlighting their similarities. Black's replies then became evasive and monosyllabic. Asked directly, at the end of the interview, to confess to end the suffering of his victims' families, he did not respond.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Despite the fact the information obtained in this interview did little to advance the murder inquiry, upon the conclusion of the interview, Clark informed his two colleagues: "That's our man. I'd bet my life on it."


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Detectives from all forces in the UK linked to the joint manhunt then began an intense and painstaking endeavour to gather sufficient evidence to convince the Crown Prosecution Service to instigate legal proceedings against Black, with a reasonable chance of securing convictions. As was his legal right, Black refused to cooperate with the detectives in their investigation.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Investigators contacted Poster, Dispatch and Storage Ltd to establish whether travel records could confirm his whereabouts on crucial dates linked to the investigation. Staff at this firm were able to confirm that Black had always bought petrol using credit cards, the receipts of which he would then submit to his firm to claim expenses. These files, plus several historical delivery schedules, were still in the company's archives. Investigators discovered that Black had made scheduled delivery runs to the areas where the abductions had occurred on the relevant dates, and although the precise times he had been in the area were difficult to adduce, petrol receipts confirmed he had bought fuel close to where each girl had been abducted on the date of her disappearance. For example, on the date of Sarah Harper's disappearance, Black had been scheduled to make a series of deliveries across the Midlands and Northern England. The two final deliveries on this schedule had been in West Yorkshire: in Brighouse, then a final delivery in Morley at a firm 150 yards from Harper's home. Black had refuelled his van between these two destinations shortly before Harper had last been seen alive.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Investigators discovered that upon his return to London from his long-distance deliveries to Northern England or Scotland, Black had regularly slept overnight in a house in Donisthorpe which belonged to his landlord's son. This was close to where all three bodies had been discovered. Leeds detectives also discovered that, on his regular deliveries to Morley, Black often slept in his van overnight in the premises to which he delivered, which was close to Sarah Harper's home.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Investigators learned that Poster, Dispatch and Storage Ltd had accounts with several oil companies, which allowed their drivers to buy fuel. With the cooperation of the companies, investigators obtained seven million credit card slips archived on microfiche detailing fuel purchases paid via this method at every one of their nationwide premises between 1982 and 1986. These were sent to the reopened incident room in Newcastle upon Tyne, where a team of officers searched them for Black's distinctive signature in an effort to pinpoint precisely when and where he had bought his fuel. This laborious task bore fruit: beginning in October 1990, investigators began to discover evidence proving the precise times Black had bought fuel at petrol stations close to each abduction site. In each instance, the time of purchase had been shortly before or after each child had been abducted.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: By December 1990, the inquiry team decided they had sufficient circumstantial evidence to convince the Crown that there was a reasonable prospect of securing convictions against Black, although Clark was worried that the inquiry had not uncovered any forensic evidence to tie Black to the murders. All the evidence was submitted to the Crown in May 1991. In March 1992, Crown lawyers decided that the evidence was sufficient to try Black for the three murders and the attempted abduction of Teresa Thornhill. At a news conference held on 11 March, Hector Clark informed the press that "criminal proceedings have been issued on the authority of the Crown Prosecution Service against Robert Black".


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Several pretrial hearings were held between July 1992 and March 1994; these hearings saw Black's defence counsel submit contentions that their client be tried on each count separately, and that the prosecution not be allowed to demonstrate any similarity between the modus operandi of each offence at the upcoming trial. In the penultimate pretrial hearing, in January 1994, Judge William Macpherson ruled against defence motions to try Black on each charge separately, and also ruled to allow the prosecution to submit similar fact evidence between the cases. This ruling allowed the prosecution to make these similarities between the cases known, and to introduce into evidence Black's recent conviction for the abduction and sexual assault of the Stow schoolgirl. The prosecution was prohibited from introducing into evidence the transcript of the August 1990 interview between Black and detectives Watt and Orr.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: On 13 April 1994, Robert Black appeared before Judge William Macpherson at Moot Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne. Black pleaded not guilty to each of the 10 charges of kidnap, murder, attempted kidnap, and preventing the lawful burial of a body.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: In his opening statement on behalf of the Crown, prosecutor John Milford QC described the case to be tried as "every parent's nightmare" as he outlined the prosecution's contention that Robert Black had committed the three child murders and the attempted abduction, and the similarities between these offences and the 1990 abduction and sexual assault of the Stow schoolgirl for which Black was already serving a life sentence. Milford then described the circumstances of each abduction and murder for the jury; contending that each victim had remained alive in Black's van for several hours before her murder, and that each had been killed near the location Black had disposed of her body. In the latter stages of this five-hour opening statement, Milford contended that Black had kidnapped each victim for his own sexual gratification, and pointed out Black's extensive record of child sexual abuse and the paraphernalia discovered in his vehicle and at his London address. Milford closed his speech by stating that the petrol receipts and travel records would prove Black had been at all the abduction, attempted abduction and body recovery sites on the dates in question.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: On the second day of the trial, the prosecution began to introduce witnesses, witness statements, circumstantial evidence, and forensic testimony. This saw witnesses describing the circumstances surrounding the abduction and subsequent discovery of each victim, and investigators describing the evidence uncovered of Black's movements on the dates of each abduction, the attempted abduction of Teresa Thornhill, and the kidnapping and assault of the Stow schoolgirl. Contemporary statements made by the mother of each murder victim at the time of her child's abduction were also read to the court, alongside testimony from the pathologists who had examined the bodies. Upon hearing the details of the kidnaps and murders, relatives of the three murder victims wept openly in court. Black rarely displayed any interest throughout the proceedings, typically remaining expressionless.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Several of these initial witnesses were subjected to intense cross-examination by Black's defence counsel, Ronald Thwaites, upon issues such as memory accuracy and minor discrepancies between times logged in record books at a firm to which Black had made a delivery on the date of Susan Maxwell's disappearance and those of petrol receipts introduced as evidence (this discrepancy was proven to be an administrative error), and earlier police statements given by the witnesses. Most witnesses maintained their insistence of the accuracy and honesty of their testimony.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: One of the witnesses cross-examined on the third day of the trial was James Fraser, a forensic scientist, who had examined more than 300 items recovered from Black's van and his London lodgings; Fraser conceded that in over 1,800 microscopic comparisons, no forensic link had been established between Black and the three victims. In direct re-examination by John Milford, Fraser said that the interval between the offences and Black's arrest, and the fact Black had only bought the van in which he was arrested in 1986, would make establishing a forensic link between the three murders unlikely.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: The final prosecution witnesses to testify were detectives from the police forces involved in the manhunt; they testified on 29 April, and much of their testimony described the scope of the investigation while Black had been at large, and the painstaking inquiries to gather evidence. The final detective to testify was Hector Clark, who testified that Black's name had never been entered into the HOLMES database during the manhunt due to his conviction pre-dating the timescale of those judged to warrant further investigation. Clark further explained he could not recall any other cases where children had been abducted, killed and their bodies transported considerable distances, before stating: "I don't believe there has been a bigger crime investigation in the United Kingdom, ever."


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: On 4 May, Ronald Thwaites began to outline his case in defence of Black. Thwaites reminded the jury the police had been unsuccessfully investigating these crimes for eight years before Black's 1990 arrest and conviction for the Stow abduction, and asserted that the investigators had seized on this case in an attempt to scapegoat his client to appease their feelings of "frustration and failure", and in an effort to restore broken reputations. Thwaites claimed that, although the paraphernalia introduced into evidence attested to his client's admitted obsession with paedophilic material, no direct evidence existed to prove Black had progressed from molester to murderer. Describing his decision not to permit Black to testify on his own behalf in relation to the petrol receipts and travel records, Thwaites informed the jury: "No man can be expected to remember the ordinary daily routine of his life going back many years." Thwaites then began to introduce witnesses to testify on behalf of the defence, and continued to do so until 10 May.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: To support Thwaites' contention that the three murders were not part of a series and had not been committed by Black, much of the testimony delivered by the defence witnesses referred to sightings of alternative suspects and suspicious vehicles near each abduction. The evidence delivered by these eyewitnesses contradicted that of those who had earlier testified on behalf of the prosecution. For example, Thomas Ball testified that on the date of Susan Maxwell's abduction, he had observed a girl matching her description striking a maroon Triumph saloon with a tennis racket. This car had contained at least two men, and the location Ball had seen this incident was very close to the site of Maxwell's abduction.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: On 12 May, both counsel delivered their closing arguments to the jury. Prosecutor John Milford argued first; opening his final address to the jury by describing the circumstances of Black's 1990 arrest and recounting the extensive circumstantial evidence presented throughout the trial, and emphasising the fact no physical evidence existed due to the interval between the offences and Black's arrest. In reference to the defence argument that Black's close proximity to each of the abduction and body disposal sites of the dates in question was mere coincidence, Milford stated that if this defence contention were true, it would be "the coincidence to end all coincidences". Milford then requested that the jury reach a guilty verdict.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Thwaites delivered his closing arguments on behalf of the defence. He began by asking the jury: "Where is the jury that will acquit a pervert of multiple murder?" before describing his client as someone against whom ample prejudice existed, but no hard evidence. Thwaites pressed upon the jury the necessity to differentiate between a child sex pervert and an alleged child killer, before attacking the credibility of several prosecution witnesses, and pouring particular scorn upon the nationwide manhunt, stating: "The police have become exhausted in not finding anyone; the public are clamouring for a result. What good are you if you can't catch a child killer? The police were under continuing, unbearable pressure, then they find Mr Black. Is he their salvation, or a convenient, expendable scapegoat?" Thwaites then referred to defence witness testimony which indicated someone else had committed the three murders, before resting his case.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Judge Macpherson delivered his final instructions to the jury on 16 May and the following morning. In his final address, Judge Macpherson implored the jury to discard any emotion or personal distaste for Black's extensive history of sexual offences against children when considering their verdict, and not to prejudge his guilt because of his 1990 conviction for the abduction and sexual assault of the Stow schoolgirl. Judge Macpherson further directed the jury to instead focus on the evidence presented at the trial and decide whether the "interlocking similarities" between the cases presented were sufficient to convince them of Black's guilt, before reminding them that any conclusions of guilt on one charge must not determine guilt on the remaining nine charges they were to debate. The jury then received strict instructions against reading newspapers, watching television or making any telephone calls, before retiring to consider their verdict. These deliberations continued for two days.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: On 19 May, the jury found Black guilty of three counts of kidnapping, three counts of murder, three counts of preventing the lawful burial of a body and—in relation to Teresa Thornhill—one count of attempted abduction. He was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment for each of these counts, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 35 years on each of the three murder charges. These life sentences were to be served concurrently. Passing sentence, Judge Macpherson described Black as being the perpetrator of "offences which are unlikely ever to be forgotten and which represent a man at his most vile".


