Irish prisons to get new PS2 consoles, says tabloid; PlayStation not linked to killing

  - No substantial link between PlayStation and killer, possible questionable sub-editing

Last Friday’s ‘the Irish Sun’ tabloid newspaper leads with the headline “PLAYSTATION KILLER”, somehow in reference to Wayne O’Donoghue, who was convicted of manslaughter of the 11-year-old Robert Holohan.

There is apparently no link between the killing and the games console, the paper only says O’Donoghue, like other prisoners, will be getting a PS2 when the prisons upgrade from the original PlayStation consoles. The tabloid quotes an unnamed ‘prison source’ stating “All the old PlayStations are being replaced with new PS2s so prison officers are up to their eyes in games consoles”.

The paper, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International, is famous for the "Gotcha" headline, used when the British Navy sunk an enemy ship in the Falklands war; it is thought to be inappropriate as 368 men were killed. "Your headlines often made us feel sick", the Sun’s official historian later quoted a British serviceman, adding there were "ritual burnings of the Sun" on navy vessels.