The Murder Map Comments

The Blog has Moved!

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

This blog is now at www.blog.murdermap.co.uk...

At the Scene of a Murder

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The murder scene is now a stock image of TV and film. A dishevelled detective arrives, crouches down over a dead body, spots something everybody else missed and then makes a smart comment to amuse the audience. With the viewer hooked, the music kicks in and it's on to the title sequence. You don't really have time to think about the person who has died, let alone feel anything.

This doesn't apply to real life murder scenes. The first one I remember seeing in London was just down the road from my house. There was no body visible, just a forensics tent on the pavement. These tents, usually white and yellow, are well known to the public through media reports. When you see one you know what it means, even if you don't know what has happened. In that particular case it was another nine months before the case reached the Old Bailey and I found out that a teenage boy had stabbed his stepdad to death.

Once erected at the scene, the tent can remain in place for up to 48 hours as paper-suited investigators search for evidence. With advances in DNA and other forensic techniques, the smallest find can be crucial. But even when the tent has been packed up and taken away a few signs still remain. Leftover police tape fluttering from lampposts and fences. Discarded medical equipment and wrapping. Discoloured sand, scattered around to soak up any pools of blood.

Some scenes - usually those involving young victims killed on the street - are marked by temporary shrines made up of flowers, candles and stuffed toys, often attached to personal messages of love, grief and despair. Others return to normality almost straight away, as if nothing had ever happened. Many are permanently out of view inside private bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms.

It is this variety that the photographer Antonio Olmos captures in his project The Landscape of Murder. The idea is simple but time-consumingly ambitious - photograph every murder scene in London in one year. He's been going for eight months now. Eight months and nearly eighty homicides across the capital, from Croydon to Enfield and Harlington to Romford, building up an alternative picture of 'Austerity Britain'.

Last week it was the turn of Ilford in east London. Kelvin Chibueze, 17, had been stabbed to death in the early hours of Monday 15 August, the ninth teenage homicide victim of 2011. The details were vague, but he had been found injured in a car park following a clash between two groups of between 15 and 20 people.

It turned out the car park, for customers of Lidl, Fitness First and Farmfoods, was almost directly opposite the police station. Officers had rushed out on hearing shouts and bottles smashing and found Kelvin lying with a stab wound to the chest. He died in hospital at 1pm.

Two days later, only a few hours after the forensics officers had left the scene for good, the area was relatively busy for a Wednesday afternoon. It was cloudy but bright and warm. Vehicles drove in and out, families did their shopping, passers-by passed by.

It was no doubt a coincidence that the car parking space where Kelvin Chibueze bled to death was empty. At one end was a dark patch of ground which could have been mistaken for an oil leak. A few yards away a short piece of torn police tape had been left attached to a steel barrier.

There were no flowers at the scene but around the corner a group of Kelvin's friends had gathered around a bench with their bouquets. They were clearly distrustful of the media and photographers, particularly if they were from the tabloids. Later they were to shout at and confront one of these 'snappers' who tried to take sneak shots of them from a distance.

By contrast, Antonio - who works for the Observer - won them over by being open, straightforward and polite and asked for permission. After discussing it among themselves, and seeing examples of his previous work, they agreed to let him take photographs as they stood in silence, hugging each other, talking quietly, cradling flowers. This wasn't staged - there were no directions or pleas to look at the camera. They were left to pay tribute in their own way while Antonio stood by his tripod for just over an hour, waiting for the scene to arrange itself.

At some locations he has spent the better part of a day waiting for a shot. Often people approach to ask what he is doing, question him about the murder or even offer an opinion. Their reactions are as varied as the scenes themselves. A few yards from a teenage stabbing in Welling he witnessed a brief scuffle between rival gangs. Two youths even flashed their knives. Once he was approached by the mother of a boy who had been killed in the same area a few years earlier. At another scene in south London local shopkeepers told him the victim was a known thief, while in Ilford a man wanted to know the colour of the victim.

Murdered teenagers like Kelvin make bigger headlines, and for good reason at a time of growing concern for the future. But there are many more who go unremembered, unnoticed by the media and represented only by Home Office statistics. One of the ideas behind murdermap was to record and remember every victim, regardless of the 'story', and by doing so illuminate the hidden, darker sides of London. The photographs that make up 'The Landscape of Murder' do the same thing in a different way. And maybe, as the cliche goes, a picture really is worth a thousand words.

___________

Antonio Olmos, whose other work can be seen on his website antonioolmos.com, has written about his project in the Observer - 'When the city streets are visited by death' - July 10, 2011.

A slideshow of pictures from The Landscape of Murder can be seen on the Radio Netherlands website.

Murdermap Roundup 21/8/11

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Three murders reported in the past week, two of them involving teenage victims:

On Monday August 15, Paul Coleman, 35, died in hospital a day after being attacked outside his sister's birthday party in Coulsdon, south London.

The same day, 17 year-old Kelvin Chibueze was stabbed to death in a supermarket car park in Ilford, east London.

Then on Wednesday, 14 year-old Leroy James was stabbed to death on a field in Ponder's End, Enfield, north London.

Mapping the Ratcliffe Highway Murders

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

This year is the 200th anniversary of the Ratcliffe Highway murders, when seven people were killed in a gratuitous frenzy in the space of 12 days. But while 19th century Londoners would have recoiled at the mention of John Williams and his crimes, they probably mean little to the city's present day inhabitants.

Likewise the scenes of the murders are vastly different to how they were in December 1811. At that time, Ratcliffe Highway ran east from Tower Hill through Wapping and Shadwell to Limehouse. To the south were the docks where ships brought in tobacco, tea and sugar (and sailors), while to the north was the church of St George's-in-the-east, Cable street and Whitechapel.

In those days the highway was lined either side with shops, pubs, tenements and narrow, dark alleyways. The expansion of the docks and the blitz did their part to reshape the road and now it is known simply as 'The Highway'. The cramped dwellings have been replaced with trees, small industrial units, grassland, a building site, and a warehouse dating from 1882, now converted into flats. To the south lies the fortress of News International, former home of the now-defunct News of the World.

Ratcliffe Highway in the late 19th Century, when it was known as St George's Street

It is now known simply as 'The Highway' (looking east from the junction with Artichoke Hill)

The scene of the first murder was the home and business of linen draper Timothy Marr at number 29 on the south side. The numbering of the street has changed with the name but the road roughly opposite the location, Betts Street, remains. At the time of the publication of P.D. James' book about the murders, Marr's house had been replaced by a block of flats. It seems the site of Marr's shop is now a Saab dealership.

Approximate location of the murders of Timothy Marr, his wife, their baby and servant boy.

The second murder scene, at which a husband and wife and their maid were battered to death 12 nights later, was at the King's Arms pub at 81 New Gravel Lane. This road, which is further east down the Highway, is now called Garnet Street.

The King's Arms would have been somewhere on the west side of Garnet street (pictured above, heading south). It was knocked down in the 1830s for the extension of London Dock. The dock wall remains today, but behind it you now find blocks of post-war flats.

Heading down Garnet Street takes you towards Wapping and the site of the Pear Tree lodging house which became the centre of the police investigation. It was there where a bloodied knife was found hidden in a closet. The carpenter's maul used by the killer had also been previously kept there in a locker.

Pear Tree Alley, which ran off Cinammon Street, no longer exists but seems to have run parallel to what is now called Clegg Street. In the 1960s it was still a derelict bomb site but it is now the site of a small block of flats and a children's playground.

The view (above) from Cinammon Street at what would have been Pear Tree Alley. Clegg Street can be seen on the far left. To the right is Hilliards Court. Below is the view from the bottom of Clegg Street towards Hilliard's Court.

The final location to visit is the burial site of John Williams, who committed suicide before facing trial. He was dumped in a hole at the crossroads of Cannon Street Road and Back Lane (now Cable Street). His body was dug up again 100 years later by workmen installing new mains. According to legend the skull was kept by the owner of the Crown and Dolphin pub at the corner. The pub (pictured below) closed in 2002 and converted for residential use.

The locations of the 1811 murders have also been turned into 'The Ratcliffe Highway Murders Tour' using the mobile phone app Gowalla (which is a bit like Foursquare). If you have it downloaded, you can use it to locate all four sites and 'check in' and complete the trip.

Last year we set up a similar tour for the Jack the Ripper murders. So far five people have completed the trip and lived to tell the tale...

Murdermap Weekly Roundup 14/8/11

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Four murders in the past week, two of them riot-related:

On Monday August 8, Trevor Ellis was shot dead after being chased by a gang of nine looters in Croydon. He died the following day.

Alice Adams and Tibor Vass, both 20 year-old receptionists, were stabbed to death at a house in Harlington, west London, on August 10.

The following day, Thursday August 11, Richard Mannington Bowes, 68, died in hospital, three days after being attacked by rioters in Ealing, west London.

Other potential cases:

Abdullahi Osman, 31, died on Saturday, August 13, two days after being assaulted in West Ealing. As three suspects have already been charged with GBH with intent, it seems likely they will now be charged with murder.

A skeleton was also found in a bag in Peckham, south London, on August 10. Police are currently treating it as an 'unexplained death'.

A little light relief

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Here's a jolly little song called 'Murders' from 1915. The performer is comedy music hall actor George Grossmith Jnr, the son of the author George Grossmith (who wrote Diary of a Nobody). I gather it was quite a hit.

The lyrics, as far as I can make out, go like this:

I have a few confessions that I think I ought to make
and I'll try to break them tenderly for everybody's sake
The first's about my laundress who has left this world of strife

If you listen I will tell you how she came to lose her life

I murdered her last Tuesday but I thought it would be best

and never never more will she tear buttons from my vest
and now I'll get my Sunday shirts and collars in one piece

For I murdered her last Tuesday it was a merciful release

There used to be an organ man who played along our street

but now he'll never play again, his heart has ceased to beat.

For I sallied forth one evening when the light was getting dim

and I pulled out my revolver and I pointed it at him.

I murdered him that organ man, I don't think I was wrong

he wasn't wanted in this world, he'd been here far too long.

Was it Saturday or Friday now, I can't remember which

but at any rate I murdered him without the slightest hitch

Poor fellow.

A terrible misfortune has befallen our family

My wife's poor mother has gone off into eternity

She used to give me lectures but she won't do that again

She said my conduct pained her so I put her out of pain

It was on a summer morning that the dreadful deed was done

no fuss or talk about it, just a bullet from a gun

She never seemed contented and I thought it best she went

So I murdered her one morning, it was very kindly meant

Another notoriety has left this world full speed

and once again I take the blame, it was I who did the deed

It's my caddy I'm referring to, a most obnoxious lad

if I'd let him live much longer I'd have soon gone raving mad

So I slew him in a bunker, it was Wednesday of last week

I approached him with my mashie* and I finished with the cleek**

and never more my slicing or my pulling will he guy

For I murdered him in bogey and he had a lovely lie

Take me away constable, I'm quite ready

*an old wooden shafted golf club resembling a five iron.

**an old iron golf club, otherwise known as a driving iron

Murdermap Roundup 7/8/11

Sun, 7 Aug 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The first week in August leaves us with one confirmed murder and a fatal shooting by police:

On Thursday August 4, Mark Duggan, 29, was shot dead after being stopped by police while riding in a cab. The incident is now being investigated by the IPCC (and so is not officially a 'murder investigation').

Two days later a 20 year-old man was shot dead following an argument between two groups at a bus stop in West Norwood. He has not yet been identified by police.

Other non-fatal incidents include the stabbing of a 23 year-old man in Belvedere on Saturday, August 6.

Sam Hallam: A Miscarriage of Justice?

Wed, 3 Aug 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

There's a famous quote from the film Shawshank Redemption, when the main character Andy Dufresne tells another prison inmate: 'Everybody in here's innocent. Didn't you know that?'

So when a young man convicted of murder steps forward and strongly protests his innocence, it's often hard to keep an open mind. It's still harder to accept that there has been a miscarriage of justice. We'd all like to think that juries, with their 12 independent, educated minds, can see through prosecution hyperbole and defence obfuscation to the truth.

Obviously there have been glaring examples of where this hasn't happened. The Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, Colin Stagg. But in the new millennium, with its CSI forensics, highly-trained police officers and professional lawyers?

The case of Sam Hallam (the murder of Essayas Kassahun) demonstrates how many things have changed, even in the last five years. CCTV is much more prevalent. Mobile phone evidence, showing who phoned who, at what time and at what rough location, is more precise. Scientists use new techniques to get DNA from much smaller samples than have previously been possible.

But eyewitness accounts and identification of suspects have been the basis of court cases for centuries. It's also long been known that human memory is fallible, and that this has an impact on the legal process. We all have experience of its effects - ask 20 people at a football match about a goal or a tackle and you'll get 20 different versions of the same event. But it may be that with the 'CSI effect' juries are now unwilling to accept witness evidence without backup from another source.

Even more 'dangerous' is the interaction of witnesses after the event, particularly when rumour comes into play. They may change their account - sometimes without realising it and sometimes out of a misguided attempt to achieve justice for the victim.

Having looked into reports of Sam Hallam's trial in 2005, it's clear that there wasn't a great deal of interest in the case at the time, for whatever reason. There are limited reports on the BBC online, the Camden New Journal and Islington Gazette. The Press Association and the Central News court reporting agency filed short pieces on the opening of the case, the conviction and the sentencing hearing. The most detailed account found online is at the Sam Hallam Campaign website, which appears to make use of court transcripts.

In Sam's case there were two key witnesses who identified him as being present at the scene (although neither did in their initial statements to police). One of them, a 20 year-old man, said he saw Sam standing over the victim with a baseball bat. He said he had been 'reminded of his name' by they other key witness, a 19 year-old girl. This girl also identified Sam Hallam, saying she had heard a rumour that a 'Sam' was involved in the murder, although she did not state exactly how he was involved.

These are only a few of the inconsistencies, but sadly they are not unusual ones in a murder case. Witnesses are often unwilling to provide names straight away, either because they don't want to 'grass' or because they fear retaliation. It's also worth pointing out that the 20 year-old was treated as 'hostile witness' in court because he effectively withdrew his identification of Sam Hallam. This meant that his identification in his second police statement could be provided to the jury anyway.

It's impossible to know how the jury reached their verdict, but it's likely they would have had to decide whether the two witnesses genuinely identified Sam Hallam but felt uncomfortable doing so, were mistaken about their identification, or were trying to cobble evidence together out of rumour.

What Sam Hallam lacked in this situation was a provable defence (although by law he does not have to offer one). He did not answer questions in interview (lawyers almost always advise their clients not to) and his friend contradicted his claim to have been playing football.

But that was it. No forensics, or CCTV footage or phone evidence linking him to the murder. It's no surprise many feel passionately that he has been wrongly convicted.

Sam (pictured right) is now 24, having served half of his minimum 12 year sentence. During his incarceration his father Terry has died but his family and friends have kept the campaign going. It is a tribute to their hard work and belief that his case was last week referred to the Court of Appeal due to the 'real possibility that the Court of Appeal would quash the conviction.'

If they do, the court could then order a retrial. The prosecution would then have to assess if they have enough evidence against Sam Hallam to mount a case. It may be some time yet before Sam Hallam is freed.

The Sam Hallam campaign is holding a public meeting to discuss their next steps on Thursday 4 August 2011 at 7.30 pm in the Arden Estate Community Hall, Regan Way, Hoxton, north London.

Murdermap Roundup 31/7/11

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

This week:

No murders reported so far - the total for July currently stands at seven.

In the courts:

Gang member Ola Apena was jailed for life for arranging the execution of 17 year-old Samuel Ogunro in Peckham, south London.

Former Yorkie Bar TV star Stuart Mungall, 71, admitted killing his terminally ill wife.

Three men were cleared of the joint enterprise murder of teenage footballer Godwin Lawson. The man who stabbed him is already serving a life sentence.

Two brothers and their mother were jailed in connection with the murder of 19 month-old Siariah Letang in an arson attack in Camberwell, south London.

Off the Map: The case of James Smith

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

On the morning of December 4, 2010, the body of 28 year-old James Smith was found at an electricity substation near Penge West railway station in south London.

The postmortem revealed he had been electrocuted. A murder investigation was launched by the British Transport Police and the incident was added to the murder map.

James Smith, 28, died after being electrocuted near a railway station in south London.

British Transport Police were called to Penge West at 5.32am on December 4, 2010, and discovered the victim trackside. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

They later arrested one man on suspicion of murder and four others on suspicion of manslaughter. All five have been bailed to return in January 2011.

Officers are investigating whether they were involved in stealing cable at the time of the incident.

Detective Chief Inspector Alison Palmer, investigating officer for British Transport Police, said: “Post-mortem results suggest James’ injuries were consistent with electrocution and his family have been informed.

“We are currently keeping an open mind as to why James was in the area at the time of the incident and are keen to hear from anyone that can help us piece together the events leading up to and after his death.

“Our enquiries in the local area are continuing and an investigation to establish the exact circumstances is ongoing. If you think you have any information about the incident, no matter how insignificant it may seem, we want to hear from you.

“This was a tragic incident that has seen a man lose his life and which sadly highlights the dangers of going trackside. Our thoughts remain with James’ family at this very difficult time for them.”