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Black remained unmoved upon receipt of this sentence, but as he prepared to leave the dock, he turned to the detectives from the various forces present at his sentencing who, since 1982, had been involved in his manhunt and proclaimed, "Tremendous. Well done, boys." This statement caused several of the detectives to weep. Black was then taken to Wakefield prison, to begin his sentence in the segregation unit, as a Category A prisoner.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Immediately following these convictions, the more than 20 detectives involved in the manhunt who had been present at his sentencing addressed the press assembled outside Moot Hall, with Hector Clark stating: "The tragedy is these three beautiful children who should never have died. Black is the most evil of characters and I hope there is not now or ever another one like him." When asked his personal feelings towards Robert Black, Clark stated: "Black is a man of the most evil kind, but no longer important to me. I care not about him."


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: On 15 December 2009, Black was summoned to appear at Armagh Crown Court in Northern Ireland to answer charges relating to the 1981 murder of Jennifer Cardy. He was formally charged the following day.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Black appeared at Armagh Crown Court, charged with the 1981 sexual assault of Jennifer Cardy, on 22 September 2011. He was tried before Judge Ronald Weatherup, and acknowledged that he may have been in Northern Ireland on the date of Cardy's abduction, but pleaded not guilty to the charges.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Circumstantial evidence attesting to Black's guilt of Cardy's murder had been obtained by Northern Ireland investigators searching through petrol receipts—560,000 in total—stored in his former employer's archives to ascertain Black's whereabouts on the dates surrounding the abduction and murder. Black's trial began with the prosecutor, Toby Hedworth, stating that the discovery of Black's signature upon these receipts was as good as signing his own confession.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: On the second day of the trial, prosecutors introduced into evidence petrol receipts proving he had been near Ballinderry on the date of her abduction. Further evidence presented at trial included a salary ledger proving Black had been paid £50, which had only been given to drivers from his firm who made deliveries to Northern Ireland, and an order book confirming a delivery of billboard posters had been due near Ballinderry on the date of the abduction. Black was one of only two employees of Poster Dispatch and Storage Ltd willing to travel to Northern Ireland due to the Troubles, and travel records from all other drivers employed at this firm eliminated them from any culpability on the date of Cardy's abduction. The records also showed that, on the night of the abduction, Black had boarded an overnight ferry from Northern Ireland to Liverpool, before refuelling his van in Coventry the following day, en route to London.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: In an effort to discredit the prosecution's contention that Black had been making deliveries to Ireland, Black's defence counsel, David Spens, suggested on the fourth day of the trial the Coventry petrol receipt could only indicate Black had been making deliveries to Coventry on the day after Cardy's murder; in rebuttal, Toby Hedworth questioned a colleague of Black's, who confirmed the firm did not make deliveries to Coventry in the early 1980s.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: To further support the prosecution's contention that Cardy's murder had been committed by Black, Nathaniel Cary, a forensic pathologist, testified on the 11th day of the trial to the similarities between Cardy's abduction and murder, and that of Sarah Harper. Cary testified that the circumstances of the two girls' deaths were "remarkably similar", and that the injuries inflicted upon both girls' bodies strongly suggested both girls had been alive, albeit likely unconscious, when their bodies had been placed in water.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Black's second murder trial lasted six weeks, and the jury deliberated for four hours before delivering their verdict. On 27 October, he was found guilty of Cardy's abduction, sexual assault, and murder. Black was given a further life sentence, with hearings deferred on the minimum term to be served.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: On 8 December, Judge Weatherup imposed a minimum term of 25 years. Weatherup informed Black: "Your crime was particularly serious; you subjected a vulnerable child to unpardonable terror and took away her life." Prior to his final sentencing for this fourth murder, Black's defence lawyer, David Spens, informed the court that no plea for mercy could be offered for his client, stating that the case in question was "one of those rare cases in which there is no mitigation, and so I propose to say nothing in that regard."


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: At his sentencing for his fourth murder, Black was informed that he would be at least 89 before he would be considered for release.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: The eight-year, nationwide inquiry which culminated in the 1990 arrest of Robert Black proved to be one of the longest, most exhaustive and costly British murder investigations of the 20th century. By the time investigators had amassed enough evidence to convince the Crown Prosecution Service to charge Black with the three child murders and the attempted abduction of Thornhill, the dossier they had assembled was estimated to weigh 22 tonnes. The total cost of the inquiry is estimated to be £12 million.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Robert Black appealed against his 1994 convictions. His appeal was heard before Lord Taylor at the Court of Appeal on 20 February 1995. Black contended he had been denied a fair trial due to details of his 1990 abduction and sexual assault charges being introduced as similar fact evidence at his trial, a ruling his defence counsel had fundamentally objected to. Black also contended that the final instructions delivered to the jury by Judge Macpherson had been unbalanced. Black's appeal hearing had been expected to last three days, but at the end of the first day, Lord Taylor refused leave to appeal the conviction on the grounds that Black's trial had been fair, and that none of his contentions could be substantiated.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: In July 1995, Black was attacked in his cell at Wakefield prison by two fellow inmates, who threw boiling water mixed with sugar over him, bludgeoned him with a table leg, then stabbed him in the back and neck with an improvised knife. Black sustained superficial wounds, burns and bruising in this attack; his attackers were jailed for three further years after admitting wounding Black with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Black never admitted responsibility in any of the murders of which he was convicted or suspected, and refused to cooperate with investigators, in spite of having little hope of ever being freed. According to Ray Wyre, a pioneer in the treatment of sex offenders who conducted several interviews with Black between 1990 and 1993, the prime reason for this was an issue of control for Black. Wyre summarised the psychology behind Black's refusal to cooperate with investigators: He's the sort of person for whom it's all about power and control. Having information about what he's done gives him power. He has no desire to ease his conscience, and he's not going to give up the one thing that gives him power over the pain that his victims' families are suffering. The closest Black ever came to confessing to any of his crimes was shortly before his 1994 trial, when Wyre asked why he had never denied any of the charges brought against him. According to Wyre, Black replied, "Because I couldn't."


