You know how sometimes there’s a big breaking story that makes international news, because it somehow ‘fits’ the story the media are selling that day, despite how it’s not really that newsworthy.

This one, for example:

Police in Belgium are investigating a complaint from a teenager who says a tattooist peppered her face with stars after she asked for only three [...] The teenager has told Belgian media she wanted three modest stars tattooed near her eye and she awoke to “a nightmare”. BBC News: Belgian Girl’s Tattoo ‘Nightmare’

I saw this on the national news in the UK. Not, you note, in Belgium. Girl daft enough to fall asleep when having her face tattooed wakes later to find it wasn’t quite what she wanted makes worldwide news. I found this a little far-fetched at the time: the tattooists claim that she got exactly what she’d asked for, and only changed her mind when her father saw it, to be quite plausible.

This didn’t stop the media sources being unerringly sympathetic towards her…

The 18-year-old, who is now suing the body artist for £8,500, said: “I can’t go out on the street. I am so embarrassed. I look horrible.” Daily Mirror

The Mail Online hints at a previous title for its post, with a title which reads “What did she expect? Incredible face revealed of the man who tattooed girl”. Seemingly because he has a somewhat tattooed and pierced face he’s expected to be less professional, and act against his clients’ desires, is he? I’m surprised they didn’t suggest we should have an online poll to burn the freak. I have to admit, that level of tattooing/piercing is not for me, but surely it’s up to the individual what they want to do with their own faces…

But even the most advanced laser techniques would, while removing the tattoos, leave deep white marks all across Kimberley’s face.She has launched legal proceedings against Toumanaintz seeking damages, plus the money for the operation.

He was questioned by police earlier this year but they decided it was a civil matter and that there was nothing they could do. Jules Clocher, a Belgian psychologist, said: ‘The trauma this girl must be feeling is indescribable. She feels like a circus freak – and no wonder, because she looks like one.’

Mail Online

But while I heard multiple news sources in the UK highlight the fact that this girl claimed she’d only asked for three stars but had woken up with fifty-six, all of which calls the tattoo artist’s ability and professionalism into serious question, I’ve not seen this reported anywhere in the UK, except, credit where it’s due, in The Telegraph:

A teenage girl who claimed 56 stars were tattooed on her on her face as she slept when she asked for three has admitted she was awake the whole time – and lied because her father was “furious”.

The Telegraph

So what I want to know is, how come the British media think it’s news when a sweet, pretty, young 18 year old girl gets horrible unwanted tattoos put on her face by a nasty Romanian all covered in tattoos and piercings, but it isn’t news when it turns out a professional Romanian tattoo artist with loads of tattoos and body piercings is falsely accused of “mutilation” by a sweet, pretty, young, deceiving manipulative 18 year old, who’d got exactly what she’d asked for?

Anyone else smell an agenda?