Anyone with information can contact British Transport Police on Freefone 0800 40 50 40 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Seven months later it has been deleted. Why? Because it is no longer a homicide. Brothers John Tusting, 26, and Jason Tusting, 23, have now pleaded guilty to charges of burglary and criminal damage recklessly endangering life.

It emerged that the three men broke into the substation to steal copper cable, which is now so valuable that Network Rail have reported a 300 per cent increase in thefts since 2004.

John Tusting had himself suffered severe burns trying to drag Mr Smith away - although he initially claimed he had been doused with petrol and set on fire by three men. He made a 999 call at 5.32am but misled police about the exact location.

The copper was sold the same morning for just £342.

Week in Review 24/7/11

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Two murders reported this week, both in the borough of Southwark:

Jerry Iyiku, 22, was stabbed in the heart at a betting shop in Old Kent Road, Peckham, on Tuesday, July 19.

Three days later 38 year-old waiter Vitalijs Janovics was fatally stabbed not far from Bermondsey tube station.

A 17 year-old boy is also in a critical condition after being stabbed in Parsons Green, southwest London, on Friday 22 July.

In the courts:

Polish burglar Kuba Dlugosz was jailed for a minimum of seven years for the manslaughter of Eveline Kelmenson, who was tied up and left to die at her home in Stamford Hill in November 2008.

An Everyday Murder

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

When someone is murdered in London, who notices? Aside from the obvious - witnesses, the local community, the police - the answer depends on the type of case and the victim.

Carlos Roberto Oliveria was stabbed to death near Burnt Oak tube station in the early hours of Saturday, July 16.

The first media report came from the Hendon Times just over three hours later at 7am, as Burnt Oak station was closed while police investigated.

More coverage came via the BBC and Sky following a limited press release by the Met Police that afternoon. Few details were given beyond the fact a man aged around 30 had been stabbed in Watling Avenue at around 4am.

The next day another press release provided the victim's age (27) and the cause of death (stab wound to the chest) and the Hendon Times reported that the location was a suspected brothel.

Other than that the case, like many others, did not receive a great deal of attention, starved of both information and what journalists might call an 'angle.'

The absence of any reaction from officialdom bothered the author of the Barnet Eye blog, who has criticised the 'disinterested silence' of Hendon MP Matthew Offord.

As I peruse the twitter feeds - nothing from our MP. Nothing from the Leader of the Council on any Hendon Times story. Is it just because it's Burnt Oak? Don't people from Burnt Oak matter? If it was a wealthy Totteridge resident, I wonder what the response would be. If it was a millionaire?

Sometimes the Human race makes me sick. We only care about those we deem important. God bless the victim and his family. I will remember them in my prayers.

Then it emerged another man had been stabbed in Burnt Oak in an apparently unconnected attack, followed by rumours of a third in nearby Edgware. This provided a shocking jolt even to those who already believed the area to be troubled, as a look at the responses on Twitter makes clear.

The victim was finally identified by police on Monday evening as a Brazilian national from Clapham, Carlos Roberto Oliveria (although the usual spelling is Oliveira). Detectives are appealing for witnesses and it is to be hoped they will bring those responsible to justice, but it is a sad fact of life that Mr Oliveria will be quickly forgotten, just another murder victim in London.

Murdermap Roundup 17/7/11

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

One reported murder in the past week:

A 27 year-old man was stabbed to death near Burnt Oak tube station in the early hours of Saturday, July 16.

Detectives are also investigating after a body was found in a field in Feltham on the evening of Friday July 15. It may have been there for several months.

In the courts:

James Saunders, 21, was jailed for 20 years for the murder of Moses Devall after a feud between traveller families.

Trevor Dinnall was jailed for 20 years for the murder of his neighbour and best friend Malcolm Boxall in Edmonton.

Antoinette Van Dungey was jailed for 19 years for the murder of 41 year-old Carl Everson at her home in Barking, east London. She had killed her partner six years earlier.

Hacking scandal's first victim?

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

While the hacking scandal is dominating the news, it's worth remembering a gruesome south London murder 24 years ago.

Daniel Morgan, a 37 year-old private investigator, was hacked to death with an axe in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham. His brother Alastair believes that Daniel was killed to stop him exposing significant police corruption.

One of the suspects in the case was Morgan's business partner Jonathan Rees, who exploited a network of police officers to sell stories to tabloid newspapers about the activities of celebrities, politicians and royalty. It is thought he was also able to hack into bank and phone accounts. It has even been suggested he commissioned burglars to gather material for scoops.

In 2000 Rees was arrested and jailed for six years for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice following a plot to plant cocaine on a model called Kim James. What happened when he was released from prison in 2004? He went to work for the News of the World, which was then edited by Andy Coulson.

Andy Coulson resigned in 2007 after the Royal Editor at the paper was jailed for hacking into the phones of the staff of Princes William and Harry. He then went to work as a 'spin doctor' for Prime Minister David Cameron until he was forced out in January 2011 because of new revelations about phone hacking.

There have been five investigations into the Daniel Morgan murder. It has now been admitted that the first was damaged by police corruption. The last one collapsed in March this year. The case remains unsolved.

Now that the Prime Minister has ordered public inquiries into the hacking scandal, we think it's time one was ordered into the Daniel Morgan case.

Murdermap weekly review July 4 to July 10

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Three murders reported last week:

Genson Courtney, 23, died in the early hours of Monday July 4 after being shot in Greenwich at 11pm the previous day.

The following day Mumtahina Jannat, 29, was found dead at her home in East Ham. She had been strangled. Her husband has been charged with murder.

On the morning of Wednesday, July 6, Umess Chaudhari was battered to death with a brick, apparently by a complete stranger, after leaving his home in Croydon. An 18 year-old man was arrested at the scene and sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

In the courts:

A South African crystal meth dealer was jailed for six years after admitting the manslaughter of Jaypee Maderazo in Harlesden.

Brian Atkinson was jailed for life with a minimum 17 years behind bars for the murder of Kevlin Eurie in Plaistow.

Victims, their families and the Courts

Wed, 6 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

There's no denying that the court process can be gruelling for the families of murder victims. They are plunged into a world over which they have no control, a world ruled by men in wigs who appear to have little consideration for their feelings. Their role is to sit quietly at the back of court and try to show as little emotion as possible so as not to disrupt proceedings.

What's more, they may be called to give evidence in the full glare of the public and answer difficult questions about their loved ones. Previous convictions, drug use, bad behaviour - all could be raked up in what appears to be a cheap attempt to conceal the truth about who committed the crime. The families may even be accused of the crime themselves. It all seems deeply unfair.

But it was still a little surprising when the father of Milly Dowler suggested that his family had paid 'too high a price' for the conviction of Levi Bellfield, almost as if it wasn't worth pursuing the court case at all. He added: 'We do not see this as true justice for Milly, merely a criminal conviction.'

Bob Dowler said Bellfield 'was able to decline to give evidence and chose instead to hide behind his defence QC, to challenge the testimony of EVERY witness – WHERE IS THE FAIRNESS IN A SYSTEM WHICH ALLOWS SUCH BEHAVIOUR.'

Their complaint was understandable in hindsight. The man who killed their daughter and was already serving a life sentence for killing two other women had been allowed to humiliate them in court. Bellfield knew he would never get out of jail. He had nothing to lose.

The problem is that Bellfield's conviction wasn't assured. The prosecution case in a nutshell was that he lived close to where Milly Dowling was last seen and went on to murder two other women. Now imagine that the jury hadn't been told he had previous convictions for murder.

Most defendants would not have pursued the tasteless questions about Bob Dowler's lifestyle and Milly Dowler's lack of self esteem for fear it would turn the jury against them. But the point is that there is a principle of neutral justice at stake. Justice is blind, not because it doesn't care what it sees, but because it is even-handed and fair in its attempt to get at the truth.

One recent example from the Old Bailey: Jacqueline Barrett, a 34 year-old mother-of-three was strangled and battered to death by her boyfriend Houssam Djemaa during a 'domestic' row. Djemaa admitted killing her but claimed that she provoked him by racially abusing him and threatening him with a knife. This would reduce the offence from murder to manslaughter and effectively cut any prison sentence in half.

To run this defence his barrister questioned the victim's mother Angela about her daughter's past as a drug addict and previous convictions for violence. There was even a hint that the parents were partially to blame.

"She could become racially abusive when she was angry," Paul Mendelle QC told the court. "She claimed that she had inherited her racial abuse from her parents."

Obviously this compounded the family's grief. As her mother Angela said after the guilty verdict: "He tried to paint Jacqueline in the worst possible light at court rather than admit what he had done, but didn't once mention his controlling behaviour or trying to push Jacqueline and her family apart."

Yes, the defendant was allowed to put forward a defence based on lies about his victim, but this is the whole point of the trial - to get at the truth. Until the jury returned their verdict he was innocent of the crime, and entitled to fight his case. This explains why Bellfield was allowed to suggest Milly had run away because of problems at home and been snatched from somewhere other than his doorstep.

Sometimes this results in added trauma for those involved in the trial. Watch any murder case at the Old Bailey and you will see witnesses challenged, accused of dishonesty or blamed for crimes they did not commit. The idea is that the truth will shine through and that juries will convict only when they are sure of guilt, not because they sympathise with the victim or the victim's family. You only have to imagine yourself in the dock to understand why the defendant should be allowed to challenge prosecution witnesses.

Another reason why the Dowler family were so traumatised was that the court case was reported in excruciating detail by the media. They had already suffered nine years of press intrusion (and potentially having their phones hacked by the News of the World) before a suspect was finally put on trial. During the trial they complained about having to sit in court next to a great legion of TV and newspaper journalists tweeting away on their phones whenever anything 'interesting' happened.

Sadly this is another example of a family finding itself on the rough end of a principle, this time the principle of open justice. Murder trials should be reported. The question is, how much?

In reality most cases only feature in the papers two or three times - the prosecution opening, the defence case and the verdict. Sometimes the defence case is skipped entirely. Details that cast the victim in a poor light are glossed over in an attempt to make the story more newsworthy. Graphic details of rape and murder cases are not reported, on the basis that nobody would want to read about it.

Anyone seeing these reports might think the defendant was guilty already, not innocent until proven guilty. Perhaps this is one reason why people are so shocked by what really happens in court.

Unfortunately for the Dowlers, Milly's murder became one of those cases, like Soham, Ben Kinsella and Damilola Taylor, that gained massive media attention because of the issues raised. How did a 13 year-old girl disappear in broad daylight? Why was Bellfield not caught until after he killed again?

But now the furore about callous defence barristers and a carnivorous press has died down (ok, maybe not the last one), someone can work out how best to prepare victims' families for the justice system without compromising either a fair trial or open justice.

Louise Casey, the Victims' Commissioner, revealed that a survey found that 'families that had had no involvement with the police and courts actually coped better with their bereavement.'

She argues that a 'victims' law' should be passed to protect families from the harshness of the system. As reported in the Guardian, this would include:

a criminal practice direction to ensure families were treated with dignity and respect during court cases
judges should clear the court when particularly distressing evidence is about to be heard or at least the families given due warning
the right to information from the crown prosecution service, including meeting the prosecuting lawyer
the right to sentencing remarks from the judge in writing and trial transcripts
release of the body back to the family within 28 days
courts to have a family meeting to ensure that their needs during the trial are met

From my experience, prosecutors do chat to families, there is a dedicated witness service in court and relatives are warned when disturbing evidence is likely to emerge, although it's up to the professionals to make sure it happens. Sometimes things go wrong, so if it really needs legislation to make it happen, then so be it. The court process is never going to be easy, but it could be made a little easier.

There is another theory - victims are traumatised by the system because they are over-protected by the state and feel shut out of the whole process.

The criminologist Nils Christie, in a 1977 article 'Conflicts as Property', argued that we should restore the victim to the centre of court cases.

Highly industrialised societies do not have too much internal conflict, they have too little. We have to organise social systems so that conflicts are both nurtured and made visible and also see to it that professionals do not monopolise the handling of them. Victims of crime have in particular lost their rights to participate. A court procedure that restores the participants' rights to their own conflicts is outlined.

It seems you need a subscription to read the full article but, according to this piece by an American attorney 'Genuine Justice', it argues that as a result of the state attempting to protect the victim from conflict, we are less able to cope when conflict occurs.

Giving the victim direct involvement 'creates the opportunity to get at the root of the conflict, heal the wounds it has caused and at last have a real path to peace. As the parties come to understand one another, they are far more likely to assume responsibility for what they have done.'

Murdermap Roundup week ending 3/7/2011

Sun, 3 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Two murders reported for this week, both on Friday July 1:

Sixteen year-old Yemurai Kanyangarara was stabbed to death in broad daylight in Welling, southeast London.

The 41 year-old man shot dead by gunmen in Thornton Heath has not yet been identified.

In the courts:

Two brothers were convicted of the killing of 19 month-old Siariah Letang in a house fire in Camberwell.

Three men were jailed for their parts in a robbery which resulted in the death of father-of-four Sellathurai Easwaran in East Ham.

RIP Yemurai Kanyangarara

Sat, 2 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Murdermap Roundup 20/6 to 26/6/2011

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Five murders reported this past week, two in south London and three in north London:

Farrukh Malik is accused of the murder of his 60 year-old wife Sarwat at their home in Finchley on Monday, June 20.

On Wednesday June 22 Mahad Mohammed, 20, was stabbed to death in Battersea.

Kenrick Wickham, 36, was shot dead in West Dulwich in the early hours of June 23.

Thomas Quinn has been charged with the murder of his 81 year-old mother Mary Quinn in Emberton Court, Islington (EC1).

On the evening of Sunday, 26 June, Andrew Jaipal, 21, was stabbed to death in Holloway.

The death of a man whose body was found on Clapham Common on Wednesday, 22 June, is still being treated as 'unexplained.'

In the courts:

A man was jailed for life for the murder of Sylvester Senyah in Leyton, east London.

Polish burglar Kuba Dlugosz was convicted of the manslaughter of Eveline Kelmenson, who was found dead at her home in Stamford Hill on January 1, 2009.

Levi Bellfield, who is already serving a life sentence for the murders of Amelie Delagrange and Marsha McDonnell in London, was convicted of the murder of Milly Dowler in Walton, Surrey.

Murdermap Roundup 13/6 - 19/6/2011

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

One new case reported this week:

The body of 42 year-old Shaun Corey was found at a house in Forest Hill, south London, on Wednesday June 15. A woman has been charged with his murder.

Other news:

Four men have been charged with the murder of club doorman Bogdan Paduret in Finchley, north London, in November last year.

A man was charged with the manslaughter of Anthony Young in a suspected road rage incident in Wandsworth, south London, last October.

An Algerian man has admitted the murder of his colleague Peter Joseph at an industrial launderette in Wembley in July last year.

Dropping off the Map: Death by Dangerous Driving

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The recent death of Charles Bunyasi began as a murder investigation but will now 'drop off the map'. Why? Because it no longer counts as a homicide.

Mr Bunyasi (right) was run over by his own van after it was stolen by a thief. The exact circumstances are unclear but detectives have charged the suspect only with 'causing death by dangerous driving'.

This offence, brought in by the Road Traffic Act of 1988, was intended to prevent drivers escaping a charge of murder or manslaughter, mainly due to a lack of intent.

Under current Crown Prosecution Service guidance, a murder charge may be considered where 'the vehicle was intentionally used as a weapon to kill'.

Where the killing was involuntary, the charge might be 'unlawful act manslaughter' or 'gross negligence manslaughter.'

The first applies if the defendant uses their vehicle as a weapon or to frighten, whereas the second involves driving which 'falls far below the minimum acceptable standard of driving' and there is an obvious and serious risk of death.

Causing death by dangerous driving on the other hand requires only that the defendant's driving is dangerous and a 'more than negligible' cause of death.

There is some debate whether drivers are being charged with causing death by dangerous driving when gross negligence manslaughter is more appropriate and carries a higher maximum penalty.

The CPS response to this, following a public consultation was:

Gross negligence manslaughter should not be charged unless there is something to set the case apart from one where one of the statutory offences [death by dangerous driving etc] can be proved. This will normally be evidence to show a very high risk of death, making the case one of the utmost gravity.

As a matter of law it is more difficult to prove an offence of gross negligence manslaughter than it is to prove an offence of causing death by dangerous driving. It is not necessary to have evidence of an obvious and serious risk of death to prove an offence of causing death by dangerous driving. All that is required is evidence that the driving was dangerous and that the driving caused the death of another person.

The maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving used to be ten years. It was increased to 14 years in 2003 and is perhaps now the preferred charge for prosecutors.

It also has the benefit of not being included in the homicide statistics kept by the Metropolitan Police.

_____

Case examples:

An example of a vehicle murder case is the death of Gary Johnson, who was deliberately mown down outside the Ministry of Sound nightclub.

Imran Raja was convicted of manslaughter after knocking down Robert Scott with his taxi in Mayfair.

Mudermap Review 6/6 - 12/6

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Three murders reported for the week:

Nana Darko-Frempong, 18, was shot dead in Tulse Hill on Monday, June 6.

Polish chef Krzysztos Rusek, 30, was stabbed to death in a robbery in the early hours of Tuesday, June 6. Three 17 year-old boys have been charged with murder.

Delivery driver Charles Bunyasi, 49, was run down and killed in Coulsdon Road, Coulsdon, on Saturday, June 11.