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Black died from a heart attack at HMP Maghaberry on 12 January 2016, aged 68. His body was cremated at Roselawn Crematorium, outside Belfast, on 29 January. No family or friends were present at this service. In this short service, the Presbyterian chaplain of HMP Maghaberry, the Reverend Rodney Cameron, read a section of Psalm 90. Black's ashes were scattered at sea in February 2016.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Police believe that Black had committed more murders than the four for which he was convicted, with senior detectives believing the true number of victims he had killed to be at least eight. In July 1994, a meeting was convened between senior detectives from the six police forces involved in the nationwide manhunt for Black, and representatives from other UK forces with unsolved missing child and child murder cases. The meeting assessed the evidence investigators had assembled to establish whether Black had killed other children.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: In 2008, the Crown Prosecution Service stated that insufficient evidence existed to charge Black with any further murders.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: Black has been linked to 14 further child murders and disappearances across the UK, Ireland, and continental Europe committed between 1969 and 1989.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 8 April 1969: April Fabb (13). Fabb was last seen cycling from Metton, Norfolk towards her sister's home in Roughton, Norfolk. Her bicycle was found in a field on the route she had taken, but her body has never been found.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 21 May 1973: Christine Markham (9). A Scunthorpe schoolgirl last seen walking to school. Her body has never been found. Black was questioned about potential involvement in her abduction in 2004.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 19 August 1978: Genette Tate (13). Abducted while delivering newspapers in Aylesbeare, Devon. Her bicycle was found in a country lane by two girls she had spoken to minutes before, but her body has never been found. Black made numerous deliveries of posters to the south-west of England in 1978. At the time of Black's death, the Devon and Cornwall Police were due to submit a fresh file to the Crown Prosecution Service, seeking formal abduction and murder charges in relation to this case.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 28 July 1979: Suzanne Lawrence (14). Lawrence was last seen leaving her sister's home in Harold Hill, northeast London. Although her body has never been found, Lawrence's name was added to a list of Black's possible victims in July 1994. Her case has also been linked to Peter Tobin.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 16 June 1980: Patricia Morris (14). Disappeared from the grounds of her comprehensive school; her fully clothed body was found in Hounslow Heath two days after her disappearance. She had been strangled with a ligature, but had not been raped. Although Levi Bellfield has claimed to have murdered Morris, he was barely 12 years old at the time of her death, and police doubt he is the perpetrator.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 4 November 1981: Pamela Hastie (16). Her bludgeoned and strangled body was found in Rannoch Woods in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, in November 1981. Hastie had also been raped. One eyewitness was adamant he had seen a man matching Black's description running from the crime scene, but police do not believe Black was near Renfrewshire at the time of Hastie's murder.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 18 March 1977: Mary Boyle (6). A Kincasslagh schoolgirl who disappeared while visiting her grandparents in Ballyshannon. Black is known to have been in County Donegal at the time of Boyle's disappearance, being charged with after-hours drinking in Annagry. One eyewitness report states a woman had heard whimpering sounds emanating from Black's van, parked outside a Dungloe pub, on this date. Boyle's body has never been found.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 20 June 1985: Silke Garben (10). Garben was a Detmold schoolgirl who disappeared on her way to a dental appointment. Her body was found in a stream close to a British Army base near to her home the day after her disappearance. Garben had been violently sexually assaulted and strangled, although she died of drowning. Black is known to have made a delivery of posters to this British Army base on the date of Garben's disappearance.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 11 May 1989. Ramona Herling (11). Last seen walking to a swimming complex just 500 yards from her home in the town of Bad Driburg. Her body has never been found.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 5 August 1986: Cheryl Morriën (7). Morriën disappeared as she walked to her friend's home in the Dutch city of IJmuiden. Her body has never been found. Black made regular trips to nearby Amsterdam to buy child pornography. He is considered a strong suspect in this case.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 5 May 1987: Virginie Delmas (10). Abducted from Neuilly-sur-Marne on 5 May 1987. Her nude body was found in a Mareuil-les-Meaux orchard on 9 October, with her clothes folded beside her. Delmas had been strangled; the extent of decomposition prevented the pathologist from determining whether she had been raped before death. Black is known to have made several deliveries in and around Paris on the date of Delmas' disappearance.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 30 May 1987: Hemma Greedharry (10). A Malakoff schoolgirl, originally from Mauritius. Her body was discovered in a parking lot in Châtillon two hours after she was last seen walking home from a downtown bookstore. Greedharry had been raped and strangled, and her body set alight. Black is known to have regularly travelled upon the road where Greedharry's body was found when making deliveries in northern France.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 3 June 1987: Perrine Vigneron (7). Vigneron disappeared on her way to buy a Mother's Day card in Bouleurs en route to attending a pottery course; her strangled body was discovered in a rapeseed field in Chelles on 27 June, with her clothes folded neatly beside her. A white van had been seen in Bouleurs on the day of Vigneron's disappearance.


title: Robert Black (serial killer)

text: 27 June 1987: Sabine Dumont (9). A Paris schoolgirl last seen alive in Bièvres on 27 June, walking home from a bookstore. Her strangled and sexually assaulted body was found the following day in the commune of Vauhallan. Black was named as a prime suspect in Dumont's murder in 2011. A DNA sample of Dumont's killer was recovered from her clothing in 1999, but has never been compared to Black.


title: Vittorio Mussolini

text: Vittorio Mussolini (27 September 1916 – 12 June 1997) was an Italian film critic and producer. He was also the second child of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. However, he was the first officially acknowledged son of Mussolini, with his second wife Rachele; his was never officially acknowledged by Mussolini's fascist regime.


title: Vittorio Mussolini

text: Vittorio Mussolini was born in Milan, Lombardy, Kingdom of Italy ("Regno d'Italia"). He married Milanese Orsola Buvoli (1914–2009), two years his senior. In January 1938, Mussolini and his wife announced the birth of their first child, a son, Guido, born in Rome.


title: Vittorio Mussolini

text: In addition to producing films, Mussolini served as a Lieutenant ("Tenente") in the Italian Royal Air Force ("Regia Aeronautica"). He participated in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II. In Ethiopia, both he and his younger brother Bruno crewed bombers. Unlike his brother, Vittorio was not considered a serious pilot and described bombs as "budding roses" and killing as "exceptionally good fun".


title: Vittorio Mussolini

text: In later years, Vittorio made much of his contact and friendship with left-wing and Jewish directors, writers, and film critics during the brief period in the late 1930s and the early 1940s, when he edited the journal "Cinema". Openly leftist critics such as Michelangelo Antonioni were published in the magazine, and Vittorio even found lodgings for the distinguished German Jewish critic Rudolf Arnheim in the Roman Mussolini residence, Villa Torlonia; with another Jewish friend, Orlando Piperno, Vittorio took part in the "Mille Miglia" car race, finishing tenth.


title: Vittorio Mussolini

text: Mussolini worked with many of Italy's best film directors, such as Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, and Michelangelo Antonioni.


title: Vittorio Mussolini

text: Vittorio was briefly involved with Hal Roach in a company, R.A.M. Pictures (for "Roach and Mussolini"), but Roach bought himself out of the deal after being heavily ostracized in Hollywood.


title: Vittorio Mussolini

text: He was the editor of the film journal "Cinema" and was involved with the Italian film studio Cinecittà.


title: Vittorio Mussolini

text: Mussolini was the author of a 1973 book on the women in his father's life entitled "Mussolini: The Tragic Women in His Life".


title: University of East Anglia

text: The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution for 2020–21 was £292.1 million, of which £35.2 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £290.4 million, and had an undergraduate offer rate of 85.1% in 2021.


title: University of East Anglia

text: UEA alumni and faculty include three Nobel laureates, a discoverer of Hepatitis C and of the Hepatitis D genome, a lead developer of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, one President of the Royal Society, and at least 48 Fellows of the Royal Society. Alumni also include heads of state, government and intergovernmental organisations, as well as three Booker Prize winning authors.


title: University of East Anglia

text: People in Norwich began to talk about the possibility of setting up a university in the nineteenth century, and attempts to establish one in Norwich were made in 1919 and 1947. But due to a lack of government funding on both occasions the plans had to be postponed. The University of East Anglia was eventually given the green light in April 1960 for biological sciences and English studies students. Initially, teaching took place in the temporary "University Village", which was officially opened by chairman of the University Grants Committee, Keith Murray, on 29 September 1963. Sited on the opposite side of the Earlham Road to the present campus, this was a collection of prefabricated structures designed for 1200 students, laid out by the local architectural firm Feilden and Mawson. There were no residences. The vice-chancellor and administration were based in nearby Earlham Hall.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 1961, the first vice-chancellor, Frank Thistlethwaite, had approached Denys Lasdun, an adherent of the "New Brutalist" trend in architecture, who was at that time building Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, to produce designs for the permanent campus. The site chosen was on the western edge of the city, on the south side of Earlham Road. The land, formerly part of the Earlham Hall estate was at that time occupied by a golf course. Lasdun unveiled a model and an outline plan at a press conference in April 1963, but it took another year to produce detailed plans, which diverged considerably from the model. The first buildings did not open until late 1966.


title: University of East Anglia

text: Lasdun put all the teaching and research functions into the "teaching wall", a single block long following the contour of the site. Alongside this he built a walkway, giving access to the various entrances of the wall, with access roads beneath. Attached to the other, southern, side of the walkway he added the groups of terraced residences that became known as "Ziggurats". In 1968, Lasdun was replaced as architect by Bernard Feilden, who completed the teaching wall and library and created an arena-shaped square as a social space of a kind not envisioned in his predecessor's plans. They would later become Grade II* listed status, reflecting the importance of the architecture and the history of the campus.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 1964 Arthur Miller's The Crucible became the first drama production to be staged at UEA with John Rhys Davies (later to appear in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy), the drama society's first president. In the same decade, in 1965, Benjamin Britten was appointed music adviser for UEA. In 1967 he conducted the UEA Choir in a performance of his "War Requiem". In 1968 there were two royal visits from Princess Margaret and the Queen who each came to tour the new university for the first time.


