Attacks on disabled people are not “just nastiness”
BBC iPlayer – Dave Monk: Essex disability hate crime and Pebmarsh needs a donkey This was broadcast last Wednesday (so you will be able to listen to it until early next Wednesday). The focus...
Category: Crime
Busybodies and common sense
BBC News – Should a teenager be left to babysit a toddler? Lately I’ve seen a few stories about parents receiving cautions or fines for “child neglect” which consisted of leaving a young child...
Jack Straw wields the wooden spoon again
So, the vicious old creep Jack Straw has yet again stirred up trouble for Muslims in the UK, this time with comments on the recent “Asian grooming scandal” involving groups of men of Pakistani...
Racial stereotypes exaggerated in ‘grooming’ reports
Child sex trafficking study sparks exaggerated racial stereotyping | Law | The Guardian Anyone read the extensive coverage of the issue of Asian men grooming white girls in northern towns that has dominated the...
The prejudicial coverage of the Yeates murder
A loss of faith in the morality of the British press | Minority Thought I must say I never had much faith in it to begin with, but this article exposes some of the...
Will we ever punish cops who kill?
Last night I saw a Crimewatch appeal for information regarding the murder of PC Keith Blakelock, a policeman who was murdered during riots on the Broadwater Farm estate in north London in 1985. Blakelock...
Rape is not funny. Yes, even when it’s George Michael. (updated)
A couple of hours ago I went downstairs to chat to my sis who is visiting with her little girl, and one of the new generation of comedy shows, Mock the Week, was on....
Crime victims’ groups round on crime victim
Yesterday it was reported that Ian Huntley, the man convicted of the murder of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham (a village near Cambridge, in England) in 2002 and who was attacked...
Tabloid feeding frenzy over Venables
The past few days have seen one ghoulish story about Jon Venables (or the person formerly known as such), one of the two boys who murdered a toddler, James Bulger, on Merseyside in February...
Raoul Moat: just a thug
Last week I heard an awful lot of nonsense in the media about why there were so many people willing to sing the praises of the murderer Raoul Moat, who killed his ex-girlfriend’s partner...
Why no compromise on rape anonymity?
Last week it was reported that the coalition government is to go ahead with plans to change the law to give men accused of rape the right to anonymity up to the point where...
Suburban Barclays bank robbed
Yesterday a branch of Barclays bank was robbed near London. It happened in Ashford — not the one in Kent where the Eurostar trains stop, but the quiet suburban sprawl north of Staines which...
Harassment “commonplace” for those with learning disabilities
Last Wednesday in Manchester, a 64-year-old man with learning disabilities, David Askew, collapsed and died after two youths broke down his garden gate and tampered with his mother’s scooter. He had not been physically...
Erwin James on the Angola Three
37 years of solitary confinement: the Angola three | Society | The Guardian I had heard of the Angola Three before today, but this article puts the whole case into very clear detail for...
Old wounds opened by Venables re-arrest
One of the two men who were convicted of the murder of James Bulger as boys was recalled to prison about a week ago, something the public found out yesterday and was all over...
Heathrow robbery trial bungled again
BBC News – Heathrow armed robbery accused on run from London court Today a guy who was on trial for an armed robbery at Heathrow airport in 2004 jumped bail after having left the...
The differences between the Inglis and Gilderdale murder cases
Earlier this week, a mother named Kay Gilderdale was acquitted of the attempted murder of her daughter Lynn in December 2008. Lynn Gilderdale had been bed-bound since the age of 14 with severe ME...
On Mercy
Yesterday a man who attacked someone who had burgled his house and terrorised his family had his sentence cut and suspended (having had his conviction overturned) and released. Also yesterday, a woman who had...
The link between childhood behaviour and crime
Most UK crime caused by people with childhood behavioural problems, study says | Society | The Guardian I was quite worried when I saw this headline, and was reassured to read on and find...
Disability and brutality
One of the most distressing stories to be in the news last week was an inquest into the murder-suicide of a mother and her disabled daughter in Leicestershire. The family, consisting of the mother,...