In the courts:

Jaswinder Singh, 60, was jailed for at least 24 years for the murder of Harbharjan Singh, 31, and the attempted murder two other homeless men in Ilford, east London.

Houssam Djemaa, 23, was jailed for at least 15 years for the murder of his partner Jacqueline Barrett, 34, in Cricklewood, northwest London.

Jurijs Djubins, 47, committed suicide while in prison awaiting trial for the murder of his partner Sandra Voicehovska in Hounslow, west London.

An Unexplained Death

Wed, 8 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

This week a visitor to the site asked if we were going to include the case of 23 year-old Aaron McQueen-Williams.

Aaron was found by police with serious head injuries on the A40 in Ealing at twenty minutes past midnight on Friday June 27.

Witnesses appear to have seen him falling from a car which failed to stop at the scene.

Initial press reports suggested he may have been 'hurled' from the vehicle, possibly after being beaten. It was also stated a murder enquiry had been launched.

But the police statement mentioned no murder enquiry, saying instead it was 'being treated as an unexplained death.' Not a homicide, or even a 'suspicious death', but 'unexplained'.

It seems detectives are awaiting the results of the full postmortem and toxicology tests before upgrading it to a murder investigation (or not). This may take as much as six weeks.

Cynics may see this as a slight massaging of the homicide figures. The death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams, who was found locked inside a bag in his flat, is classed as both suspicious and unexplained - something which the public might find ridiculously obvious. Unexplained deaths are simply those where no cause of death has been established.

But unlike the Gareth Williams case (which we have added), the death of Mr McQueen-Williams seems less clear cut at the moment. When more information emerges (or the police re-categorise the incident), we will review our decision not to include it.

RIP Nana Darko-Frempong

Tue, 7 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Murdermap Roundup 30/5 - 5/6

Sun, 5 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Two murders reported in the past week, although this may increase:

Alper Pasha, 43, died on Monday, May 30, after being hit over the head in Brixton, south London, four days earlier.

Sadiq Adebiyi, 25, was shot dead in front of police near Stockwell tube station in south London on Tuesday, May 31.

On Saturday, June 4, a man died in hospital an hour after being attacked in Canbury Park Road, Kingston-Upon-Thames.

A 19 year-old was said to be in a critical condition after being stabbed in Lambeth.

UPDATE: Police are treating the death in Kingston as 'unexplained' until they have the postmortem result.

Tributes to Sadiq Adebiyi

Thu, 2 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Murdermap roundup 23/5 - 29/5

Mon, 30 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

New cases:

A man was stabbed to death in Tottenham on Friday, May 27. He has still not been identified.

Earlier the same day Aaron McQueen-Williams died after falling from a car on the A40 in Ealing. It has been reported he was thrown from the car but detectives are classing it as an 'unexplained death' so far rather than a homicide.

In the courts:

Mark Parrish, 37, was convicted of the murder of 25 year-old Christopher Taylor in Harold Hill, Essex, in the early hours of New Years Day, 2004.

Ghulam Mustafa was sentenced to a minimum of 13 years for the murder of shopkeeper Mohammed Hussain in Tottenham, north London.

Teenage hitman Santre Sanchez Gayle, 16, was jailed for a minimum of 20 years for the murder of Gulistan Subasi in Hackney, east London.

Change the Law, not Twitter

Wed, 25 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Why is Twitter seen as such a challenge to the justice system? It's all about information, and who controls it.

Even in the digital age, the courts still wield enormous power. When a reporter walks into court he or she has to be aware of a series of restrictions.

You can't give your opinion on a case, you can't publish information the jury hasn't heard and you definitely can't film or record proceedings. If there are children involved, whether as defendants, victims or witnesses, they usually cannot be identified. You definitely can't name the victims of sexual assault and you shouldn't really identify blackmail victims. And if a judge has issued a contempt of court order banning reporting of the case, you may have to wait months or even years before you get a chance to publish your story.

Obviously members of the public aren't aware of these restrictions. In the past this wasn't a problem - they could tell their friends and family at home or down the pub, but they certainly couldn't publish their words to the masses. That was left to the limited number of newspapers which could be easily monitored, and punished if necessary.

But with the internet, and especially Twitter (highly visible, highly fashionable), there are now millions of publishers out there. They can dash off a tweet in a few seconds without thinking of the consequences. How can they all be trusted to toe the line? Do you punish all the errant tweeters, or just the tweeters with the most followers? Or do you change Twitter by inserting a ridiculous delay mechanism?

Now that Twitter users have 'made a mockery of the courts' by defying a series of superinjunctions, media commentators are rushing to ask their favourite question: 'Where will it all end?' Will Twitter users wreck trials left, right and centre by spreading 140-character gossip in a global game of Chinese Whispers? Will it threaten the entire justice system?

A lot of people see this as a problem with Twitter. As a court reporter, I reckon it's the justice system that is the problem and needs to adjust to the fact that it can no longer control information in the age of the internet.

Before Twitter it was Google that judges worried about. What if juries did a search on the defendant's name and discovered all kinds of prejudicial information? What if they used it to investigate the crime themselves, or carried out their own research? What if they ignore everything we say and come to their own decisions?

Juries aren't given much credit in court. They're treated a bit like children asking questions about the facts of life. No, you don't need to know about that. You just leave the court while the grown-ups discuss what to tell you. Because if you hear something we don't want you to hear then you're going to get up to all kinds of mischief. You can have minds of your own, as long as you follow this list of directions.

If you needed proof that this is wrong, here's the view of a juror who happened to be a journalist. Because jurors are just like me and you, you see?

When I did jury service for the first time at the Old Bailey a few years ago--a case of aggravated burglary (ie, with violence)--I changed my mind about what one can expect of a jury. I had naively expected high standards of professional competence from the court, but thought the jury might struggle to do a good job. It was just the opposite. The prosecutor seemed to have been handed the brief as he entered the court. He was unacquainted with his own case. The defence dealt pointlessly (or suspiciously) with inessentials. The rules of evidence seemed mainly designed to deny the jury important information that, in its ignorance, it might misunderstand. The jury was engaged, gravely aware of its responsibility, and diligent in filtering out its own prejudices and considering only the facts.

What might a new system look like? Over in America you can comment on court cases. You can film in court. You can even get hold of and publish police charging documents. Juries are told to ignore prejudicial or bad information rather than shielded from it. Is this the reason for their higher crime rate? Has the justice system collapsed?

Here in the UK the Contempt of Court Act 1981, which is responsible for many of the restrictions on court reporting, was brought in to prevent the media undermining a fair trial. It's meant to stop newspapers and their millionaire owners exerting undue influence, not to restrict access to information. As someone* somewhere once said, knowledge is power. No wonder Wikileaks is so popular.

If Twitter users are defying the rules, it doesn't mean they are all anarchists and idiots out to distress rape victims and wreck trials. It means that they believe they are unreasonably being denied the facts. It means the rules might just be stupid. Let's be glad it came to a head over a cheating footballer rather than government repression and state murder.

In the old days the public relied on newspapers to be their voice. Times change. The public are finding their own voice.

_____________

* Sir Francis Bacon, in 1597, apparently.

Weekly Roundup 16/5 - 22/5

Sun, 22 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

There have been no reported murders this last week, following six in the previous week.

Instead there have been developments in several old cases:

Two men are to stand trial for the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993
Police are expected to question gang boss Terry Adams about the unsolved murders of two of his associates in 1994 as part of a new 'last ditch' reinvestigation.
A man was charged with the murder of Julie Dorsett, whose remains were discovered six years after she went missing in 2002.

In the courts:

Two men were cleared of the murder of nightclub promoter Daniel Herbert in Rotherhithe, but convicted of involvement in the attack.

A homeless man was jailed for at least five years for killing 19 year-old Marcin Bilaszewski in Finsbury Park, north London.

Five teenagers were convicted of killing 15 year-old Sofyen Belamouadden in a gang attack at Victoria Station.

Is the murder rate still falling?

Wed, 18 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has been championing falling crime levels - particularly homicide - as a reason for his relection.

He was able to trumpet 2010's murder rate as the lowest since 1978. And the numbers have actually been going down in the capital since around 2003.

But if you look at the Met's rolling 12 month table for homicide, you'll see an alarming statistic. Homicides have increased by 16 per cent in the 12 months to March 2011 compared to the previous year.

Part of this may be down to the varying numbers of murders each month. Some months there are 14 homicides (such as this February), some are as low as six (March). [This seems to be borne out by the rolling twelve month figures up to April 2011, down 1.6 per cent.]

According to our own figures, there were 43 homicides in the year up to 30 April 2011. And the total for the same period last year? The same number.

So the jury is still out. Perhaps by the time the election comes round in May 2012, we'll have a better picture.

The BorisWatch blog also has a breakdown of the Met's own homicide figures.

Murdermap Review: 9/5 to 15/5

Sun, 15 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Six murders reported in the past week:

Randy Osei-Boateng, 27, was shot dead in Shepherd's Bush, west Londn, on Monday, May 9.

On May 10, Wayne Stockdale, 42, died four days after being shot in the head in Bow, east London.

The same day James Land, 79, was found dead at his home in Downham, south London.

Fifteen year-old Temidayo Ogunneye was stabbed to death in Camberwell, south London, on May 11.

On Thursday, May 12, Badi Salam, 35, was stabbed to death at sheltered housing in Argyle Street, near King's Cross.

A 24 year-old man was stabbed to death in Southall on Saturday, May 14. He has not yet been identified.

In the courts:

Kamran Uzzaman was locked up indefinitely for battering a fellow mental health patient to death at Mile End Hospital.

Aiah Tondoneh was jailed for a minimum of 21.5 years for the murder of his girlfriend Donna Drepaul.

RIP Temidayo Ogunneye

Fri, 13 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Tributes to Adeniyi Shode aka Enda

Mon, 9 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Murdermap Review 2/5 - 8/5

Sun, 8 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

One reported murder in the past week:

Adeniyi Lateef Shode, 21, was stabbed to death outside a barbershop in Northolt, west London, on May 2.

In court:

Barman Scott Lindsay, 27, was cleared of the murder of his partner Natalie Correa at their home in Dagenham, east London.

A student faces a retrial for the murder of 19 year-old DJ Carl Beatson-Asiedu in Kennington, south London.

Ghulam Mustafa, 51, pleaded guilty to the murder of Mohammed Hussain in Tottenham, north London.

Coming up this week:

Two men are to go on trial for the murder of Stephen Ramsey in Brentford.

Kamran Uzzaman is to be sentenced for the manslaughter of Prodip Debnath in Mile End.

Aiah Tondoneh is to be sentenced for the murder of his partner Donna Drepaul in Finsbury Park.

The Ian Tomlinson case

Wed, 4 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Following the verdict of 'unlawful killing', there is now an argument for adding Ian Tomlinson to the map.

Up until now, the death of the newspaper vendor at the scene of the G20 summit protests could not be categorised as a homicide.

The Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge PC Simon Harwood with manslaughter because pathologists disagreed over the cause of death.

But the jury verdict on Tuesday, reached on the standard of 'beyond reasonable doubt', raises the question of whether Ian Tomlinson's death should now be included in London's homicide statistics.

Should every 'unlawful killing' case count, even in the absence of criminal charges? Or should it depend on whether a manslaughter charge is brought?

There are three other notable London cases on the list of unlawful killing verdicts published by the charity Inquest:

Harry Stanley was shot dead by police in Hackney, east London, in September 1999, after someone claimed he had a gun wrapped in a carrier bag. It was in fact a table leg. The verdict was overturned by the High Court in 2005 and reinstated an open verdict.

Roger Sylvester died after being restrained by police in a padded room at St Ann's Hospital in Tottenham, north London in January 1999. The verdict was again quashed by a High Court judge and replaced by an open verdict.

Ibrahima Sey, a 29 year old Gambian asylum seeker, died after being forced to the ground, handcuffed and then sprayed in the face from close range with CS gas at Ilford police station in March 1996.

No criminal charges were brought in any of these cases, or in that of Jean Charles De Menezes, who was shot dead at Stockwell tube station in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings. The jury in that inquest were not given the option of unlawful killing by the coroner and returned an open verdict.

Week in Review 25/4 - 1/5

Mon, 2 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Two murders were reported last week bring the monthly total to nine:

Paulo Lutumba, 25, was stabbed to death in Enfield, north London, on Sunday, 24 April. A man has been charged with murder.

Lucinda Port, 29, was found stabbed to death in Bow, east London, on April 26. The murder is thought to be linked to the suicide of a 31 year-old man a few streets away in Bethnal Green.

RIP Stenography

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

This week the BBC reported - in its own strange way - that court proceedings will now be digitally recorded instead of taken down by dedicated stenographers.

This could be said to bring an end to a tradition going back to the 17th Century. It's also quite a sad end to a profession that has included an aspiring author known as Charles Dickens.

Dickens later referred to the job in his autobiographical novel David Copperfield, although not in altogether favourable terms:

"I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography (which cost me ten and sixpence); and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep".

Dickens, like today's stenographers, worked freelance - first at the civil courts known as the 'Doctor's Commons' before stepping up to the Houses of Parliament, aged 19, in 1831. His reports were supplied to journals and newspapers including the True Sun and the Morning Chronicle.

Although there is no direct evidence he plied his trade at the Old Bailey, there is a transcript from a murder trial in the Dexter collection of Dickens papers at the British Library. It reports on the case of three men accused of carrying out two killings so they could sell the body to anatomy lecturers.*

Dickens did however write a sketch about his visit to Newgate Prison and based at least one character on a famous murderess [Mademoiselle Hortense in Bleak House].

But the history of 'court reporting' at the Old Bailey isn't a simple one. The first comprehensive 'Proceedings of the Old Bailey' (rather than individual reports of famous cases) was published commercially in the late 17th Century. By 1787, as the newspapers began printing their own reports, they were being subsidised by the City of London. By 1834, when the Bailey became the Central Criminal Court, they were pretty-much publicly funded.**

Anyone can now read these reports online, for free. That is until 1913 when they stopped, undercut by the official appointment of shorthand writers by the state following the Criminal Appeal Act of 1907. For records after that date you have to search through files at the National Archives, although no doubt a lot of material has just been chucked out.

In recent years the official task of taking a full note of proceedings has been farmed out to a private company, Merill Legal Solutions. I'm not sure what happens to their records, although I've heard they get destroyed after six years. As for getting hold of a copy of a transcript, only law firms and the government can afford the fees.

All of which means that once the government decided not to continue the contract past March 2012, the stenographers effectively lost their jobs. Some may leave the profession altogether.

Their role is now taken over by the clerk of the court, who will have to press the right button at the right moment to ensure the case is being recorded. What will happen to those recordings? Will they be transcribed and published online (like they do in some American courts)?

Somehow, I doubt it. Stenography will now only live on in the shorthand of the motley assortment of hacks who dart from court to court looking for a story. Although some say this is also a dying art.

____________________

*Another report of the trial of Bishop, Williams and May can also be found on the Proceedings of the Old Bailey website.

**The publishing history of the Proceedings of the Old Bailey can be found here

Weekly Update 18/4 - 24/4

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Two murders reported for the week, both on Wednesday, April 20:

Milad Golmakani, 22, was stabbed to death in Kilburn, northwest London, in a suspected gang attack.

Zandra Maxwell-Nelson, 24, was stabbed to death in Tottenham, north London, in what is thought to be a domestic murder.

In the courts:

Suspected hitman Taurean Taylor was cleared of two murders in south London (Errol Davis and Larry Safie).

Mohammed Ali was convicted of the manslaughter of Mahmood Ali (also Mahamoud Ali), who was shot dead in Forest Gate, east London.

Andrew Whitefield was cleared of the murder of Maciej Novak in Kentish Town, northwest London, on the grounds of self defence.

Jeffrey Clarke was convicted of the murder of Amanda Beresford in Perivale, west London, and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 22 years before parole.

Magistrates Courts should publish their results online

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

At its best the courtroom provides compelling drama of the kind rarely seen on TV. On any given day you can witness anger, grief, happiness, apathy, despair and disbelief, sometimes from the same person. There are performances of great skill alongside acts of sheer incompetence. Decisions are made which affect lives for many years, if not forever.

Courtrooms can also be boring. So soul-destroyingly, mindnumbingly tedious that you wonder why mankind even exists. Sometimes it seems like you've been waiting a whole day for one ten-second event that didn't quite match up to your expectations anyway. Sometimes nothing happens at all, at a cost so extravagant that you might feel nostalgic for the 'good old days' when criminals were caught, tried and executed before teatime.

We all intuitively know the system is dull, especially if we work 9 to 5 office jobs, but like most dull things we prefer not to think about them. We focus on the interesting things, just like journalists. We summarise an event when retelling it as an anecdote (or at least we should do). And so, when we do think about the system we are surprised all over again by how incredibly dull and time-consuming and wasteful it is.

This is what happened when West Midlands Police decided to send five press officers into Birmingham Magistrates Court to tweet the results of every case during a morning session on April 19.

Leaving aside the fact it took five press officers to do it (now you see why newspapers appear to neglect court reporting), the results were hailed as both 'fascinating' and 'a waste of time and funding.' And the Daily Mail wasn't impressed either.

Some examples:

A 60 yr old female suspected shoplifter appeared in court for stealing flour and a cucumber. Adjourned until next week.