title: University of East Anglia

text: Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson helped establish the first creative writing course in the UK. The School of Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing would later go on to produce successful authors including Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Rose Tremain, John Boyne and Andrew Miller. In the same decade UEA:TV, under the name of Nexus, was formed and created student-made television. It operated for two hours a day over lunchtime. "Concrete", the student newspaper was first officially launched in 1973, replacing "Mandate" which launched in 1965. Over the years students also enjoyed "Phoenix", "Can Opener", "Mustard Magazine" and "Kett" before "Concrete" re-launched in 1992.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 1972 the Centre for Climatic Research opened, founded by climatologist Hubert Lamb. Also notable in the same year, architect Bernard Feilden helped the university win a Civic Trust Award for the design of the Square, the university's main social space. A year later work began on the university lake, or Broad, as it is more commonly referred to. It involved excavating of gravel, which was arranged as part of a 'no money' deal where a local aggregate company took the gravel for free leaving with a landscaped body of water fed by the River Yare.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In the 1970s the School of Computing Sciences first opened at UEA, and the university started offering education degrees from Keswick Hall, a manor house owned by the Gurney family and situated on the outskirts of Norwich. Initially this was only a postgraduate qualification, until the late 1970s when an undergraduate course was created. The gift of a collection of tribal art and 20th-century painting and sculpture, by artists such as Francis Bacon and Henry Moore, from Sir Robert Sainsbury and Lady Lisa Sainsbury resulted in the construction of the striking Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the western end of the main teaching wall, one of the first major works of architect Norman Foster. The UEA's School of Fine Art opened in the same year of 1978.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 1984 the School of Law first moved to Earlham Hall. The building, dating back to 1580, was once home to many famous residents including Elizabeth Fry and the Gurney family.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 1986 the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was opened within the Hubert Lamb Building. It had been named after Lamb who retired from the university in 1978. In 1988, as part of the university's 25th anniversary celebrations, Prince Charles visited the CRU building.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 1989 the British Centre for Literary Translation was founded by WG Sebald, and The Arthur Miller Centre for American Studies was set up to encourage and facilitate the study of the United States. Arthur Miller later in 2000 went on to spend his 85th birthday at UEA when he was made an honorary graduate. In the same year Kazuo Ishiguro won the Booker Prize and became one of three UEA graduates who would receive the award, along with Ian McEwan and Anne Enright.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 1990 the student radio station "Livewire1350AM" launched, completing the university's student media collective of print, television, and radio. It was opened by Radio 1 DJ John Peel and is now said to be one of the longest running student radio stations in the country. In 1993 the Union of UEA Students took over the management of The Waterfront, a music venue and nightclub. It has hosted performers including Pulp, Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, Marina and the Diamonds and Amy Winehouse.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 1994 the Queen returned to UEA to open the Queen's Building, which hosts a number of classes within the School of Health Sciences. A year later in 1995 the Elizabeth Fry building was opened, providing new facilities for almost 800 students.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2000 UEA's reputation within the field of environmental research led to the government choosing the university as the site for the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. The centre, named after the 19th-century UK scientist John Tyndall, brings together scientists, economists, engineers and social scientists from eight partner institutions.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2001 the Sportspark, a multi-sports facility built thanks to a £14.5 million grant from the Sport England Lottery Fund, was formally opened by Princess Anne and brought international sporting facilities to Norwich. The Sportspark houses an Olympic-sized pool, floodlit astro-pitches, and the tallest climbing wall in Norfolk.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In the same year UEA alumnus Sir Paul Nurse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. He won the prize jointly with Timothy Hunt and Leland Hartwell "for their discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle".


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2002 UEA's Medical School opened with 110 students enrolled. The school is a collaboration with the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and world-class research centres now part of the Norwich Research Park. In 2003 the School of Pharmacy opened, along with the Zuckerman Institute for Connective Environmental Research (ZICER). The walkways, the Teaching Wall, and Ziggurats also gained Grade II listed status following a government consultation.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2004 the University of East Anglia was first represented on long-running TV quiz show University Challenge. The university's best performance on the show was in December 2012 when four high-profile alumni took part in a special series, coming second in the final against New College, Oxford.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2005 the university, in partnership with the University of Essex and with the support of Suffolk County Council, the East of England Development Agency, Ipswich Borough Council, and the Learning and Skills Council, secured £15 million funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England for the creation of a new campus in the Waterfront area of Ipswich, called University Campus Suffolk or UCS. The campus opened in September 2007. In May 2016 it became independent of the UEA and was renamed to the University of Suffolk.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2006 the university opened Victory House, named after Lord Nelson's ship. The event took place on the anniversary of Lord Nelson's birth by his descendant Lord Walpole.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2008 INTO University Partnerships opened a £35m six-storey building named INTO University of East Anglia with 415 en-suite study-bedrooms and classroom space for 600 students. The institution, which works closely with UEA, focuses on the provision of foundation courses for international students, including English language, especially English for academic purposes. Shortly after opening, similar partnerships were created between INTO and Exeter and Newcastle.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In November 2009, computer servers at the university's Climatic Research Unit were hacked and the stolen information made public. Over 1,000 emails, 2,000 documents, and source code were released. Because the Climate Research Unit is a major repository for data regarding man-made global warming, the release, which occurred directly prior to the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, attracted international attention and led to calls for an inquiry, with the controversy gaining the nickname "climategate". As a result, no fewer than eight investigations were launched in both the UK and US, but none found evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct, and the academics were subsequently fully exonerated.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2010 the Thomas Paine Study Centre was opened by playwright Trevor Griffiths. Named after the local luminary and visionary thinker, the building became home to the Norwich Business School. In 2012 the university won its second Queen's Anniversary Prize for its distinguished creative writing programme, having won one previously for its School of International Development. The award helped bolster the region's reputation as a literary hub, and helped Norwich to achieve its status as England's first UNESCO City of Literature in 2012.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2013 the university celebrated its 50th anniversary, ranking Number 1 in the Times Higher Education Magazine Student Experience league table. It was in this year UEA also launched its first free Massive open online course (MOOC) in partnership with Future Learn. Topics covered by UEA's Moocs over the years have included branding, screenwriting, environmental justice and food fraud.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2014 UEA opened its most environmentally-friendly building yet, Crome Court, which has won a number of awards for sustainability. Also in 2014 part of the campus was used for location filming as the Avengers new HQ during filming of the "". The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at UEA doubles as the home of the Avengers in "Age of Ultron", "Ant-Man", "" and "" Robert Downey Jr. was spotted on the grounds during filming in 2014 and a number of students were employed as extras.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2015 'Britain's Greenest Building', The Enterprise Centre, opened on campus, helping the university win further awards for its environmental credentials. Also in 2015 parts of campus played host to Radio 1's Big Weekend which was officially located at Earlham Park. International acts including Fall Out Boy, Muse, Foo Fighters and Taylor Swift performed. Swift used the grounds at Earlham Hall as her dressing room.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In late September 2016 two new accommodation blocks opened. Barton House and Hickling House were named after two of the Norfolk Broads and have increased the number of rooms available to new students. In this year the Vice-Chancellor David Richardson unveiled a '2030 vision' which includes a £300m investment in campus – refurbishing existing buildings as well as building new teaching and learning spaces.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In January 2017 Queen Elizabeth II visited UEA campus to attend the latest exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. This was the Queen's third visit (she also visited in 1968 and 1994), and was the eighth visit by the Royal Family to the institution.


title: University of East Anglia

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020, the university gave empty student accommodation to NHS staff, allowing them to isolate from at-risk family members and to avoid commuting.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In June 2021 plans for a BBC film documenting the 2009 CRU email controversy were announced, featuring Jason Watkins playing the role of climatologist Phil Jones. It was shot on location at the university. The film, "The Trick", aired on 18 October 2021.


title: University of East Anglia

text: Features of the UEA campus include Earlham Hall, childhood home of Elizabeth Fry, which is now home to UEA Law School; the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the western end of the main teaching wall designed by Norman Foster to house the art collection of Sir Robert Sainsbury and Lady Lisa Sainsbury, it also features as the new avengers headquarters in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant Man and Marvel Cinematic Universe films; and Sportspark, a multi-sports facilities built in 2001 thanks to a £14.5 million grant from Sport England Lottery Fund.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The campus is regularly evolving, and now stretches across the Norwich Research Park with the Edith Cavell Building and the Bob Champion Research and Education Building considered part of its campus over by the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. Newest buildings on the campus include two new accommodation blocks, and the Enterprise Centre, said to be Britain's greenest building.


title: University of East Anglia

text: Other features include the large university lake or "broad" at the southern edge of campus and "The Square", a central outdoor meeting place flanked by concrete steps.


title: University of East Anglia

text: Accommodation blocks on the university campus include Constable Terrace, Nelson Court, and Britten, Paston, Colman, Victory, Kett and Browne Houses. These residences are named after Horatio Nelson, John Constable, Benjamin Britten, Jeremiah Colman, Horatio Nelson's ship , Robert Kett, Sir Thomas Browne and the Paston family, the authors of the Paston Letters. The Ziggurat accommodation blocks are Grade II listed. The university also manages Mary Chapman Court, a hall of residence in Norwich city centre, and the University Village, a short walk away from campus. UEA's accommodation block, Crome Court, opened in September 2014, containing the university's most eco-friendly flats. Two new blocks; Hickling and Barton House (named after the broads) opened in September 2016.


