McKinney and the manacled Mormon, a sad tale of old Fleet Street

I attended the UK premiere of the Errol Morris documentary Tabloid and, despite laughing out loud several times, I came away somewhat less than happy.

The subject of the film, Joyce McKinney, was a sad character, and the newspaper saga in which she figured does reflect badly on the popular journalism agenda.

For those who were not around in 1977, those who might have forgotten if they were around and those who never knew, or cared, anyway, McKinney became briefly famous after a young Mormon missionary claimed she had kidnapped him, chained him to a bed and raped him.

McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming who hailed from North Carolina, was arrested by British police. She immediately claimed that the missionary, Kirk Anderson, had been complicit, but also admitted: "I loved Kirk so much I would have skied down Mount Everest in the nude with a carnation up my nose."