24 yr old Yardley man fined £200 fine £65 compensation for stealing electric fans and a mirror as the queue was too long!

22 yr old woman from northfield pleads not guilty to assaulting her daughter.adjourned until june for further evidence and trial

39 yr old man who stole £8.99 bottle of wine receives £15 fine to be deducted from his benefits

41 yr old erdington man given total of 20 weeks for 1 count assault on a police officer and 1 count common assault

30 yr old man accused of robbery of a mobile phone.remanded in custody for birmingham crown court

39 yr old bordesley green man fined £1,070 for no tv licence and failure to provide driving licence

A few of these might have warranted a paragraph or three in the local paper. Others are interesting purely because they shed light on something we tend not to think about. You can get fined £1,000 for having no TV licence? You can get taken to court for stealing a cucumber? We sort of knew this already, but still. We leave the bureaucracy to the bureaucrats so we can get on with more interesting things. Right?

What you read in the newspapers is what you see when you go to the cinema - the finished product. The dross, the repetition, the tedium has been weeded out and what is left is the highlights. It's like watching the football without the delays, the half time intermission and the tedious passing around midfield that never goes anywhere. Like Hollywood films the result can be criticised for lacking in quality, but it's been created for our entertainment.

Having said that, most local newspapers used to have a 'Look Who's In Court' section. That stopped at one place I worked at because the court started charging money for the paper list, meaning a reporter would have to drop all the other exciting tasks like captioning school pageant photos to get down there. These days it doesn't make financial sense to report the courts unless it's a really big story.

Which is why the 'tweetathon' was a good idea - as a one-off. It did its job in opening up the Magistrates Courts for a morning. It educated, or at least readjusted, people to the reality of the justice system. But nobody wants a non-stop stream of court results fed directly to their brain, just like they don't want to hear someone else's thoughts all day and every day. There has to be a filter somewhere.

That doesn't mean we should have to rely on a journalist or a posse of press officers. In this digital world, the Magistrates Courts should really publish the results themselves. They are already recorded on a computer system, it's just we don't have access to it. Once out there, the 'internet' would do the work. Significant results would be flagged up, passed on, commented upon and investigated. All without the cost that mitigates against a human being sitting in court all day waiting for a story that might never happen.

For an example of which, see here. Why Wigan should be the forerunner of this, I have no idea...

Week in Review 11/4 - 17/4

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Two murders reported for this past week:

Isaiah Bovell, 21, was shot dead in a garden in Clapham on Thursday April 14. A man has been charged with murder and now awaits his first appearance at the Old Bailey.

On Sunday, April 17, a man in his 30s was shot dead in Marcus Garvey Way, Brixton. He was later identified as Raymond Mitchell.

In the courts:

Two gang members were jailed for a minimum of 32 years for the murder of 16 year-old Agnes Sina-Inakoju, who was shot at a takeaway in Hoxton, north London last year.

Zack Sackett, 20, was jailed for a minimum of 25 years for the murder of 16 year-old Jessie Wright, who was raped and strangled near King's Cross in Islington. It later emerged he had been allowed to roam 'out of control' by the police, social workers and the courts.

A woman was jailed for two-and-a-half years for the manslaughter of Michael Crawley with an overdose of heroin.

A fourth man was jailed for life for the murder of Geeta Aulakh, the young monther who was hacked to death with a machete on the orders of her husband. Getaway driver Harpreet Aulakh was found guilty after a retrial.

Coming up this week:

Jury out in case of Taurean Taylor, accused of two 'hitman' shootings in south London.

Tributes to Negus McLean

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Week in Review 4/4 - 10/4

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

One murder known for last week:

A 15 year-old boy - named by friends as Negus McLean - was stabbed to death in Edmonton, north London, at around 7.25pm on Sunday, April 10.

In court:

The main story was the conviction of suspected serial killer John Sweeney for the murders of two girlfriends in 1990 and 2001.

Two other killers confessed to their crimes at the Old Bailey: Aiah Tondoneh admitted the murder of his girlfriend Donna Drepaul, while Kamran Uzzaman pleaded guilty to manslaughter of a fellow hospital patient, Prodip Debnath, on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Coming up this week:

Two men are to stand trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of 27 year-old Daniel Herbert in Rotherhithe in August 2009. It is said to have been a 'gangland execution'.

Andrew Whitefield, 52, is to go on trial for stabbing Maciej Novak to death in Kentish Town last Halloween.

Verdicts are awaited in the Jessie Wright and Agnes Sina-Inakoju murder trials.

Life Means Life

Wed, 6 Apr 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

By the end, the fight had gone out of John Sweeney, professional carpenter, amateur artist and suspected serial killer.

When he was found guilty of the murders of two women found dismembered in canals in London and Holland, he showed no reaction at all.

He walked calmly down to the cells and then refused to come back to court to be sentenced. Mr Justice Saunders, sentencing him to die behind bars, spoke to an empty dock.

It was a marked difference to his previous appearance at the Old Bailey ten years earlier in 2001. After being convicted of the attempted murder of his former lover Delia Balmer, he shouted 'bastards' at police.

The following year, when he was convicted of keeping two shotguns at his home, he had to be restrained by security guards as he shouted at the jurors: 'It's a f-----g kangaroo court. I didn't expect nothing else. You're a f-----g disgrace.'

Sweeney (pictured right) was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of nine years behind bars.

Had it not been for the determined investigation into the murders of Melissa Halstead in 1990 and Paula Fields in 2001, he might have been launching his first bid for parole this year.

During the double murder trial at the Old Bailey this year he interrupted the start of the case by shouting out 'It's all lies'. He also branded the prosecutor a 'prick' and called him arrogant and 'smarmy' from the witness box.

But as the jury filed back into court on Monday, April 4, he knew the game was up.

Although whole life sentences are relatively rare, they do seem to have been passed with greater frequency in the last ten years.

Between 1983 and 2002, the minimum term served by lifers was set by the Home Secretary. Since then it has been the responsiblity of judges and the High Court.

According to the list of 'whole lifers' on Wikipedia (which is incomplete), 30 people have been sentenced to this ultimate punishment since 2004.

Most of these murdered two or more people and had a history of violence, just like Sweeney. But even if he wasn't given a whole life order, the minimum would have been in excess of 30 years. At the age of 54, he knew he'd never get parole, whatever the sentence.

Some would say he deserves to hang for what he did - but being forced to spend your remaining years in a cell is as close to damnation as you can get. Indeed, one prisoner believed it was such 'inhuman and degrading punishment' that it amounted to a violation of his human rights.

Weekly Update 28/3 - 3/4

Sun, 3 Apr 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Two murders confirmed by police this week - both in east London:

Winston Brown, 33, was stabbed to death in Brunel Road, Walthamstow, on the morning of Friday, April 1.

Kowshar Hussain, 24, was stabbed to death in Master's Street, Stepney, in the early hours of Saturday, April 2.

In the courts:

James Tomkins was convicted of the drive-by murder of father-of-two Rocky Dawson in Hornchurch, Essex, in 2006.

Father and son Jose Aburto-Rojas and Roberto Aburto-Rojas were convicted of the murder of Gabriel Morales in Brixton, south London, in March 2008.

Mark Drummond was locked up in a secure mental health unit after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of his 77 year-old father Keith Drummond in Perivale, west London, in May last year.

Satpal Kaur Singh was jailed for seven years for killing her son by forcing him to drink bleach at the family home in Barking.

The trial of Mohamed Ali for the murder of 21 year-old Mahmood Jama in Forest Gate, east London, got underway at the Old Bailey.

Coming up:

The jury is out in the case of John Sweeney, accused of the murder of two women found dismembered in canals in London and Holland in 1990 and 2000.

Junior Ademujimi-Falade, 19, goes on trial for the murder of teenage DJ Carl Beatson Asiedu in Kennington, south London, in August 2009.

Tributes to Kelvin Easton

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Tea and Biscuits with Mr Christie

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The cup of tea is said to be quintessentially English. It also seems to have been the preferred tipple of the notorious wartime serial killer John Christie.

So it was fitting that tea (and biscuits) were on offer for a talk by Christie expert Dr Jonathan Oates earlier this month for the Acton History Group in west London.

The subject was Christie's second victim Muriel Eady, who lived with her aunt in Acton between 1923 and 1939. In 1944 she met her killer while working at the Ultra Radio factory in Park Royal. In Christie's own words:

She was short and rather plump and I should say she was about 30 years old. We used to meet at the works canteen over a cup of tea and we became good friends. One day when my wife was working away I asked Muriel Eady to come one day to the house and she accepted. At the time she was suffering from catarrah and I told her that I was able to cure her of it. I had planned well in advance to murder her, and I had got ready a small glass jar with a metal lid. I had bored two holes in the lid and through them injected a rubber pipe. I fitted the jar with perfumed water. Muriel Eady did not know that the other end of one of the rubber taps was connected to the gas pipe. I told her that in order to cure her catarrah, she must inhale from the jar. The perfume destroyed the smell of the gas, and therefore as she inhaled she had no suspicions at all that she was about to die. After a while she became dreamy and dozy. This was the moment I had been waiting for. In this semi conscious state I led her from the kitchen into the bedroom. I put her on the bed. This was my first affair with Muriel Eady. She was too dazed to resist. She had no objections at all. Then I strangled her.

Christie then buried Muriel Eady in the garden, although the skull was apparently later dug up by his dog. To make it look like she had been the victim of a German air raid, Christie left it in a bombed out house nearby.

Back garden of 10 Rillington Place. Source: Wikipedia

All of which left me with one crucial question: What was Christie's dog called? [Google seems unable to bring up the answer].

Sadly it was something I neglected to ask Dr Oates, although he kindly told me more about his biography of Christie, which is planned for released in 2013.

Dr Oates, who has already published six true crime books, has spent hundreds of hours poring over police files, newspapers, army records, court registers, electoral registers and even a 1998 poem called 'The Ballad of John Reginald Halliday Christie.' For those interested, it begins

Before that wicked lady
Hindley and her chum Brady,
Before the Yorkshire Ripper and his kind,
There was a strange old fellow
Whose ways were quiet and mellow,
The last man you would think would blow your mind.

One of the problems of revisiting the more famous parts of London's history is the accumulation of myths, falsehoods and speculation. The Christie story was also made into the film 'Ten Rillington Place' starring Richard Attenborough in 1971 and although touted as a 'true story' it is by nature a drama rather than a documentary.

Dr Oates, an archivist by profession, intends his book to set out the definitive story. As he explains: 'History doesn't repeat itself - 'historians' do. It is a product of lazy research and has happened a lot with the Ripper murders.

'The biography aims to cover Christie, his family and his victims. I think I know more about this than anyone alive, and certainly far more than all previous authors.'

Dr Oates' previous books, including "Unsolved murders in Victorian and Edwardian London" can be found here via Amazon.

Week in Review 21-27 March

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Three new cases confirmed this past week, all in east London:

Eileen Jones, 73, was found dead at a house in Bethnal Green on March 23. A 45 year-old man has been charged with her murder.

A 63 year-old man was stabbed to death at a cafe in Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, on Saturday afternoon. A 25 year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

A 23 year-old man was stabbed to death at the La Boheme nightclub in Mile End in the early hours of Sunday. A 27 year-old man has been arrested.

It was also reported that a man was arrested in Plumstead and charged with the murder of 60 year-old Lee Clement, whose body was found in Partridge Wood, Kent, on March 10. As yet it has not been revealed when or where the murder took place.

Trial updates:

On March 25, two men were cleared at the Old Bailey of the murder of 22 year-old Joseph Hylton in Tottenham in May last year.

The trial of two men for the murders of Patrick Brown and Eugene Brown outside a nightclub in Forest Gate, east London, got underway. It is claimed they were shot dead in revenge after Mr Brown fired four bullets into the ceiling during a 30th birthday party.

Zakk Sackett, 20, has gone on trial for the murder of 16 year-old Jessie Wright in Islington.

The jury was discharged in the Zac Olumegbon murder trial and a new trial was set for September 12. There are five suspects aged between 16 and 17.

James Tomkins has gone on trial for the drive-by murder of Rocky Dawson in Hornchurch in May 2006.

Court diary:

A teenager is due to go on trial for the murder of 21 year-old Mahmood Jama in Forest Gate in January 2010.

The suspected getaway driver in the murder of Geeta Aulakh is to face a retrial at the Old Bailey.

On Wednesday the jury is due to begin considering its verdicts in the trial of John Sweeney for the murder of two women who were dismembered and thrown into canals.

The inquest into the death of MI6 agent Gareth Williams is listed to be heard on Thursday, March 31, although it may be further delayed.

Week in Review 14/3 - 20/3

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Only one confirmed murder case this week - Louisa Jane Brannan, 35, was found stabbed to death at her home in Sutton, south London, on the morning of March 14.

The police also issued several appeals for information on three unsolved murders:

Four years ago Adam Regis, 15, was stabbed to death in Hackney, east London, while walking home from the cinema.

CCTV footage of the last movements of Dr Imran Farooq was released in a bid to track down up to four men involved in killing him outside his home in Edgware, west London.

On March 13, 2010, human rights worker Abdel Salam Abdel Salam, was found dead at his flat in Lee, southeast London.

Detectives also appear to have recategorised the case of Ibrahim Gharib, who drowned in the Shadwell Basin on March 18, 2010. Although several suspects were arrested on suspicion of murder, it is now classed as a 'suspicious death.'

In the courts, Lithuanian Eineris Olsevicius was jailed for at least 14 years for the murder of his 21 year-old roommate Tomas Lapsevic in Hayes, West London.

Ahmed Farah was jailed for at least 16 years for the murder of 18 year-old student Mahir Osman in Camden in 2006. He is the 15th suspect to be convicted in connection with the killing.

Edward Chopping, 84, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his wife Joan Chopping and was given a suspended nine month prison sentence.

COMING UP week beginning March 21:

Zakk Sackett is due to go on trial for the murder of 16 year-old Jessie Wright in King's Cross a year ago.

Michael Smith and five others to go on trial in connection with murders of Patrick Ford and Eugene Brown, who were shot outside a club in Forest Gate, east London.

James Tomkins to go on trial at Woolwich Crown Court for the murder of Rocky Dawson in 2006.

Remembering Adam Regis

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The tragic case of Mahesh Mehta

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

One of the most common complaints about the justice system is that the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Either the sentence is too lenient or the law fails to reflect the seriousness of an offence.

The death of 55 year-old businessman Mahesh Mehta is a case in point. The fruit and vegetable wholesaler was robbed after leaving a bank in Thornton Heath at lunchtime on October 19, 2009, in what the police called a 'senseless and uncontrolled attack.'

Mr Mehta died four weeks later on November 13 after developing a chest infection and detectives launched a murder enquiry to widescale publicity.

The victim's family - who were later praised by a judge for their dignity - described him as their 'cornerstone'. His nephew told the Croydon Advertiser: "They have not just robbed one person. It is like someone inside of all of us has died."

But the case concluded earlier this year with the three men who picked out Mr Mehta as a target pleading guilty only to a charge of conspiracy to rob. They each received sentences of less than six years.

You could be forgiven for thinking 'Why wasn't it murder?'

The full explanation will no doubt fully emerge at the inquest later this year, but the answer seems to lie in the medical evidence.

After the attack, Mr Mehta spent a week at the Mayday Hospital before being released. He appeared to have made a full recovery and on October 30 returned for a routine operation on his fractured nose.

It was during this stay that he developed a severe chest infection and deteriorated. A postmortem gave the cause of death as fluid on the lungs following surgery. So although the attack played an indirect part in Mr Mehta's death, it was not a contributory factor.

As a result the three gang members arrested by police for the robbery were charged only with grievous bodily harm with intent rather than murder.

It is for this reason that the case of Mahesh Mehta is not included on our map.

Week in Review

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The first two weeks of March have yielded only three confirmed murders so far.

Ram Bhasin, 80, and his lodger Sunil Koosuru, 29, were found dead after a fire in a maisonette in Shadwell, east London in the early hours of Monday 7th. A suspect has already been charged.

Police are also investigating the death of a man in his late 20s during a fight in Hammersmith, west London, on Friday.

It was a busy week at the Old Bailey:

Three youths were convicted of the murder of 16 year-old Nicholas Pearton.
Daniel Franklin was jailed for a minimum of 32 years for the murder of 88 year-old Irene Barrett.
Nine men were cleared of the murder of David Cauchi-Lechmere in Beckton, east London.
Imran Aslam was jailed for a minimum of 20 years for the murder of Haider Ali in 2006.
Three men were cleared of the murder of Daniel Morgan in 1987 after the prosecution dropped the case before it even reached trial.

Diary for week beginning March 14th:

Seven men are to go on trial at the Old Bailey for the doorstep shooting of Gulistan Subasi in Homerton, east London, on March 22 last year.
James Tomkins is to go on trial at Woolwich Crown Court for the murder of Rocky Dawson in Hornchurch in May 2006.

Trend or Blip?

Wed, 2 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

In February there were 14 homicides publicised (12 murder and two manslaughter) - which seems to suggest a continuing upward trend.*

There were by comparison only seven in January 2010 and six in February 2010. Or this just a 'blip'?

In March 2010 there were 15, followed by 14 in April. This did not prevent 2010 having the lowest number of homicides (125) since 1978.

There are obvious dangers in trying to project figures based on one or two months as there are highs and lows in any year.