title: University of East Anglia

text: Facilities on campus include the Union Pub and Bar, a 24-hour library, a concert and gig venue called the LCR (Lower Common Room), a canteen called the Campus Kitchen, a café/coffee shop called the Blend, a bar/coffee shop called Unio, a graduate bar called the Scholar's Bar and The Street with a 24-hour launderette, the Union shop, and a coffee shop called Ziggy's. Most of these are situated in the centre of the campus, next to the Square. Other food establishments situated on campus include Café 57 and the Bio Cafe. There is also a medical centre, dentist, and pharmacy, located on the eastern side of the campus.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The campus is linked to the city centre and railway station by frequent buses, operated by First Norfolk & Suffolk, via Unthank Road or Earlham Road. Other transport links include First buses to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and to Bowthorpe, as well as Konectbus services to Watton, Dereham and Costessey via park and ride. National Express provides coach services to London, and Megabus operates low cost intercity travel to cities including Cambridge, Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The postgraduate Master of Arts in creative writing, founded by Sir Malcolm Bradbury and Sir Angus Wilson in 1970, is regarded as the most respected in the United Kingdom, and admission to the programme is competitive. The course has gone on to produce a number of distinguished authors, including Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Anne Enright, Tash Aw, Andrew Miller, Owen Sheers, Tracy Chevalier, Trezza Azzopardi, Panos Karnezis and Suzannah Dunn. The German émigré novelist W. G. Sebald also taught in the School of Literature and Creative Writing, and founded the British Centre for Literary Translation, until his death in a car accident in 2001. Experimental novelist Alan Burns was the university's first writer-in-residence.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The Climatic Research Unit, founded in 1972 by Hubert Lamb in the School of Environmental Sciences, has been an early centre of work for climate change research. The school was also stated to be "the strongest in the world" by the chief scientific adviser to the UK government, Sir David King, during a lecture at the John Innes Centre in 2005.


title: University of East Anglia

text: East Anglia had the joint 25th highest average entry qualification for undergraduates of any UK university in 2015, with new students averaging 407 UCAS points, equivalent to just below ABBbc in A-level grades. According to the 2017 "Times" and "Sunday Times" Good University Guide, approximately 10.5% of East Anglia's undergraduates come from independent schools.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2014 the ratio of applications to acceptances was 5.9 to 1. In 2015/16 the proportion of students admitted to the university from independent schools was 10.5%.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The results of the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), published on 12 May 2022, showed that over 91% of the university's research activity was deemed to be "world leading" or "internationally excellent" with more than 47% having the highest category of 4* of World Leading Research, significantly higher that the national average of 41%. UEA was ranked 13th in the UK for the quality of its research outputs and 20th overall amongst all mainstream British institutions – a rise of 9 places since the last assessment in 2014.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The university ranks in the world top 1% according to the Times Higher Education world rankings 2015/16 and within the world top 100 for research excellence in the Leiden Ranking 2016.


title: University of East Anglia

text: In 2012 the university was named the 10th best university in the world under 50 years old, and third best within the United Kingdom. In national league tables the university has most recently been ranked 18th in the UK by "The Times" and "Sunday Times", and 14th by "The Complete University Guide".


title: University of East Anglia

text: In April 2013 the university was ranked number one for student experience according to Times Higher Education Magazine. It currently ranks Top 3 for student satisfaction in the "National Student Survey" when ranking mainstream English universities. UEA is the only institution to rank top five since the survey began.


title: University of East Anglia

text: All students of the university and some INTO UEA students automatically become members of the union, but do have the right to opt out of membership. Membership confers the ability to take part in the union's activities such as clubs and societies, and being involved in the democratic processes of the union. The union is a democratic organisation run by its members via an elected student officer committee and student council. It is affiliated to the National Union of Students.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The UEA Student Union has over 200 sports clubs and societies ranging from men's and women's football clubs, a British Universities American Football League (BUAFC) Premier South Division American Football Team, The UEA Pirates, and cheerleading society to a Quidditch team. The UEA Media Collective encompasses the student newspaper "Concrete", "UEA:TV" (previously named Nexus UTV) and the student radio station "Livewire 1350AM". One of its more famous former presenters and managers is Greg James, the BBC Radio 1 presenter.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The UEA Student Union brings together the student community through its events like Pimp My Barrow, which was an annual fundraising event for The Big C, and involves ingeniously decorated wheelbarrows from 2006 to 2018. It has raised more than £50,000 for the Norfolk charity. The annual Derby Day sports event sees UEA take on the University of Essex in approximately 40 sports. UEA has won the Derby Day trophy all seven times since 2013.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The UEA Student Union also organises gigs and club nights at the Nick Rayns LCR, or Lower<ref name="http://www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk/venues/default.aspx"></ref> Common Room in Union House. The LCR is home to hundreds of music gigs every year. The students' union also runs the Waterfront venue, off campus in Norwich's King Street. Acts to have performed at these venues include Captain Beefheart, The Cure, Coldplay, Pere Ubu U2, Haim, The Smiths, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Iron Maiden. The UEA Gig List is a rather complete listing of the artists who have performed at UEA since 1963 and is published as a book by the UEA Gig History Project and illustrated with posters, photographs and ticket stubs. The Project was awarded a Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) award in 2018 for engagement with alumni.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The union also operates a number of other services within Union House. This includes the Union Pub and Bar, Scholar's Bar, and Unio. Its building underwent a refurbishment in 2015 after a £6 million investment from the university.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The university's lecture theatres regularly host film screenings, discussions, lectures and presentations for the public to attend.


title: University of East Anglia

text: The university hosted its inaugural literary festival in 1991 and has welcomed notable speakers including Madeleine Albright, Martin Amis, Martin Bell, Alan Bennett, Cherie Blair, Melvyn Bragg, Eleanor Catton, Richard Dawkins, Alain de Botton, Sebastian Faulks, Niall Ferguson, Stephen Fry, Frank Gardner, Richard E. Grant, Germaine Greer, Seamus Heaney, Clive James, P. D. James, Doris Lessing, Mario Vargas Llosa, Hilary Mantel, Iris Murdoch, Rageh Omaar, Michael Palin, Jeremy Paxman, Harold Pinter, Stephen Poliakoff, Terry Pratchett, Salman Rushdie, Simon Schama, Will Self, John Simpson, Zadie Smith, Paul Theroux, Peter Ustinov, Shirley Williams and Robert Winston.


title: University of East Anglia

text: UEA alumni in the sciences include the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate and former President of the Royal Society Sir Paul Nurse (PhD, 1973); the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winning co-discoverer of Hepatitis C and of the Hepatitis D genome Sir Michael Houghton (Biological Sciences, 1972); vaccinologist Dame Sarah Gilbert (Biological Sciences, 1983) who designed the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Dame Emily Lawson (PhD, 1993) who leads the NHS COVID-19 vaccine programme, Darwin Medal, Darwin–Wallace Medal and Erwin Schrödinger Prize winning evolutionary biologist Nick Barton (PhD, 1979); Potamkin Prize winning pathologist Karen Duff (Biological Sciences, 1987); climate scientists Tim Lenton, Chris Turney, Neil Adger, Benjamin D. Santer, Timothy Osborn, Keith Briffa, Sarah Raper, and Peter Thorne; and the Fellows of the Royal Society James Barber, Keith Beven, Mervyn Bibb, Lucy Carpenter, Richard Flavell, Don Grierson, Brian Hemmings, Terence Rabbitts, and Nick Talbot.


title: University of East Anglia

text: Literary alumni include the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Sir Kazuo Ishiguro (Creative Writing, 1980), renowned German writer W. G. Sebald (PhD, 1973), Booker Prize winners, Ian McEwan (Creative Writing, 1971), and Anne Enright (Creative Writing, 1988); Costa Book Award (formerly Whitbread Award) winners Dame Rose Tremain (Creative Writing, 1967), Andrew Miller (Creative Writing, 1991), David Almond (English Literature, 1993), Tash Aw (Creative Writing, 2003), Emma Healey (Creative Writing, 2011), Susan Fletcher (Creative Writing, 2002), Adam Foulds (Creative Writing, 2001), Avril Joy (History of Art, 1972) and Christie Watson (Creative Writing, 2009); and the Caine Prize winners Binyavanga Wainaina (MPhil, 2010), Helon Habila (PhD, 2008) and Henrietta Rose-Innes (PhD). Other alumni include Tracy Chevalier (Creative Writing, 1994), John Boyne (Creative Writing, 1996), Neel Mukherjee (Creative Writing, 2001), Mick Jackson (Creative Writing, 1992), Trezza Azzopardi (Creative Writing, 1998), Paul Murray (Creative Writing, 2001), James Scudamore (Creative Writing, 2006), Mohammed Hanif (Creative Writing, 2005), Richard House (PhD, 2008), Sebastian Barker (English Literature, 1970), Clive Sinclair (BA, 1969; PhD, 1983), Kathryn Hughes (Creative Writing, 1986), Peter J. Conradi, and Craig Warner (Creative Writing, 2014).


