THERE is no defence for Marc Hill nor Sian Donnachie for grooming and fantasising about abusing a 12-year-old girl, nor Hill for actually sexually assaulting the child.

However, given that Hill was the one who committed the more serious offences and was jailed, why did the national newspapers choose to publish pictures of just Donnachie and not Hill?

Photos of 21-year-old Donnachie posing in a bikini and pouting for the camera, taken from her social media accounts, were splashed across national media websites while there were no pictures of Hill.

Indeed, in the national media coverage of this horrible case, Donnachie was the focus of each report while Hill almost appeared an afterthought, despite the court being told that he was the one who was driving the sick fantasies and abuse.

So why did the nationals not publish pictures of Hill? The Standard was able to obtain his custody mugshot easily enough by contacting the police.

It’s due to a worrying trend in our media: focusing on female offenders, especially young ones.

It’s hard to argue that Donnachie deserved to be the focus in this case. She and Hill were sentenced on the same day and his crimes were certainly more hideous.