It's also difficult to make instant comparisons - although the Met release details of all murders, other homicide charges (manslaughter, infanticide) are not always publicised.

The 14 homicides last month also include two 'double events' - the alleged murders of Regina and Rolls Say by their father and the suspected manslaughter of two Sri Lankan women in a fire at a tower block in Deptford.

In short, we'll have to wait and see what the future brings. But it would certainly raise questions if the murder rate began to rise again just as the cuts start to bite.

Last month it was announced that 455 jobs in the police force would be cut by the time London host the Olympics in 2012.

________

*There were 13 known homicides in December 2010 and 13 in January 2011. The average per month in 2010 was 10.5.

Note: The March 2010 total includes the case of Mohammed Taki, who was found buried in a Fulham garden that month but may have been murdered 20 years earlier.

Although the Met publish data for the number of 'murders' by borough per month, there is no way of checking which murders they are referring to. Our figures are taken from the number of cases we have inputted using information published by the Met Police and media organisations.

'They didn't take it seriously' - A complaint against the police

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Where do you go when you believe you have been failed by the police in their handling of a murder enquiry? This is the story of one family's decision to complain to the Independent Complaints Commission.

♦

Seventy-nine year-old Teddy Highwood (right) was bludgeoned to death at his home on July 17, 2009. His killer, 20 year-old Marcin Orlowski, was a Polish immigrant with previous convictions for mugging elderly victims.

Four days before the murder Orlowski had dialled 999 and told the operator through an interpreter: 'I should be in prison in Poland, I think, and now I have decided I don't want to run away anymore. I just want to be arrested and be extradited to Poland. I should be in prison for about three years.'

Orlowski was telling the truth - he had fled Poland as he was about to start a prison sentence - but UK police were unaware of this and there was no record on the national database.

After two further calls, the response of a police officer was to say: 'It is a minor offence, when he goes back to Poland he should hand himself in. We cannot help him get back.'

Orlowski was given the number of the Polish Community Helpline and it was suggested he go to the Polish Embassy, but he ended up sleeping rough in Trafalgar Square with a bottle of cider.

The family of Teddy Highwood say this wasn't good enough. Not only that, they believe Teddy's murder could have been prevented if the 999 calls had been taken seriously and Orlowski had been detained by police.

In August 2010 Mr Highwood's great nephew John Morris took up the case with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), with the help of his local MP Jackie Doyle-Price.

The process - which ended in the complaint being dismissed earlier this month - has left him feeling let down and disillusioned.

When it was set up by the Home Office in 2004, the IPCC was meant to reassure the public that complaints against the police would be treated seriously.

Instead it has been dogged by allegations of favouritism, given that many of its investigators are former officers, and a catalogue of basic failures. Its current director of investigations, Moir Stewart, was himself criticised for failings in relation to the handling of the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes. And it has been accused of trying to obstruct journalists investigating the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests.

As it happens, the IPCC decided not to investigate the Teddy Highwood complaint itself and passed it to the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) for a 'Local Investigation.' The DPS, which also investigates police corruption, is part of the Metropolitan Police.

"The people who investigated this were the police themselves," says Mr Morris. "It's absolutely ridiculous that they investigate their own incompetence."

According to the DPS report, Orlowski 'appeared incoherent and rambling' when he dialled 999 on July 13, 2009, and a check by officers revealed no information about him on the Police National Computer.

It continues: 'Having established that Mr Orlowski was not in danger or posed any risk, he was then advised not to use the emergency 999 system for this purpose again. It should be noted that Mr Orlowski made no reference to Mr Highwood and made no threats to police.'

As to why he was not detained by police, there was 'insufficient capacity to despatch operation police units to this type of call'.

It also appears that UK police have no power to arrest suspects for offences committed abroad unless there is a European Arrest Warrant.

In conclusion: 'It is unlikely that Mr Highwood's death could have been prevented by alternative action being carried out... Mr Orlowski could not have been detained.'

John Morris is quite blunt about his disappointment. "They think it's good enough - they didn't take it seriously.

"He's actually asked for help. They would have took this guy and held him, then rung the Polish authorities. If they had done that then Teddy wouldn't have been murdered."

In fairness to the police, they do set out a series of recommendatons (usually known as 'lessons to be learned') including risk assessment training for 999 operators and further improvement to the 'European data system'.

But the public might be surprised that a man wanted in Poland could enter the UK so easily, just because no European Arrest Warrant had been issued by the Polish authorities.

Even the Met admits 'it is of significant concern to this organisation that EU nationals may be unlawfully at large in the UK.'

John Morris now intends to campaign for tougher border controls, including criminal checks.

He said: "Someone could be a murderer and we know nothing about their background. Letting people in to a country without simple checks is wrong."

Mr Morris added: "It's not about money. Teddy was a pillar of the community and he did a lot of charity work. I told the police 'We feel you made an error and we would like you do make a donation to the charities that Teddy worked for.' They weren't happy about that."

Waves of Crime: Teen Murders 2007 to 2010

Wed, 9 Feb 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Last month four teenagers were murdered in London. The fact their deaths occurred in the space of ten days only highlighted the tragedy.

Three were stabbed to death (Wing Ho, Kasey Gordon, Daniel Graham) and one ran into the path of a bus after being confronted by a gang (Ezekiel Amosu).

In recent years teen murders have been seen as a barometer of 'Broken Britain'. An increase indicates a breakdown in society and its values, a decrease... well, let's gloss over the decrease.

The public and media uproar peaked in June 2008 with the murder of 16 year-old Ben Kinsella, the brother of Eastenders actress (and now anti-knife crime campaigner) Brooke Kinsella.

One of the measures introduced by the Labour Government was an increase in the minimum term for murders carried out using a knife brought to the scene, from 15 to 25 years.

But by the time this came into effect in March 2010 (following a review, then the official announcement in November 2009) the number of teen murders had decreased. In fact it more than halved, from 29 in 2008 to 13 in 2009.

In 2010 it rose to 19, although the total number of murders continued to fall.

The table below can be illustrated by any number of colourful graphs and charts but the reality is that crime appears to come randomly in waves. Trends can only be seen over longer periods.

Report problems to embedding@chartle.net

Four teen murders in a month is not that unusual - it last happened in April 2010 - and there were five in both June 2007 and May 2008.

But imagine that you only gathered statistics between October and December 2008, the peak year for teenage murders. There was only one.

At the risk of stating the obvious, one month does not make a trend.

A similar point was made following reports of four homicides in London in a single day, July 10, 2008. Statistical analysis revealed that this was actually a predictable event, rather than an alarming development.

According to a study by David Spiegelhalter

We can't predict individual murders, but their pattern is highly predictable. This should mean we can be ready for events that appear to be good (a long gap between murders) or bad (3 or more murders on the same day) - both events are to be expected by chance alone. But by knowing what pattern to be expect, then we should also be able to spot when something really unusual is happening.

He also makes the point that "there is no evidence for homicide rates to depend on the month, but there is a significant ‘Saturday effect’ of around 60% increase in homicide rate compared to all other days of the week combined."

________________

For those interested in colour charts, here are two based on the above table.

Report problems to embedding@chartle.netReport problems to embedding@chartle.net

UK Crime Map Version 3.0

Tue, 1 Feb 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The new police crime map (police.uk) is the third version to hit the internet since January 2009.

Earlier attempts didn't particularly excite the interest of the public. This time the site buckled under the pressure of 18 million hits an hour.

So what's different?

Unlike previous incarnations (see the Met's borough and ward crime map for an example) it attempts to map crime on a street-by-street level.

You can now see exactly how many crimes have been recorded by the police on your doorstep, rather than a total for a much larger area.

But aside from the curiosity effect that many websites experience on launch, the reaction to the site itself has been mixed.

For every person who thinks it's 'too much information' (the reaction of young mums in Windsor, apparently), others find it vague, flawed, useless and even misleading. It's also been reported that the site cost £300,000 of public money to develop.

While the site has made its data freely available, the data itself has already been sorted and condensed into simple but vague categories.

Homicide is combined with GBH and assault to form 'violence', sexual assaults are placed with an unknown number of other offences under the tag 'Other.'

Crimes are mapped by month rather than given a specific date and time, and all crimes for a street are placed in the middle of that street, concealing the differentiation between pubs, clubs, shops etc and residential buildings. It seems some residential streets in west London have been allotted crimes that took place at Heathrow Airport.

The argument is that crimes should be anonymised to protect the victims being identified - but the Americans have been mapping individual incidents for years (see below). These days they even show the exact addresses of sex offenders.

On the upside, there are developments on the way. Pilot schemes in different areas of the country are looking into daily updates, a case tracking system for victims, information about convicted offenders and mapping trends for offences.

One benefit of releasing full open data is that it can be used to create all kinds of different visualisations without any cost to the taxpayer. The newspapers naturally looked for the most crime-ridden streets of the country, but one of the best early examples was this 'hotspot' map of London.

Purely from murdermap's point of view, the new data won't help at all with the massive task of tracking down every murder and inputting it into the database. All the police provide are numbers, but numbers tell only half the story.

Murder Statistics Update

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The Metropolitan Police's rolling statistics for the last two years have confirmed that there were 117 murders in London in 2010.

Their spreadsheet, which gives the number of cases per borough per month over the last two years, is available to download on their website,

The total number of homicides was 125, including offences of gross negligence manslaughter, corporate manslaugher and infanticide (which we generally do not include on our map).

This month also saw the publication by the Home Office of the crime statistics for the year 2009/10, which shows there were 619 homicides in England and Wales. (See below for the Guardian infographic based on the information.)

The practice of compiling statistics by financial year rather than calendar year started in 1997. Although this presumably provides some link between law enforcement budgets and results, it's hardly public-friendly. It also skews any comparison with earlier years.

It will be interesting to see if murders/homicides continue to decrease over 2011 (at the moment they are at their lowest since 1978). And if they increase, what role is played the economic situation?

The London Map Craze

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Londoners have always liked maps, perhaps because they use them every day to find their way around this massive city. The most famous map is also a work of art - Harry Beck's 1931 design for the underground - and almost every household has a battered old A-Z somewhere.

But over the last year there has been an explosion in mapping over the internet and the craze shows no sign of abating. Maps have become entertainment as well as tour guides.

Whereas previously your friends may have used Facebook and Twitter to link to cat videos on Youtube or crazy pictures on Flickr, now they're also linking to maps that help us to see London in a new light.

What does the BBC use to mark the death of musician Gerry Rafferty? Not just an obituary, but a map of hit songs about locations in London including Rafferty's own 'Baker Street'.

Maps have long been used to illustrate more than just geography - take a look at John Snow's 1854 cholera map, the Temperance Society's 1886 map of public houses, or even Wenceslaus Hollar's map of the damage caused by the Great Fire of London in 1666.

But these days maps are easier to create than ever before, even for non-geeks. Want a map to help you avoid the police during the student protests? Or a map of 'non-Boris' bike racks in central London? You got it.

New mapping sites are popping up nearly every day, some of them genuinely impressive even if their actual use is limited. As you'd expect, transport is a common subject. This real-time map of London tube trains was doing the rounds throughout December, as was the London 'Boris' bike share map and this neat map/display showing the travel time between every tube station. And if you prefer buses, there's an animated 'flowprint' of London bus journeys.

What else can you map? Well, there's communities like London's football supporters (above) or London's street gangs. And sure, there are maps showing how badly London was hit by German bombs during WWII, but how about animating the first night of the Blitz?

Books and film? Find the local libraries threatened with closure, pore over an interactive map of more than 400 books set in different areas of London or 100 locations used in films.

Then art, and this staggeringly massive hand drawn map of Greater London and a map of Banksy graffiti locations. But there should also be a London version of these strange 'graphical anagrams'. Naturally companies are jumping on the map craze to sell artworks - would you like a London typeface map? That'll be £43. Or how about £99 for a canvas map to put on your wall?

People are also swapping digital copies of startling historical artifacts, such as these plans for railway stations in London 1864, an old tube map from 1908 or even this mystifying map of 'social and functional analysis'.

And

What about the future? A map works for that too - such as this vision of London-on-Sea in 2100.

Is this just a passing craze? Projects to keep an eye on include this one to add 3D models to London on Google Earth or the strangely relaxing London Sound Survey, which offers the chance to listen to recordings with titles like 'Under Tower Bridge' and inside 'St Bartholomew the Great' church (mostly quiet, with occasional bleeps from a tourist's camera). Then there's always the London 2012 Olympics.

And if you need a weekly fix of all things cartographical, then check out the blogs Google Maps Mania or Map of the Week for a regular fix.

World of Murder Maps

Thu, 6 Jan 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Who created the first 'murder map'? What did it show, and where?

Theoretically it could have been a scrap of paper featuring a rough pencil diagram and a cross to mark the spot. It could even have been drawn by the murderer himself.

But legend has it that the murder map truly began with a crime 'mashup' put together by journalist and web developer Adrian Holovaty in May 2005.

The website was then known as chicagocrime.org, and mapped not only murder but other types of crime in that city. Nowadays it's part of a wider network called everyblock.com which maps everything from restaurant reviews in the local media to a house going on sale. And yes, murders.

This kind of murder mapping uses data taken directly from the local police force. As a result it gives little detail other than the location and a rough category (e.g domestic).

A similar example, shown above, is http://www.crimereports.com - which describes itself as 'the largest and most comprehensive crime-mapping network in the world'. The first thing you notice about it is that it tells you the location of every sex offender. There are a lot of them (the little triangles). And strangely if you click on a triangle it gives you their name, age, eye colour and photo.

These sites don't extend to the UK, but they could do if our police forces published their data. For example, Spotcrime.org plainly intended to capture this 'market' but has since fallen into disrepair. It was last updated in London to reflect the student fee protests at Millbank in October last year.

As for dedicated murder maps, they tend to be run either by local newspapers, dedicated journalists or even community volunteers. This doesn't mean they are all simple Google Map-based projects, like the one put together by the Daily Record in July 2008.

The Manchester Evening News were perhaps the first in the UK to join the trend in January 2008, by mapping every fatal shooting in the city since 1999, adding names, ages and a small photo for each victim. Sadly it doesn't seem to have been updated since December 2009.

BBC Online joined the fray with its impressive map and statistical database of teenage murders across Britain in 2008 and 2009, at the height of concerns about youth crime and knives. It would have been interesting if they had continued the project, but alas they did not.

The true home of murder maps remains the US, and the most impressive example is still the LA Homicide Report. Its main innovation was that each homicide became in effect a separate blog entry. From this information an impressive database was built.

Not only does it map each murder since 2007 but it also displays the data in a very accessible way. The victims' photos are displayed underneath in a gallery, each marker takes you to a detailed report of the crime and statistics for age, ethnicity and cause of death are all on the front page.

This is particularly impressive when you consider that there are over 800 homicides a year in Los Angeles. Still, it would be nice to have an idea whether the case was ever solved or if any suspects went to trial. At present the only updates are provided by members of the public adding their own comments.

Many major cities in America now have their own murder map, although the quality varies wildly. In Oakland, California they have an impressive map filter but very little information on the crimes themselves. This goes for Philadelphia too, which has an impressive database going back to 1988 but no sense of the story behind the name, age, race and gender of the victim.

Some maps are staggering just to look at. Take this one of Puerto Rico, which appears to have been launched this month:

This is an island slightly smaller in area than Cyprus with what appears to be 577 murders for the year 2010. Below the map is printed the disclaimer 'Many murders do not appear on the map due to lack of specific information about the crime scene.' Those purple balloons represent 'unknown' while yellow is 'error or stray bullet', green is 'hate', red is 'drugs' and blue is 'fight or revenge'.

Other projects are more stylised, such as the 'Not just a number' website project which won awards for the way it mapped homicides in 2007.

There are many, many other examples, including a map for Flint, Michigan, which closed in March 2009. Its founder, freelance journalist Gordon Young, said in his blog:

It sparked some good discussions about how to cover homicides, but it proved to be way more work than I imagined. More importantly, I didn't feel it was really providing much of a memorial to the people who died in Flint.

Ideally a murder map should not just map all murders but provide some kind of service to the community, whether by telling the victim's side of the story, offering some context for the crime or giving an insight into how these cases are dealt with by the police, the media and the justice system.

If the database and the information within it are good enough, a map provides an alternative to the official statistics and may result in more openness in government. In this department, if nothing else, we are still lagging a long way behind the US.

________

Map list:

Europe: Copenhagen, Denmark, Madrid (2007 only),

USA: Alabama (Anniston, Birmingham), Arizona, California (Berkeley, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo), Connecticut (New Haven), Delaware, Illinois (Chicago), Florida (Orlando), Kansas (Kansas City, Wichita), Louisiana (New Orleans), Maryland (Baltimore), New Jersey (Essex County), New York, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), Tennessee (Memphis), Texas (Houston), Washington D.C

Canada: Saskatoon, Toronto, Vancouver

Other: Argentina (Cordoba), Puerto Rico

Murdermap Review of 2010

Mon, 3 Jan 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Although murdermap only launched six months ago, 2010 was the first year we attempted to catalogue each crime as it happened and keep track of what happened to the case using information gathered from the police, courts and the media.

By the end of the year 117 murders had been entered into the database (plus the unexplained death of MI6 'spy' Gareth Williams). This represents a decrease of 4 per cent on the number we have entered for 2009.