title: University of East Anglia

text: Alumni in international politics and government include the current King of Tonga Tupou VI (Development Studies, 1980) who also served as Prime Minister from 2000 to 2006 and Foreign Minister from 1998 to 2004; Governor General of Grenada Sir Carlyle Glean (Education, 1982); Governor of Gibraltar Sir Robert Fulton (Social Sciences, 1970) who was formerly Commandant General Royal Marines; Kiribati Vice President Teima Onorio (Education, 1990); Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Murat Karayalçın (Development Economics, 1977) who also served as Foreign Minister; Finance Ministers of Australia (Mathias Cormann), South Africa (Tito Mboweni), Rwanda (Donald Kaberuka, later President of the African Development Bank), Thailand (Suchart Thada-Thamrongvech), and Venezuela (Pedro Rosas Bravo); Foreign Ministers of Iceland (Össur Skarphéðinsson) and The Gambia (Ousman Jammeh); Defence Minister of The Maldives Adam Shareef; current Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal and Democratic Republic of the Congo Budget Minister Aimé Boji; and former Cabinet Ministers of Cyprus (Marios Demetriades), Peru (Gino Costa), South Sudan (Agnes Kwaje Lasuba), Kenya (Hassan Wario), Egypt (Gamal El-Araby), Tanzania (Juma Ngasongwa), Rwanda (Daphrose Gahakwa), Ethiopia (Sinknesh Ejigu and Junedin Sado), Seychelles (Rolph Payet and Peter Sinon), Turkey (Cüneyd Düzyol), Brunei (Suyoi bin Osman and Adanan Yusof) and Yemen (Yahya Al-Mutawakel).


title: University of East Anglia

text: Alumni in UK politics include the Labour Members of Parliament Rachael Maskell (Physiotherapy, 1994), and Karin Smyth (Politics, 1988); two former Leaders of the House of Lords, Valerie Amos, Baroness Amos (Applied Research in Education, 1978), and Thomas Galbraith, 2nd Baron Strathclyde (Modern Languages & European Studies, 1982); and the Liberal Democrat peer Rosalind Scott, Baroness Scott of Needham Market (European Studies, 1999). UEA is also the alma mater of the former Crossbench peer Timothy Bentinck, 12th Earl of Portland (History of Art, 1975); and the former Members of Parliament Caroline Flint (American Literature, History & Film, 1983), Douglas Carswell (History, 1993), Tony Colman (International Development), Jon Owen Jones (Ecology, 1975), Tess Kingham (Education), Judith Chaplin and Ivor Stanbrook (Law, 1995).


title: University of East Anglia

text: In the arts alumni include the actors Matt Smith (Drama, 2005), John Rhys-Davies, Jack Davenport (English & American Literature, 1995), James Frain (Drama, 1990), and Roger Ashton-Griffiths (PhD, 2015); comedians Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson (English & American Literature), Simon Day (Drama, 1989), Arthur Smith (Comparative Literature, 1976), and Nina Conti (Philosophy, 1995); film director Gurinder Chadha (Development Economics, 1983); art historians Philip Mould (History of Art, 1981), Bendor Grosvenor (PhD, 2009), and Paul Atterbury (Archaeology & Landscape History, 1972); Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House Mary Allen (Creative Writing, 2003); Chief Executive of English National Opera Séan Doran (Music 1983); BAFTA award-winning production designer Don Homfray (History, 1999), and the Emmy Award winning choirmaster Gareth Malone (Drama, 1997).


title: University of East Anglia

text: Alumni in the media include news correspondents Mark Stone (History of Art and Architecture, 2001), Stuart Ramsay, Razia Iqbal (American Studies, 1985), Geraint Vincent (History, 1994), David Grossman (Politics, 1987), and Selina Scott (English & American Literature, 1972); Radio 1 presenter Greg James (Drama, 2007) and Radio 4 newsreader and author Zeb Soanes (Drama 1997); political commentator Iain Dale (German & Linguistics, 1985); journalists Christina Patterson and Emily Sheffield; BBC executives Dame Jenny Abramsky (English), Jonathan Powell (English Literature), and James Boyle; and the weather forecasters Darren Bett (Environmental Sciences, 1989) and Penny Tranter (Environmental Sciences, 1982).


title: University of East Anglia

text: UEA alumni in business and economics include the Argentine billionaire businessman and real estate developer Eduardo Costantini, Hong Kong billionaire Billy Kan, the founders of Autonomy (David Tabizel) and Café Rouge (Karen Jones), and CEOs of Computacenter, ICI, Jaguar Land Rover, Premier Foods, Diageo, and Punch Taverns. UEA is also the alma mater of the explorer Benedict Allen (Environmental Sciences, 1981); England rugby player Andy Ripley; and the football commentator Martin Tyler (Sociology, 1967).


title: University of East Anglia

text: UEA has benefited from the services of academics at the top of their fields, including Sir Malcolm Bradbury and Sir Angus Wilson who co-founded the MA in Creative Writing programme; Hubert Lamb who founded the Climatic Research Unit; Lord Zuckerman who was influential in the establishment of the School of Environmental Sciences; Nobel Prize–winning chemist Richard Synge, who was an honorary professor; scientists Sir David King, Sir David Baulcombe, Jenni Barclay, Tom Wigley, Godfrey Hewitt, Michael Balls, Andrew Watson, Christopher Lamb, Alan Katritzky, Jean Palutikof, John Plane, Michael Gale, Roy Markham, Geoffrey Boulton, Johnson Cann, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, John Alwyne Kitching, Thomas Bennet-Clark, Jeremy Greenwood and Tracy Palmer; mathematician Peter Chadwick; writers Angela Carter and Sarah Churchwell; poet George Szirtes; poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion historians Sir Richard Evans, Paul Kennedy, Patricia Hollis and Michael Balfour; art historians Peter Lasko and Eric Fernie; historian Stephen Church; philosophers Martin Hollis and Andreas Dorschel; psychologist Dame Shirley Pearce; musician Sir Philip Ledger; political scientists Lord Williams of Baglan and Sir Steve Smith; former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, and the High Court Judges Sir Clive Lewis and Dame Beverley Lang.


title: University of East Anglia

text: Present faculty include former IPCC Chairman Sir Robert Watson; scientists Sophien Kamoun, Corinne Le Quéré, Sir David Hopwood, Phil Jones, Jonathan D. G. Jones, Enrico Coen, Frederick Vine and Peter Liss;


title: University of East Anglia

text: sociologist Sir Tom Shakespeare, 3rd baronet; writers Ian Rankin, Giles Foden, Amit Chaudhuri, and Christopher Bigsby; as well as the former Home Secretary Charles Clarke and LBC Radio presenter Iain Dale


title: Ageism

text: Ageism, also spelled agism, is discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, and patterned on sexism and racism. Butler defined "ageism" as a combination of three connected elements. Originally it was identified chiefly towards older people, old age, and the aging process; discriminatory practices against older people; and institutional practices and policies that perpetuate stereotypes about elderly people.


title: Ageism

text: The term "ageism" has also been used to describe the oppression of younger people by older people, for example in a 1976 pamphlet published by Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor, MI. In the UK, Councillor Richard Thomas at a meeting of Bracknell Forest Council (March 1983), pointed out that age discrimination works against younger as well as older people. It has much later (February 2021) been used in regards to prejudice and discrimination against especially adolescents and children, such as denying them certain rights and privileges usually reserved for adults such as the right to vote, run for political office, or refuse medical treatment, sign contracts, and so forth. This can also include ignoring their ideas and contributions because they are considered "too young", or assuming that they should behave in certain ways because of their younger age. Ageism against the young also includes penalties, burdens, or requirements imposed exclusively or to a greater degree on young people than on older people, such as age-based military conscription. In a youth-oriented society, however, older people bear the brunt of age bias and discrimination. Older people themselves can be deeply ageist, having internalized a lifetime of negative stereotypes about aging. Ageism is often attributed to fears of death and disability, with avoiding, segregating, and rejecting older people serving as coping mechanisms that allow people to avoid thinking about their own mortality. Stigma and discrimination around the loss of physical or mental capacity is actually ableism, not ageism, and aging is lifelong. Like other forms of bias, ageism is not based in biology but socially constructed.


title: Ageism

text: Ageism in common parlance and age studies usually refers to negative discriminatory practices against old people, people in their middle years, teenagers, and children. There are several forms of age-related bias. Adultism is a predisposition towards adults, which is seen as biased against children, youth, and all young people who are not addressed or viewed as adults. This includes political candidacies, jobs, and cultural settings where the supposed greater vitality and/or physical beauty of youth is more appreciated than the supposed greater moral and/or intellectual rigor of adulthood. Adultcentrism is the "exaggerated egocentrism of adults". "Adultocracy" is the social convention which defines "maturity" and "immaturity", placing adults in a dominant position over young people, both theoretically and practically. Gerontocracy is a form of oligarchical rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population. Chronocentrism is primarily the belief that a certain state of humanity is superior to all previous and/or future times.


title: Ageism

text: Based on a conceptual analysis of ageism, a new definition of ageism was introduced by Iversen, Larsen, & Solem in 2009. This definition constitutes the foundation for higher reliability and validity in future research about ageism and its complexity offers a new way of systemizing theories on ageism: "Ageism is defined as negative or positive stereotypes, prejudice and/or discrimination against (or to the advantage of) elderly people on the basis of their chronological age or on the basis of a perception of them as being 'old' or 'elderly'. Ageism can be implicit or explicit and can be expressed on a micro-, meso- or macro-level" (Iversen, Larsen & Solem, 2009).


title: Ageism

text: Other conditions of fear or aversion associated with age groups have their own names, particularly: paedophobia, the fear of infants and children; ephebiphobia, the fear of youth, sometimes also referred to as an irrational fear of adolescents or a prejudice against teenagers; and gerontophobia, the fear of elderly people.


title: Ageism

text: Implicit ageism refers to thoughts, feelings, and judgements that operate without conscious awareness and automatically produce in everyday life. These may be a mixture of positive and negative thoughts and feelings, but gerontologist Becca Levy reports that they "tend to be mostly negative".


title: Ageism

text: Stereotyping is a tool of cognition which involves categorizing into groups and attributing characteristics to these groups. Stereotypes are necessary for processing huge volumes of information which would otherwise overload a person and are generally accurate descriptors of group characteristics, though some stereotypes are inaccurate. However, they can cause harm when the content of the stereotype is incorrect with respect to most of the group or where a stereotype is so strongly held that it overrides evidence which shows that an individual does not conform to it. For example, age-based stereotypes prime one to draw very different conclusions when one sees an older and a younger adult with, say, back pain or a limp. One might well assume that the younger person's condition is temporary and treatable, following an accident, while the older person's condition is chronic and less susceptible to intervention. On average, this might be true, but plenty of older people have accidents and recover quickly and very young people (such as infants, toddlers, and small children) can become permanently disabled in the same situation. This assumption may have no consequence if one makes it in the blink of an eye as one is passing someone in the street, but if it is held by a health professional offering treatment or managers thinking about occupational health, it could inappropriately influence their actions and lead to age-related discrimination.


title: Ageism

text: Managers have been accused, by Erdman Palmore, as stereotyping older workers as being resistant to change, not creative, cautious, slow to make judgments, lower in physical capacity, uninterested in technological change, and difficult to train. Another example is when people are rude to children because of their high pitched voice, even if they are kind and courteous. A review of the research literature related to age stereotypes in the workplace was published in 2009 in the "Journal of Management".


title: Ageism

text: Contrary to common and more obvious forms of stereotyping, such as racism and sexism, ageism is more resistant to change. For instance, if a child believes in an ageist idea against the elderly, fewer people correct them, and, as a result, individuals grow up believing in ageist ideas, even elders themselves. In other words, ageism can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.


title: Ageism

text: Ageist beliefs against the elderly are commonplace in today's society. For example, an older person who forgets something could be quick to call it a "senior moment", failing to realize the ageism of that statement. People also often utter ageist phrases such as "dirty old man" or "second childhood", and elders sometimes miss the ageist undertones.


title: Ageism

text: In a study in 1994, researchers analyzed the effects of ageism among the elderly. They performed memory tests on three selected groups: residents of China, deaf North Americans, and hearing North Americans. In the three groups, the Chinese residents were presumably the least exposed to ageism, with lifelong experience in a culture that traditionally venerates older generations. Lifelong deaf North Americans also faced less exposure to ageism in contrast to those with typical hearing, who presumably had heard ageist comments their whole life. The results of the memory tests showed that ageism has significant effects on memory.


title: Ageism

text: The gap in the scores between the young and old North Americans with normal hearing were double those of the deaf North Americans and five times wider than those of the Chinese participants. The results show that ageism undermines ability through its self-fulfilling nature. The study was investigating the effect of the stereotype threat, which has been explored as a possible reason for memory deficits, though the stereotype threat has been criticized.


title: Ageism

text: On the other hand, when elders show larger independence and control in their lives, defying ageist assumptions, they are more likely to be healthier, both mentally and physically, than other people their age.


title: Ageism

text: Research indicates that older people are stereotyped as scoring lower on measures of impulsivity, activism, antagonism and openness while younger people are stereotyped as scoring higher on these measures. This was found to be universal across cultures and was also found to be reasonably accurate (varying depending on how the accuracy was assessed and the type of stereotype), though differences were consistently exaggerated.


title: Ageism

text: Ageism can also manifests itself in perceptions of how dateable one is, which has culminated in terms such as the "sexpiration date", indicating the age after which one is no longer appealing.


title: Ageism

text: Ageist prejudice is a type of emotion which is often linked to the cognitive process of stereotyping. It can involve the expression of derogatory attitudes, which may then lead to the use of discriminatory behavior. Where older or younger contestants were rejected in the belief that they were poor performers, this could well be the result of stereotyping. But older people were also voted for on a stage in a game where it made sense to target the best performers. This can only be explained by a subconscious emotional reaction to older people; in this case, the prejudice took the form of distaste and a desire to exclude oneself from the company of older people.


title: Ageism

text: Stereotyping and prejudice against different groups in society does not take the same form. Age-based prejudice and stereotyping usually involves older or younger people being pitied, marginalized, or patronized. This is described as "benevolent prejudice" because the tendency to pity is linked to seeing older or younger people as "friendly" but "incompetent". Age Concern's survey revealed strong evidence of "benevolent prejudice". 48% said that over-70s are viewed as friendly (compared to 27% who said the same about under-30s). Meanwhile, only 26% believe over-70s are viewed as capable (with 41% saying the same about under-30s).


title: Ageism

text: Digital ageism refers to the prejudices faced by older adults in the digital world. A few examples of the subtle ways in which digital ageism operates in cultural representations, research, and everyday life: Generational segregation naturalizes youth as digitally adept and the old as digital dunces. There is no empirical evidence, though, for a digital divide between older and younger people, with the former never and the latter always capable to use digital media; a far more accurate description is that of a digital spectrum. The reason for the myth of declining capabilities of older people could be that many cultural representations have long histories reproducing images of the life cycle as a mountain, where we peak in middle age then decline. Older adults' experiences are often excluded from research agendas on digital media, and ageism is ensconced within disciplines such as mass communication studies. For example, in a media diffusionist perspective, the practices of seniors are depicted as either negligible or as lagging, and the equation of diffusion with individual ownership can hide practical 'workarounds' such as cell phone sharing or missed calls used by older couples on fixed incomes.


title: Ageism

text: Ageism is also inadvertently embedded in the ways statistics are collected. For example, data collected based on large age categories (e.g., '60+') foisting anyone over 60 into 'the grey zone' which obscures differences. The dependency ratio has been criticized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as being based on the ageist assumption that older people are always dependent on care from younger workers.


title: Ageism

text: The term "visual ageism" was coined in 2018 by Loos and Ivan. They define "visual ageism" as "the social practice of visually underrepresenting older people or misrepresenting them in a prejudiced way". We are facing a shift from visual ageism characterized by underrepresentation and the negative representation of older people to a representation of older age characterized by images of stereotypically third age older adults (enjoying life and living their "“golden years”"), while older adults in their fourth age (inactive and unable to live independently) remain invisible. A review of empirical studies conducted since 1950 in Europe and North America reveals that print and television advertisements started this transition towards a more positive visual representation of older adults in their age during the last decade of the 20th century, followed by television programs some years later, while older adults in their fourth age remain invisible.


title: Ageism

text: This is probably due to the increase in third age rhetoric in the media, picturing older people as healthy and as potential consumers, enjoying life and living their golden years. Media representations of older people have moved from visual under- and misrepresentation (negative images) to more positive depictions. These days, visual ageism in the media tends to come wrapped in the guise of the positive attributes of third age representations of older people, while adults in their fourth age continue to be underrepresented. One possible explanation for this is that healthy third agers might prefer not to be associated with fourth agers, as they remind them too starkly of what lies ahead in their own near future. Although this discomfort or even fear about mortality is undeniably common, from a societal point of view this kind of (self)ageism is hurtful to fourth agers as a group and in a sense to third agers as well, as they risk to become fourth agers themselves one day.


title: Ageism

text: Age discrimination is the result of actions taken to deny or limt opportunities to people based on age. These are usually actions taken as a result of one's ageist beliefs and attitudes. Age discrimination occurs on both a personal and institutional level. On a personal level, an older person may be told that he is too old to engage in certain physical activities, like an informal game of basketball between friends and family. Or may be told (most common in today's Western society) to be too old to date or to be just sexually attracted to much younger people and to have a much younger partner.


title: Ageism

text: A 2006/2007 survey done by the Children's Rights Alliance for England and the National Children's Bureau asked 4,060 children and young people whether they have ever been treated unfairly based on various criteria (race, age, sex, sexual orientation, etc.). A total of 43% of British youth surveyed reported experiencing discrimination based on their age, far eclipsing other categories of discrimination like sex (27%), race (11%), or sexual orientation (6%). Consistently, a study based on the European Social Survey found that whereas 35% of Europeans reported exposure to ageism, only 25% reported exposure to sexism and as few as 17% reported exposure to racism.


title: Ageism

text: Ageism has significant effects in two particular sectors: employment and health care. Age discrimination has contributed to disparities in health between men and women. Reducing ageism and sexism would promote improved doctor-patient relationships and reduce ageist stereotypes in the healthcare industry.