This is not the whole picture. The Metropolitan Police have counted 125 homicides this year, and two of our 117 have been resolved as 'justified homicides' on the basis of self defence.

There are other loose ends. What about the case of a 32 year-old man who died after a fight involving knives at a flat in Rushey Green in south London? And did they ever identify the body found under a patio at a house in Fulham in March?

Have some homicides gone unreported, or is it merely how they are categorised?

Turning to the statistics for 2010, here are some chart and graphs to look at. You can also click on them to get extra information, if you really want to.

Report problems to embedding@chartle.net

The above chart shows a drop in homicides over the last three years (continuing a nationwide trend over the last 20 years) but an increase in fatal shootings.

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Looking at homicides by month conceals the gap of almost a month between murders from September 18 to October 15.

Report problems to embedding@chartle.net

The hawkeyed among you will notice only 116 victims are included in the above chart. Police have still not identified the man found with head injuries after a fire in South Lambeth (or at least nobody has reported it).

Report problems to embedding@chartle.netReport problems to embedding@chartle.net

As of January 1, 2011, most cases are already going through the courts and about 18 per cent have been resolved, whether by trial, plea or the death of the suspect. The 75 / 25 percentage split between male and female victims seems to be in line with most of the Western world.

Below is a table of homicides ranked by the London borough in which they occurred. Whereas in 2009 Lambeth and Tower Hamlets led the table with eight apiece, this year Newham has experienced a surge from seven to 13.

London Borough	Homicides	London Borough	Homicides
Newham	13	Greenwich	4
Lambeth	8	Barking and Dagenham	3
Lewisham	8	Camden	3
Barnet	6	Enfield	3
Brent	6	Haringey	3
Croydon	6	Sutton	3
Hackney	6	Hammersmith and Fulham	2
Islington	6	Harrow	2
Southwark	6	Hillingdon	2
Tower Hamlets	6	Hounslow	2
Waltham Forest	6	Redbridge	2
Ealing	5	Bromley	1
City of Westminster	4	Wandsworth	1

Finally, we can also try and distinguish between cases depending on the scene of the attack. This can be subjective, as some homicides begin indoors and then spread outdoors. It also blurs the line between genuine 'domestic' homicides and those that could be given the US term 'home invasions'. There are about nine of the latter (based on information at present - this may change by trial). Report problems to embedding@chartle.net

Of course, statistics can be misleading without context. Hopefully by next year we will be able to make better comparisons, having expanded the map further back in time.

UPDATE: The 125 homicides catalogued by the Met include offences of gross negligence manslaughter, corporate manslaughter and infanticide. These are not included on our map. The body found under the patio in Fulham has still not been identified (it is believed to have lain there for 20 years). No action has yet been taken in relation to the death in Rushey Green.

FURTHER UPDATE: The man found with head injuries after a fire in South Lambeth has been identified as Leroy Burnett. The body found under a patio in Fulham has been identified as Mohammed Taki. Both cases have been added to the 2010 database, although the date of death for Mr Taki remains unknown.

London's Unsolved Murders 2010

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

There were 117 murders in London in 2010. The following 25 cases remain unsolved despite widespread publicity. Can you help?

If you have any information call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

(Note: The use of the word 'unsolved' here refers to cases where nobody has yet been charged.)

How to name a serial killer

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Every report of the case of serial killer Stephen Griffiths referred to him as the 'Crossbow Cannibal'. But where did this name come from?

Griffiths gave this name when making his first court appearance before Magistrates in May 2010.

He didn't come up with it himself - because it had already featured in a headline in the Sun newspaper on May 27.

It read: 'Uni boffin quizzed on crossbow cannibal killings'

This is an example of a journalist 'dubbing' a killer, in an attempt to make them more memorable.

'Dubbing' in this way is often hotly contested - Stephen Wright, the man who killed five women in the Ipswich area in 2006, was referred to variously as the 'Suffolk Strangler', the 'Ipswich Ripper', the 'East Anglian Ripper' or the 'Red-light Ripper'.

Usually newspapers steer away from using their rivals' tags unless they become universally recognised by the public.

This time Griffiths went for something he had read while in custody. He could have come up with his own but it seems he liked the attention he was already getting.

Giving nicknames to serial killers may strike many as gruesome or a glorification of the criminal over his victims, who are quickly forgotten. However, the practice is a long-standing one and must pre-date newspapers.

So what makes a memorable nickname?

Alliteration - Stockwell Strangler, Crossbow Cannibal, Moors Murderers, Beast of the Bastille, Giggling Granny
Rhyme - Gay Slayer, Hannibal the Cannibal
Rhythm - Jack the Ripper, Doctor Death
Allusion / Imitation - Yorkshire Ripper, Angel of Death, The Terminator, Camden Ripper
Originality - Chessboard Killer, Zodiac Killer, Shoe Fetish Slayer, The Hippopotamus, Teacup Poisoner

A Literary Graph of Murder

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

What does this graph tell us? It's meant to show the frequency of the terms murder and homicide in English books from the time of 'Jack the Ripper' to the present day.

The answer is probably 'not much' - apart from showing that murder is used much more often (in those books that have been scanned by Google) than homicide. Murder also spiked in use at around 1931, which may or may not be related to the output of Agatha Christie and others at that time.

But Google's Books Ngram Viewer is still an interesting 'visualisation tool' which allows anyone to input words or phrases to create their own graph. You can also click different time periods to see which books make up the data.

Examples already doing the rounds include 'love vs war' or 'geek vs nerd'.

Here's what happens when you type in 'Jack the Ripper.'

Just to prove it isn't entirely accurate, closer inspection shows the first blip clocks in at 1870. It turns out these entries result from cataloguing based on the founding date of the organisation producing the material or scanning errors caused by 'OCR' (Optical Character Recognition).

On the other hand the database quickly reveals that in 1894 a bull named Jack the Ripper was listed in the Ayrshire Cattle Herd Book Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Court Reporting in the 21st Century

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Reports that legal history had been made by a judge allowing the use of Twitter in open court for an extradition hearing in London sparked a few earth-shattering predictions.

Was this the end of court reporting as we know it? Could this be 'possibly the final nail in the coffin of shorthand'? Will court hearings soon be televised? Should everyone be allowed to digitally record proceedings?

The ensuing debate conjured up pin-sharp HD images of a future where legal cases are reported as they happen by a series of tweets, freely available to all at no cost whatsoever.

Compare this to the faded daguerrotype of decrepit court reporters shuffling out of court at the end of proceedings with their notebooks of laboriously written shorthand which has to be transcribed back to English in their heads and then inputted into a computer before being edited, amended, polished and printed on newspapers perused by the few at a price.

But let's not get carried away. For a start, the Julian Assange extradition case is relatively unique. The outcome of the hearing was of interest to a vast international audience and concerned a man (see right) who has become the figurehead for a crusade on behalf of openness in government. Wikileaks, the organisation he founded, has been a popular subject on Twitter for months.

As Adam Wagner has said on the UK Human Rights Blog, the power of Twitter 'lies in its system of replies, followers, categories and retweets, whereby people can research and broadcast information in an extremely specific and targeted way to to the world at large.'

Tweets of 140 characters are not particularly suited to court reporting other than by transmitting the basic result of a case. Reporters have been tweeting (and texting) in this way for a long time now, even if it usually has to be done away from the eyes of suspicious court staff. So it is not a new development, it is just that the Times reporter Alexi Mostrous felt it necessary to ask the judge for permission and then publicised the granting of permission. (There are two ways of confronting obstructive rules - ask for permission first or flout and argue later).

While courts have become more lenient about allowing laptops to be used openly (nobody seems to mind an ipad being flipped open), mobile phones are seen as insidious devices designed to break the rules. Journalists are told to turn them off and reprimanded if caught 'playing' with them during a case.

No doubt this rule developed because of the frequency that ridiculous ringtones went off every five minutes, but they can also interfere with TV and speaker equipment. And it may sound stupid, but people have tried to take pictures of defendants in the court, no doubt so they can later hang them on their bedroom walls.

And perhaps the idea that the journalist is having fun texting his friends and lovers while everybody else has to concentrate also plays a part.

There are other reasons why this type of hearing was more suited to Twitter. As an extradition case held before a district judge it could be commented upon by whoever cares to share their opinion, whether instantly via twitter or at leisure on their blog.

This does not apply to jury trials where comment is outlawed and prejucidial information not heard by the jury is banned by the Contempt of Court Act. Why? Because it is the received opinion that giving juries every little piece of information would be like handing them a stick of dynamite.

In the world of court, not everything is relevant to the case. How this works in practice has been developed over the centuries. It is the judge's task to decide what the jury should be told (and in this way he works a bit like an old-style newspaper).

Is it relevant that a rape victim's sexual history should be laid out in open court? What about a defendant's list of previous convictions? How about the suspicions and speculations of witnesses and police officers based on rumour and the 'word on the street'? What exactly counts as 'evidence'?

There are countless examples of verdicts being overturned because a juror was told how to vote by her husband, or did research on the internet or visited the murder scene on their own or generally tried to take up their deerstalker and pipe and investigate the case themselves.

Counter to this establishment fear of being held to ransom by ill-educated and easily-swayed juries runs the growing feeling that there should be more trust in the public. Are they not capable of deciding what is relevant and what is not? This is to a certain extent how the system works in the US, although they have a complicated jury selection process which strikes most British observers as deeply strange. Here in the UK we select at random, discriminating neither by age, race, religion or intelligence.

So it's about trust. And if open tweeting from court is going to increase interest and trust in the workings of our justice system then that can only be a good thing. Likewise cameras in court - they will neither bring down the system or replace journalists, they will hopefully augment both.

All this doesn't mean that court reporting is dead. It just means that like everything else it is being improved and adapted as time goes by. There will always be a market for an entertaining report of court proceedings. It isn't always just about the result.

Equally it doesn't mean that shorthand is dead, despite its reputation for being antiquated and unnecessary now that lovely shiny digital recorders are available. Recorders are fine for those who aren't working to a tight deadline but they are absolutely useless for those occasions when people want accurate and readable copy of more than 140 characters within 20 minutes.

Paradoxically this is a skill that has been on the decline in recent years as newspapers cut back and bring their deadlines forward to save money.

But in a world where people have turned away from printed newspapers talking about yesterday's news and started favouring the internet with its ever-shifting front pages, surely shorthand is more important than ever? It is a skill that places the competent reporter with an advantage over their rivals at a time when it appears that everyone wants to be a journalist.

In a world where the norm is for news to be provided for free, quality will be king.

filed by: Peter Stubley

The Green Paper: What does it actually say?

Wed, 8 Dec 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

The Government has just released a Green Paper on sentencing of criminals which include proposals to alter the way murderers are dealt with in court.

Reactions have been mixed (depending on political viewpoint):

Murderers could spend less time in prison as part of a litany of soft justice measures (Telegraph)
Sentencing green paper: 'Carefully thought-out proposals' (Guardian)
Killers 'to serve shorter jail terms': Minimum tariffs scrapped as critics claim ministers are going soft on crime (Daily Mail)
GREEN PAPER THAT IS NO MORE THAN A CRIMINALS’ CHARTER (Daily Express)
Ken Clarke moves to scrap some minimum murder terms. (Conservative Home)

It's at this point we should remember a Green Paper is just a proposal, and a vague one at that. We have to wait for the White Paper, and the debating of an Act of Parliament for the details.

But when you actually read the thing, you have to hunt hard and long for any mention of 'scrapping' minimum tariffs.

A key part of simplification will involve Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003. It is essential that we preserve Parliament’s role in setting the sentencing framework for murder.We have no intention of abolishing the mandatory life sentence or of prompting any general reduction in minimum terms imposed for murder. However, Schedule 21 is based on ill-thought out and overly prescriptive policy. It seeks to analyse in extraordinary detail each and every type of murder. The result is guidance that is incoherent and unnecessarily complex, and is badly in need of reform so that justice can be done properly in each case.

It turns out the headlines are based on 'fears' expressed by backbench Tory MPs who dislike the new emphasis on 'rehabilitation'.

What the Green Paper seems to actually mean is that judges will be able to decide for themselves what minimum term to pass rather than the present 'checklist' style system (See our previous blog on this subject for a full rundown).

The Justice Secretary Ken Clarke himself said: ‘We do not need to tell judges that murder is a serious offence. Judges are perfectly capable of setting minimum terms.’

Since the mandatory life sentence was introduced in 1965 (following the abolition of the death penalty) judges have always had a role in setting the minimum term. But until 2003 the Home Secretary had the power to alter it.

As a result of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights they were finally stripped of this power and so Schedule 21 was born in an attempt to regain control by setting 'guidelines.'

Judges have never really liked the guidelines and most would probably welcome being freed from them. Mainly because the sentencing process was starting to resemble a computer algorithm rather than reflect the details of the specific case.

In short, they felt castrated.

It's hard to see why giving judges more power will result in softer sentences. Or has the stereotype changed in the last few years?

Then again, the phrase 'sober as a judge' was never entirely accurate...

Random Justice?

Sun, 5 Dec 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

It could almost be a scientific experiment.

Take one murder case, subject it to three trials, each with different juries, and await the results. Would you expect the verdicts to be the same?

This actually happened to Anthony Carter (right), a 37 year-old man who was suspected of shooting a hotel waiter dead during a £50 'drug deal gone wrong' in Tottenham in 1998.

Carter was linked to the crime by his DNA found on a baseball cap found clutched in the victim's hand at the scene and an alleged confession he made to his ex-girlfriend ten years later. He was not identified by eyewitnesses and he denied being the gunman.

His defence was that his cap had gone missing some time earlier and that his former partner was being vindictive to get full control of their child.

Carter first went on trial in January 2009 but the jury was unable to reach a majority verdict and was discharged.

The retrial began in June 2009 and this time he was convicted and jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years behind bars.

But the story didn't end there.

Carter's lawyers appealed the decision of the trial judge to allow the jury to be told of a conviction for possession of a gun after the murder took place. The appeal court directed that he be tried a third time, this time without mention of that information.

At the third and final trial in November 2010, Carter was cleared of murder by the jury and left court a free man.

Three different juries, three different verdicts.

We are not allowed to know what goes on in a jury room so exactly what influences their collective decision is unknown.

But if this case reveals anything, it is how one decision made by 12 members of the public can completely change a life. It is perhaps for this reason that some people want to do away with juries altogether.

The jury was not the only variable in this experiment. The third trial was overseen by a different judge, presented by a different prosecutor and took place in a different courtroom. No doubt the accounts of the witnesses and even the defendant at court varied slightly.

And perhaps the knowledge that Carter had handled a gun, even if it postdated the crime, may have tipped resonable doubt into certainty of guilt.

If you're still not convinced, ask yourself this question: Who would you prefer to hear your case if you were accused of a crime? A man in a wig used to dispensing justice to hardened criminals or 12 men and women chosen at random?

The Jack The Ripper Tour

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

So the plan was to set up a Jack the Ripper Tour using the 'location-based social networking service' Gowalla. It's a bit like the more popular Foursquare but it also allows people to set up trips for their friends.

In this case it involves 'checking in' at locations connected to Jack The Ripper using your phone. Gowalla gives you rough directions to the next place on the tour and a 300-character description.

It's a bit like doing a tour without the human tour guide, meaning you can do it at any time, at your own speed and with whoever you want. In theory it's a neat idea.

Our Jack the Ripper Tour takes you to the locations of five Ripper victims, the street where the Ripper is said to have daubed graffiti on a wall and the pub (The Ten Bells) where he may have first spotted two of the women he killed.

One of the benefits of using a service like Gowalla is that it also suggests other interesting locations nearby, whether they be historical or alcohol-based. However, it's not really designed to offer an 'in-depth' experience.

'Official' tours have the massive advantage of being led by knowledgeable guides who can provide an atmosphere and a host of detail that isn't possible via a mobile phone.

Traipsing around Whitechapel on a dark winter evening created its own sense of dread, but that was probably more due to the fear I might get mugged. Standing alone in a deserted street with a mobile phone is not the safest thing to do at night.

And the truth is that 'Jack the Ripper' is a media invention. The murders themselves were real, of course, but debate is still raging as to which crimes were the work of one man. Most 'experts' say four, but others claim up to eight. The Metropolitan Police catalogued 13 victims as the 'Whitechapel Murders'.

It may be that the 'checking in' phenomenon of Gowalla and Foursquare will fade away, just like Myspace and Friendsreunited, but some people think they are the future.

So if you're in Whitechapel one evening, look up our tour and see for yourself. It may be a failure, but it's an interesting one.

_______________

Here's a random selection of guided tours available:

London Walks

http://jacktheripperwalks.com

http://www.jack-the-ripper-walk.co.uk/

http://www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/

The alternative is to buy a professionally-designed iphone Jack the Ripper 'app' (it costs about 59p) which guides you along a set route accompanied by photographs and details about the case.

No money for honest sentences

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

In the last blog we argued that prison sentences should be clearer and more honest.

As if by magic, government proposals that might have achieved this have now been dropped - apparently to save money.

Why would it cost more? Well, it seems the plans involved a whole new level of complication that would have resulted in increasing the prison population by 6,000.

Judges would have had to set a minimum and a maximum sentence for each offence and the offender would have had to prove they deserved to be let out.