title: Ageism

text: The concept of ageism was originally developed to refer to prejudice and discrimination against older people and middle-aged people, but has expanded to include children and teenagers. Midlife workers, on average, make more than younger workers do, which reflects educational achievement and experience. The age-wage peak in the United States, according to Census data, is between 45 and 54 years of age. Seniority in general accords with respect as people age, lessening ageism.


title: Ageism

text: Younger female workers were historically discriminated against, in with younger men, because it was expected that, as young women of childbearing years, they would need to leave the workforce permanently or periodically to have children. However, midlife female workers may also experience discrimination based on their appearance and may feel less visible and undervalued in a culture where emphasis is on maintaining an approved standard of beauty, e.g. 'thin, pretty, White, and young'. However, the same standard could have no effect on male colleagues of the same age.


title: Ageism

text: The United States federal government restricts age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA). That law provides certain employment protections to workers who are over the age of forty, who work for an employer who has twenty or more employees. For protected workers, the ADEA prohibits discrimination at all levels of employment, from recruitment and hiring, through the employment relationship, and through decisions for layoffs or termination of the employment relationship. An age limit may only be legally specified for protected workers in the circumstance where age has been shown to be a "bona fide occupational qualification [BFOQ] reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business" (see ). In practice, BFOQs for age are limited to the obvious (hiring a young actor to play a young character in a movie) or when public safety is at stake (for example, in the case of age limits for pilots and bus drivers). The ADEA does not stop an employer from favoring an older employee over a younger one, even when the younger one is over 40 years old.


title: Ageism

text: In the UK, age discrimination against older people has been prohibited in employment since 2006. Further refinements to anti-discrimination laws occurred in 2010.


title: Ageism

text: Age discrimination in hiring has been shown to exist in the United States. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's first complainants were female flight attendants complaining of (among other matters) age discrimination. In 1968, the EEOC declared age restrictions on flight attendants' employment to be illegal sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, Joanna Lahey, professor at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M, found recently that firms are more than 40% more likely to interview a young adult job applicant than an older job applicant. In order to fulfill job postings with youthful staff, companies turn to recruitment companies to meet their needs. Many sources place blame on recruitment practices as it is the one way that age discrimination can go incognito at the hands of others. Sofica (2012) states "A study run in Washington in 1999 shows that 84% of the recruitment agencies are discriminating compared to only 29% of the companies that do their own." Dobson states that according to Weisbeck’s (2017) research, "People have a natural bias to hire people like themselves" (p. 3). Lahey (2008) also stated within her research "Since it is more difficult for workers to determine why the failed to receive an interview than it is for workers to determine why they have been fired, firms that wish to retain only a certain type of worker without being sued would prefer to discriminate in the hiring state rather than at any point of the employment process" (p. 31). All states in the US prohibit youth under 14 from working with a handful of exceptions and prohibit youth under 18 from working in hazardous occupations. They are also paid a lower minimum wage and not allowed to work full-time.


title: Ageism

text: Also in Europe, pervasive levels of age discrimination are found in Belgium, England, France, Spain, and Sweden. Job candidates revealing older age are found to get 39% (in Belgium) to 72% (in France) less job interview invitations compared to equal candidates revealing a younger age. In addition, In a survey for the University of Kent, England, 29% of respondents stated that they had suffered from age discrimination. This is a higher proportion than for gender or racial discrimination. Dominic Abrams, social psychology professor at the university, concluded that ageism is the most pervasive form of prejudice experienced in the UK population. Discrimination is found to be heterogeneous by the activity older candidates undertook during their additional post-educational years. In Belgium, they are only discriminated if they have more years of inactivity or irrelevant employment.


title: Ageism

text: According to Dr. Robert M. McCann, an associate professor of management communication at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, denigrating older workers, even if only subtly, can have an outsized negative impact on employee productivity and corporate profits. For American corporations, age discrimination can lead to significant expenses. In Fiscal Year 2006, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received nearly 17,000 charges of age discrimination, resolving more than 14,000 and recovering $51.5 million in monetary benefits. Costs from lawsuit settlements and judgments can run into the millions, most notably with the $250 million paid by the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) under a settlement agreement in 2003.


title: Ageism

text: Ageism in Hollywood, specifically in terms of women, is profound, from the way youth is praised to the lack of jobs for older actresses. The way youth is praised reflects directly on the way older women are presented in the media. President and CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, O. Burtch Drake, spoke in terms of older women's representation throughout the media stating "older women are not being portrayed at all; there is no imagery to worry about." Women over fifty are not the center of attention and if an actress is older they are expected to act anything but their age. The standards set for women in film are fixated upon youth, sexuality, and beauty. Movies that portray older women acting their own age seem exaggerated and unrealistic because it does not fit the norms associated with women in film and media. As a result, older actresses face weaker employment opportunities.


title: Ageism

text: Because of the limited ages the film industry portrays and the lack of older actresses, society as a whole has a type of illiteracy about sexuality and those of old age. There is an almost inherent bias about what older women are capable of, what they do, and how they feel. Amongst all ages of actresses there is the attempt to look youthful and fitting to the beauty standards by altering themselves physically, many times under the hands of plastic surgeons. Women become frightful of what they will be seen as if they have wrinkles, cellulite, or any other signifier of aging. As women reach their forties and fifties, the pressure to adhere to societal beauty norms seen amongst films and media intensifies in terms of new cosmetic procedures and products that will maintain a "forever youthful" look. In terms of sexuality, older women are seen as unattractive, bitter, unhappy, and unsuccessful in films. With older women not being represented in the media and film industries, specifically in Hollywood, thoughts of underachievement, ugliness, and disgust crowd the thoughts of older women as they fail to meet beauty norms. This can cause depression, anxiety, and self-esteem issues in general. "In one survey, women reported feeling more embarrassed about their age than by their masturbation practices or same-gender sexual encounters."


title: Ageism

text: When a woman is told she is old, she can start to believe that she is. A woman can start acting as if she is older than she believes because she internalizes what other people are saying and what they think about her.


title: Ageism

text: In film the female body is depicted in different states of dress and portrayed differently depending on the age of the actress. Their clothing is used as an identity marker of the character. Young women are put into revealing and sexy costumes whereas older women often play the part of a mother or grandmother clad in a bonnet or apron. Aside from no longer representing the ideal female model, post-menopausal women are stereotyped as mentally unstable. "They become quarrelsome, vexatious and overbearing, petty and stingy; that is to say they exhibit typically sadistic and anal-erotic traits that they did not possess earlier...(Freud 1958,323-24)"


title: Ageism

text: There is considerable evidence of discrimination against the elderly in health care. This is particularly true for aspects of the physician-patient interaction, such as screening procedures, information exchanges, and treatment decisions. In the patient-physician interaction, physicians and other health care providers may hold attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that are associated with ageism against older patients. Studies have found that some physicians do not seem to show any care or concern toward treating the medical problems of older people. Then, when interacting with these older patients on the job, the doctors sometimes view them with disgust and describe them in negative ways, such as "depressing" or "crazy". For screening procedures, elderly people are less likely than younger people to be screened for cancers and, due to the lack of this preventive measure, less likely to be diagnosed at early stages of their conditions.


title: Ageism

text: After being diagnosed with a disease that may be potentially curable, older people are further discriminated against. Though there may be surgeries or operations with high survival rates that might cure their condition, older patients are less likely than younger patients to receive all the necessary treatments. For example, health professionals pursue less aggressive treatment options in older patients, and fewer adults are enrolled in tests of new prescription drugs. It has been posited that this is because doctors fear their older patients are not physically strong enough to tolerate the curative treatments and are more likely to have complications during surgery that may end in death.


title: Ageism

text: Other research studies have been done with patients with heart disease, and, in these cases, the older patients were still less likely to receive further tests or treatments, independent of the severity of their health problems. Thus, the approach to the treatment of older people is concentrated on managing the disease rather than preventing or curing it. This is based on the stereotype that it is the natural process of aging for the quality of health to decrease, and, therefore, there is no point in attempting to prevent the inevitable decline of old age.


title: Ageism

text: Furthermore, caregivers further undermine the treatment of older patients by helping them too much, which decreases independence, and by making a generalized assumption and treating all elderly as feeble.


title: Ageism

text: Differential medical treatment of elderly people can have significant effects on their health outcomes, a differential outcome which somehow escapes established protections.


title: Ageism

text: In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Maria Ivone Carvalho Pinto de Sousa Morais, who had had an operation that was mishandled and rendered her unable to have sex. Portuguese judges had previously reduced damages to her in 2014, ruling then that the operation, which occurred when she was 50, had happened at "an age when sex is not as important as in younger years." The European Court of Human Rights rejected that decision, with the majority's ruling stating in part, "The question at issue here is not considerations of age or sex as such, but rather the assumption that sexuality is not as important for a 50-year-old woman and mother of two children as for someone of a younger age. That assumption reflects a traditional idea of female sexuality as being essentially linked to childbearing purposes and thus ignores its physical and psychological relevance for the self-fulfillment of women as people."