In effect, it was an attempt to bring in tougher sentences rather than deal with the actual problem.

Surely there is a simpler way? Why all the bureaucracy?

Why not just release prisoners once they have served their publicly announced sentence (unless they have got into further trouble in jail)?

What is the point of a licence period for all but the most serious crimes?

As someone once famously said, let's get back to basics.

Here's a reminder of what Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke said in June 2010:

"Sentences pronounced in court often bear no clear resemblance to the time actually served in prison and they are not clear explanations to the public and to the victim of the penalty imposed."

The Sentencing Con Trick

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

If a man receives an eight year sentence for robbery, how much time does he actually serve behind bars?

It's not eight years, for a start. It might not even be four years, although most criminals are told they will serve half their sentences before being released on licence. Some are released even earlier on electronic tags.

So what is the point of providing a number at all? Isn't it just playing mind games with the public?

Most people know that prisoners only serve half their sentences, but just as a CD sounds more attractive to buy at £9.99 than £10, so an eight year sentence for a violent robber sounds better than four years.

This trick, while not an outright deception, is similar to the use of the 'life sentence'. We all know that life does not mean life, but to many it sounds more like an appropriate punishment for murder.

At least with life sentences and the relatively new 'imprisonment for public protection' (IPP), we are told the minimum term that must be served behind bars.

This is why the press now tends to say a killer has been jailed for 30 years rather than 'jailed for life.' People aren't stupid, so why should we use ambiguous phrases?

The Government say they want to increase public understanding and confidence in the system. It's one of the reasons why the Sentencing Council has begun a public consultation on guidelines for assault cases. The idea is to ensure violent criminals are dealt with consistently and on the same basis by courts across the country.

Judges will now have to skip through eight steps, bearing in mind a large number of variables along the way, before they come up with the magic number.

Obviously it helps to set this all out, just so we know that people aren't being sentenced according to the roll of a dice or what side of bed the judge rolled out of, but is that really why people lack confidence in the system?

Do we really need a step by step guide that turns judges into little more than robots in wigs? (see right)

What needs immediate reform is not the way the number is arrived at, but the number itself.

Let that number be the amount of time that a prisoner will actually spend in jail.

We should not have to immediately resort to arithmetic, or whip out our calculators, to arrive at the truth.*

*For those who are interested, for normal 'determinate' sentences you take the number provided and divide it by two before subtracting the days already spent in jail awaiting trial. For 'indeterminate' sentences like life sentences and IPP, the judge announces the minimum term that must be served before being released on licence. Life sentences mean the offender must spend their entire life on licence, while IPP sentences allow for the licence period to finish after ten years.

Twitter Joke Trial: 'Far too important to be left to judges'

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

One of the things juries are most often told in murder trials is that the task of deciding guilt or innocence is 'far too important to be left to judges.'

That isn't of much comfort to Paul Chambers. If you don't know the story by now, he is the man who threatened to blow up his local airport after being unable to catch his flight.

What he actually did was write a joke message on Twitter reading: 'Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!'

It was spotted by a member of security staff (who presumably combs through Twitter constantly for messages including the phrase 'Robin Hood Airport') and passed on to the police.

A week later Paul Chambers was arrested under the Terrorism Act. He was eventually convicted of 'sending a menacing electronic communication' and fined by Doncaster Magistrates.

It seems it doesn't matter that the message wasn't directed at anyone at the airport, or that he intended it as a joke. His appeal has been turned down after an appeal at Doncaster Crown Court and he now faces a bill of over £3,000.

Judge Jacqueline Davies said: "Anyone in this country in the present climate of terrorist threats, especially at airports, could not be unaware of the possible consequences."

As for the tweet, she added: 'It could not be more clear. Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed.'

No matter what she says, no jury in the land would ever have convicted Paul Chambers. Sadly this was never an option.

Because it's a summary offence under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, the case was decided by a district judge at the magistrates court. Any appeals will be heard by judges, whether at the Crown Court, High Court or in Europe.

This case may go all the way, as the conviction has been branded as a 'devastating blow for free speech' and has won overwhelming support from Twitter users. The comedian Dara O'Braian responded to the result by broadcasting this message to his 200,000 followers:

Anyway, I'd better get to the theatre. I hope I kill onstage tonight; because otherwise, I'll bomb

Follow the twitter argument on this issue via the #iamspartacus link.

Guest Blog: Violence in Films and Computer Games

Wed, 3 Nov 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Does the portrayal of violence in the media affect human behaviour? Should we be concerned about violence in computer games, books and film? These questions are being asked more often as games in particular grow ever more realistic.

The US Supreme Court recently debated whether video games are worse than films and books because they are interactive. While one of the Justices even highlighted a study that "says that the effect of violence is the same for a Bugs Bunny episode as it is for a violent video."

We asked one of our readers to put forward her views for the first of a series of 'Guest Blogs.' Here is 'Emma, 32'.

_______

Murder has intrigued me since I was quite young. I think it began around the time of one of our country’s worst murder cases which was the abduction and murder of young James Bulger.

What motivated Jon Venables and Robert Thompson to commit such a ghastly crime at such a young age? Personally I would have put these two grotesque human beings in prison for life (meaning whole life). I feel these boys knew exactly what they where going to do when they left their houses that morning.

There was speculation at the time it was due to the boys watching a horror movie called Child's Play but the more you think about it the less comprehendible it becomes. How could children be so cruel?

Before I became a mother myself I thought the very idea of games, movies and music changing a child’s behaviour was completely ridiculous.

I now have a very different view - that it does change a person, especially those whom are most suggestible. I am by no means a perfect parent but I felt I had to confiscate my eldest son’s computer war game due to the person he had become. He went from being a very placid child/teen to being verbally and physically abusive to all of us in the house.

I can recall a TV program I watched on Channel 4 (Jo Frost: Extreme Parental Guidance) where they did an experiment with a group of children playing video games. Half were playing non-violent games and the other half were playing violent games. The ones that had been playing the violent games had become completely desensitised to others’ needs and feelings.

Yes, these games, music and movies have certification but parents will go out and purchase these for their underage children. One particular movie I found rather disturbing is Quentin Tarantino’s Hostel (rated 18), in which backpackers are tortured and murdered. I was extremely shocked to learn that my son had seen this movie whilst sleeping round a friend’s house - hence he is no longer allowed to unless I know the parents well.

It is hard as a parent because you don’t know what your child is doing when they leave your house. Mine are now getting to the age where it won’t be long before I search them on leaving and entering the house.

Even cartoons nowadays glamorise violence, such as the Simpsons with Itchy and Scratchy. Children should not be exposed to such things at such a young age.

A study says... or does it?

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

According to some media reports a recent study has found there is 'no evidence that people support mandatory life imprisonment' for murderers.

The problem is that the study* didn't find that at all.

Most of the conclusions are unsurprising. A survey of 1,027 people across the UK revealed:

Most people believe the murder rate is increasing (only five percent knew that it has declined)
Most people believe sentences are too lenient, and also more lenient than they really are
The public are divided on whether convicted murders should ever be released on licence

But the result that got it into the news (including the BBC) was that 'We can find no evidence of widespread public support for automatically sending all convicted murders for life imprisonment.'

Leaving aside the misreporting by the media, how did they reach this apparently contradictory finding? The answer is in the question you ask (and to whom you ask it).

The authors quote a 2007 Ipsos MORI poll which asked: 'Which punishment do you prefer for people convicted of murder?' The death penalty won 34 per cent support, life imprisonment without parole 44 per cent and 'long prison sentence with chance of parole' 19 per cent.

Not much backing there.

So instead of that basic question they presented six focus groups (a total of 55 people) with a fictitious case to consider. Those banned from the focus groups included the police, armed forces, lawyers, media and relatives and friends of murder victims. Oh, and market researchers.

These groups were then asked whether a sentence of imprisonment followed by unconditional release would be 'possibly or definitely acceptable' instead of a life sentence.

Here's a summary of the case that gave them the answer they were looking for:

A man has a 12 year-old daughter who is severely disabled, has a mental age of four, suffers frequent pain and faced the prospect of further surgery with no guarantee of improvement. He decides to give her an overdose of drugs because he cannot bear to see her suffer any more.

The alternatives offered are a life sentence with a requirement to 'serve eight years before release on licence' or serving ten years before unconditional release.

Seventy per cent agreed this was at least possibly acceptable.

Not only is this case an emotive one that may have ended up with a manslaughter conviction rather than murder but also the alternative has been arbitrarily chosen. Is it an acceptable alternative because it seems to involve longer imprisonment or because the licence conditions are unnecessary in this particular case?

The study also ignores the fact that the parole board hardly ever release prisoners as soon as their minimum term has been served. And what about the potential role that licence conditions have in the rehabilitation of offenders?

In two other cases, which were more serious but equally arbitrary in their framing, the result came out roughly 55 yes to 45 no, which is hardly a ringing denunciation of mandatory life sentences for murder.

So there it is: if you push a case to its breaking point and ask the public a flawed question, then yes, perhaps there are very rare situations when a life licence is not required. But is this 'no evidence of widespread support'? And is it a realistic basis on which to call for reform?

As the authors themselves define it, being on licence means you have to report to the authorities when required and face recall to prison if they violate the conditions of their release. Some might think this is only to be expected if you have murdered someone.

The study did make one important point: Providing people with more information about the justice system makes them less critical of it. So why isn't it being taught in schools?

_____________________

For a discussion on how murderers are sentenced, read our previous blog on the subject.

*The study was funded by the Nuffield Foundation charity (whose motto is 'improving social wellbeing through education, research and innovation') and carried out by Barry Mitchell of the Coventry University Law School and Julian V. Roberts of the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford.

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

The cult film noir Detour has an unusual take on murder. The 'hero' is neither a hardened criminal or an innocent man fighting for justice.

Instead the main character, hitchhiker Al Roberts, asks us to believe that he has accidentally become a double killer.

Watching it was a bit like listening in court to a defendant giving his explanation from the witness box.

That man I left naked by the side of the road with a nasty gash on his head? Well he must have died in his sleep and then fallen and hit his head on a large rock. I took his clothes, his money and his car because there was no other choice. Nobody would believe what really happened.

That girl lying dead on the bed in a motel room? I must have accidentally strangled her with the telephone wire trying to stop her calling the police.

The film portrays these events plausibly enough. But as Al Roberts says, when considering whether to go to the police: 'They'd laugh at the truth.'

When it comes to the courts these decisions are made by the jury on the basis of 'beyond reasonable doubt'. But what exactly is a reasonable doubt?

Juries, faced with the responsibility of sending a man to prison, ask this question so often that judges now tend to give the altternative explanation that they 'have to be sure' of a defendant's guilt.

Sometimes this appears to confuse people even more. It doesn't mean you have to be 100 per cent certain of guilt - after all, can anyone be 100 per cent certain of anything?

There are potential explanations for almost every crime. In one case a suspected killer whose DNA was found on the victim's body claimed that he just happened to find her corpse lying by the side of the road and decided to have sex with it.

It was quite obviously ludicrous, but it was theoretically possible.

Not every killer is caught in the act on CCTV or confesses under questioning. DNA or fingerprints are not always found at the scene. The jury have to reach their decision after considering all the evidence presented in court. And if they are not convinced of guilt they should acquit, even if they suspect they did commit the crime.

There is a reason for such a high standard of proof, and it's easier to understand it by putting yourself in the shoes of the defendant in the dock. And I'd bet that almost everyone would prefer the decision to be made by 12 members of the public than a legally-trained judge.

Because, as Al Roberts says at the end of the film, 'Fate, or some mysterious force, can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all.'

_______________

Detour [1945] is now public domain and can be watched for free online.

How many cuts make a shambles?

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

So the cuts are here and it's all very 1980s again.... but how has the Justice System fared?

Well there doesn't seem to be any concrete proposals, but the basics are:

Savings of 33 per cent by sending less people to prison
Reforming legal aid (i.e. giving less of it)
Cuts of 24 per cent in the budget for the Crown Prosecution Service, Serious Fraud Office etc
Less funding for IT projects
Plans for a new 1,500-place prison delayed for five years
Cutting admin costs at government offices by 33 per cent
Consulting on plans to close 157 courts

It seems the CPS will be the hardest hit even though they are condemned on an almost daily basis for cock-ups and shoddy organisation. Recent failures have included a shambles at the Old Bailey and an apology to the alleged victim of a sex assault.

It's also ironic that they are cutting back on IT projects given that the Old Bailey Xhibit system hasn't worked properly for months if not years. Unveiled at a cost of £10m in 2005, it involved installing computer screens outside all 18 courts to provide details on what case was being heard and what was happening (e.g. 'Judge summing up'). There was even a handy big screen in the press room.

It is now October 2010 and the big black screen, like every other screen outside court, is turned off. It has been for a few years now, other than the occasional glitch where it springs to life like a zombie reporter from the grave. If you try and switch it on now all you get is an unintelligible error message such as 'No sync.'

As for staff cuts it is now noticeable that where once you had a clerk and an usher in every court, these days the clerk often has to handle two courts and do the jobs of the ushers, bringing in the witnesses and juries, handing out documents, filling up water jugs and even occasionally announcing the arrival of the judge.

There has been speculation for a few years now that the Old Bailey is to be closed down and turned into a museum, saving the estimated £30,000 per day per defendant it costs to keep it running. It also doesn't help that the old courts are officially listed buildings and cannot be adapted for modern trials.

As a result the famous Court One, home to the Yorkshire Ripper, serial killer John Reginald Christie and Soham murderer Ian Huntley, tends to be restricted to dealing with cases of burglary, drugs possession and having a blade with intent.

We've come a long way since the 19th century, but not always in the right direction.

Perhaps the best discussion on spending reviews comes in this 1949 newsreel, featuring women complaining about the budget hitting women and children.

When the interviewer says 'You can't have your cake and eat it,' a small boy pipes up: 'What is cake, mum?'

Blast from the Past

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Jump back in time to 1958 - three years after Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be executed in the UK.

Six years later in 1964 the death penalty was finally abolished.

At that time there was a fear that without capital punishment the murder rate would increase, as can be seen from this Pathe News TV clip.

It is just one of a series of fascinating films stored online at the British Pathe website. Luckily for our users, Pathe have now put together a special murdermap collection of footage relating to famous London murder cases.

It includes scenes of crowds awaiting the hanging of murderer Ronald Marwood in 1959, features on the Acid Bath Murders, Ruth Ellis and Neville Heath and a view of the demolition of Rillington Place, the home of serial killer John Reginald Christie.

Fast forward to 2010, with its 3D HD 24 hour rolling news, and the debate about captial punishment is still raging, with the father of murder victim Ben Gardner calling for his killers to be hanged.

But the answer to the question 'Is Murder Increasing?' has now changed. The number of homicides is currently at a 20 year low.

Murdermap on the BBC

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

The BBC feature on murdermap raised a common concern: Is it not just 'grossly insensitive' voyeurism?

One school of thought is that the site is merely a cheap sensationalist gimmick with little or no point other than to scare or shock.

Others, perhaps more realistically, have seen its potential as a valuable resource and a genuine attempt to tackle the problem of serious crime.

We certainly have not set out to offend anyone, least of all victims of crime. It is our belief that the website can become a very helpful tool to help the public understand more about the 'phenomenon of murder'.

Hopefully it will also help the police to crack those murders that remain unsolved and raise greater awareness of legal concepts such as 'joint enterprise'.

All too often murder is boiled down to numbers and sweeping generalisations. Yes, it's true, the vast majority of victims know their killers - but this conceals the massive variation in motives, methods and background circumstances. The victims of Dr Shipman certainly thought they knew him - but he was more of a stranger than they realised.

We think the public should be able to access detailed information on every crime, not just the ones that make the headlines. This is not an attempt to scare anybody - this is an attempt to inform everybody. Who knows, maybe potential killers will read some of the cases and think twice about their carrying of knives and guns, their drug dealing, their alcoholism, their domestic violence.

The idea that someone would be encouraged to commit a murder just to get on the map is quite obviously absurd. Many killers throughout history have sought notoriety. But this is a reflection of the fact that they feel ignored by society. They kill because they feel driven to it. Often this impulse has been building up for years, if not their whole lives. It is not because they suddenly felt an impulse to get on a map or emulate a book or film.

Some of these issues were also raised during a debate on Radio Two hosted by Jeremy Vine (right), featuring 'Britain's leading criminologist Professor David Wilson.

Prof Wilson made the points that visitors to the site might fall into the misapprehension that random murder is more common than it really is, and that the differentiation on the map by type of weapon was 'cheap.'

Firstly we believe that anyone who actually clicks on cases in their local area and reads them will get a truer picture than they would from bare statistics. We want to tell the 'story' of each murder and place it alongside the numbers to provide a deeper understanding of what they really mean.

The idea that murder victims should be more than just a number was used to impressive effect on the award-winning project Not Just A Number based upon homicides in Oakland, California.

Murder maps are much more common in America, which has a higher murder rate and apparently a greater willingness on the part of police forces to share their data.

The best example is probably the LA Times Homicide Map which has the advantage of being funded by the city's newspaper.

We acknowledge that the London murdermap can be improved. The site as you see it now is only in its first phase of development. The plan is to make it much more advanced and user-friendly. In the future we intend to add map filters based on the date, case status (solved or unsolved) and borough/postcode.

It is also our intention to make much greater use of the database to provide detailed statistics and graphical representations of the data, whether it be pie charts, graphs or map layers.

And, over time, we hope to expand to cover other areas of the country. We have deliberately chosen to concentrate on London first so we can do it comprehensively. We could of course add famous cases from across the UK right now, but we want to provide the full picture not just the highlights.

All of this takes time. There are at present around 120 murders each year in London. To catalogue each murder from the time of Jack the Ripper will mean inputting well over 10,000 cases. It is an enormous undertaking.

We do not have Government funding. We are not backed by wealthy Dragons. We are most certainly not making a profit. In fact we have given up vast amounts of our spare time to put together what you see now.

So why are we doing it? Well we believe that London should have a murder map, just like Los Angeles, or New York, or Baltimore. We think that over time it will prove to be useful to everyone living here, whether they be members of the public, the police, students, criminologists, lawyers or even judges.

We have already received some helpful feedback and we hope you will continue to email us at mailbox@murdermap.co.uk with your suggestions. What cases should we add as a priority? How would you improve the site? Have you had any problems using it?

Assistance of any kind is also very much appreciated. Do you want to write a piece for our blog? Do you have information about a case? Have you any pictures or video footage that may improve our archive?

Finally, if you notice any errors, no matter how small, please contact us and we will put them right immediately. Accuracy is very important to us.

Thankyou for your messages of support so far.

Peter, Murdermap

Ken vs Khan

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

On Friday it was announced that former human rights lawyer Sadiq Khan will shadow Ken Clarke as Justice Secretary. So what?

Well the news has already spurred blogger Guido Fawkes (the man behind the William Hague rumours) into posting his 'five things you should know.'

These include references to expenses fiddling, the 9/11 terror attacks, the Muslim extremist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir and jailed police Commander Ali Dizaei.

In response, several left-wing blogs have already jumped into the fray to defend Khan, including liberalconspiracy.org

Khan (right) was only elected an MP in 2005 (two years before the Ministry of Justice was created). He was promoted to Transport Minister in June 2009. His shiny new job seems to be a reward for running Ed Miliband's successful campaign to become Labour leader. He is also a Muslim and a former chairman of the human rights group Liberty

According to his Wikipedia entry, he 'specialised in actions against the police, employment and discrimination law, judicial reviews, inquests and crime.'

Patrick Wintour, political editor of the Guardian, said 'his appointment will signal a more liberal view on counter-terrorism issues.'

But then if you look at the fascinating site www.theyworkforyou.com, Khan voted strongly for anti-terrorism laws, a stricter asylum system and ID cards.

By contrast Ken Clarke voted against Labour's anti-terror laws and ID cards. He also opposed allowing ministers to intervene in inquests and has been making the news recently by taking a softer line on prison sentences.

What all this actually means for criminals, victims of crime and those working in the justice system is anybody's guess.

Of more importance is the proposed 40 per cent cut in the budget for every Government department, which may mean the closure of over 100 magistrates courts. The Spending Review is due to be announced on October 20.

The Newsletter - subscribe now to avoid disappointment

Tue, 5 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

This week the October issue of our newsletter was sent to those who subscribed via the murdermap homepage.

So what is it? Well, it's early days, but we hope to pull together a selection of the latest news, statistics and opinion on crime and law enforcement across the world.

Each issue we publish a breakdown of the previous month's murders and compare them to the same period the previous year. How many remain unsolved?

We will also dip into the world of true crime and the depiction of murder in books, films, art and even computer games.

And finally we'll throw in a few links to some of the fascinating crime-related things we've stumbled across on the internet.

If you have any suggestions, ideas or links that you think we should include in our next issue, please email them to mailbox@murdermap.co.uk

October Issue

September Issue

You, The Murderer - A Journey Through the Justice System Part Two

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

The prison van that takes you to the Magistrates Court is neither comfortable nor quick. You sit in a narrow cubicle surrounded by several other narrow cubicles containing other prisoners. You do not know their names or what they are accused of, but you know you are accused of murder.

It seems there is a crowd awaiting your arrival. They also know you are accused of murder. You can hear their shouts getting louder. You can feel the banging of many hands on the side of the van. You see the camera flashes up against the tinted window above your head and try to duck down out of sight.

Finally you are led from the back of the van into the back of the court building, out of sight. But you can still hear the chanting. The details of the murder have been splashed all over the front pages of every newspaper. You are public enemy number one, at least until the next sensational crime comes along.

There is a long delay before your case is called on. You sit in your cheap prison-issue jogging bottoms and sweatshirt until the guard takes you upstairs. The guard undoes your handcuffs just before you go through the final door into the courtroom. You blink in the bright lights.

You barely have time to take in the packed courtroom before a figure in a black robe asks you to confirm your name, your date of birth and your address. This is not Death, this is the Clerk of the Court. You also see the Magistrate, the benches full of people writing in small notebooks, the police officers, the near-silent hostility of the public gallery, the angry stares of the family of the deceased, the nervous glances of your friends and relatives. You have little choice but to look downwards at your feet clad in second-hand prison-issue trainers, a half-size too small.

You are then allowed to sit. The prosecutor outlines the basic details of the case against you and the evidence gathered so far. Your defence lawyer, who you saw briefly in the cells before the hearing, says nothing. You cannot apply for bail. Under the new Coroners and Justice Act 2009 you will have to wait until your appearance before the Crown Court the following day.

It is no use screaming your innocence. You will have to wait months to do that. All you can do now is wait. And think. And wait.

Part One

Murder Law - Scrap it and start again?

Thu, 9 Sep 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Reading the recent stories about plans to introduce US-style murder charges to the UK, it seems very few people understand how our system works.

It began with Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, joining calls for the offence to be split into first and second degree murder - first degree for intentional killing and second degree with a lesser intent of causing 'really serious harm.'

According to the Daily Telegraph, Independent and Guardian the present system is too rigid, covered by 'a blanket of moral uniformity', and 'permeated by anomaly, fiction, misnomer and obsolete reasoning.'

The main criticism seems to be that everyone convicted of murder is given a life sentence and as a result 'mercy killers' and youths involved in 'joint enterprise' gang violence are put in the same bracket as hardened serial killers and gun-toting gangsters.

Under a US-style system those guilty of second degree murder could be given a non-life sentence. The alternative, as suggested by Paul Mendelle, the former chair of the criminal bar association, is an upgraded manslaughter offence.

Naturally some suspect that this is a liberal plot to reduce prison sentences overall while others see the life sentence as a recent attempt to soothe the right-wing press.

Perhaps the way successive governments have fiddled with the law and sentencing guidelines has confused everybody.

Here are some facts:

1) The mandatory life sentence for murder has been in place since 1965.
2) A life sentence does not mean life in prison.
3) Judges already have the power to distinguish between different kinds of murder in sentencing.

Before the 2003 Criminal Justice Act judges recommended how long the offender should serve before being considered for parole, although the Home Secretary could increase or decrease it. One released they would be subject to recall to prison for the rest of their life if they reoffended.

After 2003 judges were given the power to set a 'minimum term' that the offender must serve before being considered for parole. Just in case they were all incompetent, a vast array of guidelines were drawn up to make sure they towed the line.

The 'starting point' for minimum terms are as follows:

12 years - all offenders under 18
15 years - most offenders 18 and over except as below
25 years - involving the possession a knife with intent to commit any offence or the use of a knife to commit murder
30 years - murder for gain (usually financial), murder of two or more victims or more, murder of a police or prison officer in the course of duty, murder involving the use of a firearm or explosive, murder involving sexual or sadistic conduct, murder aggravated by racial, religious or sexual orientation.
Whole life - particularly serious offences, including murder of murder of child involving abduction, sexual or sadistic motivation, murder for political, religious or ideological cause, or murder carried out by an offender with a previous conviction for murder.

It doesn't stop there. Judges can increase or decrease the starting point according to another list of factors - which include whether the intent was to kill or just inflict really serious harm.

Theoretically the judge can take account of anything he wants, but the 2003 Act provided a list of helpful hints.

Factors that aggravate the offence (and increase the minimum term):

1) significant planning or premeditation
2) victim particularly vulnerable due to age or disability
3) mental or physical suffering inflicted on victim before death
4) abuse of a position of trust
5) duress or threats against another to facilitate commission of offence
6) victim providing a public service or performing a public duty
7) concealment, destruction or dismemberment of the body

Factors that mitigate the offence:

1) intention to cause serious bodily harm only
2) lack of premeditation
3) offender suffering from mental disorder or disability
4) provocation not amounting to a defence of provocation
5) offender acting to any extent in self-defence
6) belief by the offender that the murder was an act of mercy
7) offender's age

Just a brief look through the cases on murdermap reveals that sentences vary wildly depending on the nature of the crime. The single thread running through them is that the offender can only be released when the parole board says so.

In effect, if the papers are to be believed, any US-style reform would be taking the decision on release of 'second degree murder' prisoners away from the parole board. Instead they would be released half way though their sentence.

This seems likely to confuse the public even further, going by the debate on the Daily Telegraph opinion forum.

Take this response from Richard Edwards: 'I don't understand prison sentences at all. The other day a teacher got 21 years for sexually assaulting 12 children. A well known Libyan, convicted of killing 272 people at Lockerbie gets 26 years, and early release. Where's the proportionality in that?'

The answer is that Richard Edwards doesn't realise that he's comparing two different types of sentence.

The teacher who got 21 years (a determinate non-life sentence) will be released after serving 10.5 years in prison. Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 27 years before being considered for parole. He was only released early after being diagnosed with cancer. Otherwise he would have spent 27 years behind bars before appealing to the parole board for release.

Given the state of confusion that exists at the moment, it seems likely that a 'second degree murder' charge will do little to clear it up. It might even make it worse.

Maybe we should just scrap the whole lot and start again. Any suggestions?

Spy death not murder... yet

Sat, 4 Sep 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Officially the death of British spy Gareth Williams is still classed as 'suspicious' rather than murder, even though two weeks have passed since his body was found by police.

All the confirmed information points to a murder. He was discovered locked inside a sports holdall placed in the bath of his home at 36 Alderney Street in Pimlico, southwest London, on Monday, August 23. He was last seen alive on August 15, having arrived in the country four days earlier.

Two postmortems have failed to find a cause of death given the state of decomposition, which means he was either asphyxiated , poisoned or somehow died naturally before being placed inside the bag. Either way, a third party has to be involved, unless Gareth Williams somehow managed to lock himself inside the bag before dying. I expect the police have already ruled this out by asking a willing DC to attempt this reverse-Houdini-like feat, just to make sure.

So why isn't it being classed as a murder yet? Rules and regulations. The Metropolitan Police's 'Murder Squad' (otherwise known as the Homicide and Serious Crime Command) is heavily involved in the case but needs confirmation of the cause of death. As one officer said: 'No cause of death equals no murder.'

In cases involving decomposition the usual verdict is 'unascertained'. In the case of the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, all the pathologist could say is that it was likely to be due to asphyxiation. So too with Leah Questin, whose body was found in a suitcase dumped in Kent farmland. In both cases they only became 'murder' when the suspect was arrested and charged.

You could therefore argue that Gareth Williams should not be included in murdermap. In the circumstances, we have decided to add the case until it is proved not to be a murder.

What are we left with? A whole lot of speculation. Was Gareth Williams killed by a gay lover? Was his murder an act of international espionage? Did he really lock himself inside a bag in a cunning attempt to confound his own employers?

So far the best (or most entertaining) conspiracy theory manages to take in the BP oil spill. According to the website 'What does it Mean?' Gareth Williams was part of a hit squad tasked to assassinate a troublesome oil expert Matthew Simmons, who had criticised BP and accused the US government of covering up the true extent of the disaster.

Simmons, 67, was found dead in his hot tub at his home in North Haven, Maine, on August 8, apparently due to 'accidental drowning' with heart disease a contributing factor. Three days later Gareth Williams flew from the US to his home the UK.

Two weeks after that Williams was himself found dead. According to this theory, said to be based on a report of the Russian FSB, Williams was most likely killed by the US Military's 'Task Force 373' (also known as the Death Squad). Oh, and the Death Squad follow the orders of George W Bush.

Case closed.

'A Reasonable Man' - the law of provocation

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Question: Which of these two is a reasonable man?

1) Ronald Tyler, 47, a father-of-four, alcoholic and convicted woman beater. During a domestic row he strangled his wife Julie McKinley after she boasted he was not the father of their baby son. [Old Bailey, August 2010]

2) Roger Frisby, 42, a father-of-two and postman. He battered his 'wife from hell' June Frisby to death after she kicked one of his daughters while drunk. He then dismembered her body and threw her hands and feet from a cliff during a family day trip to Dover. The torso was thrown in a river. The head was baked in the oven at gas mark eight and buried on a golf course. [Old Bailey, November 2000]

Answer: Both.

That is, according to the law of provocation. Both Tyler and Frisby were cleared of murder by a jury and convicted of manslaughter on the basis they were provoked into a sudden and temporary loss of control. So what exactly amounts to provocation?

According to section 3 of the Homicide Act 1957 it is something done or said that is 'enough to make a reasonable man do as he did'. Later judgements held that this reasonable man is 'an ordinary person with ordinary powers of self-control'.

Which begs the question: Are we all just one insult away from becoming a killer? The answer appears to be yes.

Of course the task of the jury isn't that easy. They also have to bear in mind the situation of the defendant when considering the seriousness of the provocation, without giving him allowance for any characteristics that make him any more volatile than an ordinary person. They then have to go on to a second 'test', namely 'that the circumstances were such to make the loss of self control sufficiently excusable to reduce the gravity of the offence from murder to manslaughter'.

For their part, the prosecution have to prove 'beyond reasonable doubt' that the defendant was not provoked.

So far, so vague. It's no wonder many juries spend hours locked in argument.

The response of Parliament was to draft a new law of provocation which will come into force on October 4, 2010. Except that it isn't called provocation any more - it's called 'loss of control'.

If you thought this was an attempt to make it easier for the public to understand, just have a read of this:

Coroners and Justice Act 2009 section 54 - Partial defence to murder: loss of control

(1) Where a person (“D”) kills or is a party to the killing of another (“V”), D is not to be convicted of murder if:

(a) D’s acts and omissions in doing or being a party to the killing resulted from D’s loss of self-control,
(b) the loss of self-control had a qualifying trigger, and
(c) a person of D’s sex and age, with a normal degree of tolerance and self restraint and in the circumstances of D, might have reacted in the same or in a similar way to D.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), it does not matter whether or not the loss of control was sudden.

(3) In subsection (1)(c) the reference to “the circumstances of D” is a reference to all of D’s circumstances other than those whose only relevance to D’s conduct is that they bear on D’s general capacity for tolerance or self-restraint.

(4) Subsection (1) does not apply if, in doing or being a party to the killing, D acted in a considered desire for revenge.

(5) On a charge of murder, if sufficient evidence is adduced to raise an issue with respect to the defence under subsection (1), the jury must assume that the defence is satisfied unless the prosecution proves beyond reasonable doubt that it is not.

(6) For the purposes of subsection (5), sufficient evidence is adduced to raise an issue with respect to the defence if evidence is adduced on which, in the opinion of the trial judge, a jury, properly directed, could reasonably conclude that the defence might apply.

(7) A person who, but for this section, would be liable to be convicted of murder is liable instead to be convicted of manslaughter.

(8) The fact that one party to a killing is by virtue of this section not liable to be convicted of murder does not affect the question whether the killing amounted to murder in the case of any other party to it.

Section 55: Meaning of “qualifying trigger”

(1) This section applies for the purposes of section 54.

(2) A loss of self-control had a qualifying trigger if subsection (3), (4) or (5) applies.

(3) This subsection applies if D’s loss of self-control was attributable to D’s fear of serious violence from V against D or another identified person.

(4) This subsection applies if D’s loss of self-control was attributable to a thing or things done or said (or both) which—
(a) constituted circumstances of an extremely grave character, and
(b) caused D to have a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged.

(5) This subsection applies if D’s loss of self-control was attributable to a combination of the matters mentioned in subsections (3) and (4).

(6) In determining whether a loss of self-control had a qualifying trigger:
(a) D’s fear of serious violence is to be disregarded to the extent that it was caused by a thing which D incited to be done or said for the purpose of providing an excuse to use violence;
(b) a sense of being seriously wronged by a thing done or said is not justifiable if D incited the thing to be done or said for the purpose of providing an excuse to use violence;
(c) the fact that a thing done or said constituted sexual infidelity is to be disregarded.

(7) In this section references to “D” and “V” are to be construed in accordance with section 54.

Yes, that clears everything up nicely...

So, what's changed? In summary, not much. We have a modernised (some might say 'dumbed down') title. Parliament has attempted to define situations which do not amount to 'provocation' - most notably sexual infidelity. It has also restricted the 'things said or done' to those of an 'extremely grave character.' And the loss of control no longer has to be 'sudden'.

The Act also allows for the fear of violence to act as a 'trigger', such as in the case of a battered woman in an abusive relationship, or a householder being burgled. These defendants will now be able to rely on provocation as well as / instead of self defence.

But will it put a stop to controversial and seemingly incomprehensible jury verdicts? No.

Murder by Borough - 2008 to 30/6/2010

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Total homicides listed by borough from 2008-2010*

Rank	London Borough	2008	2009	2010*	Total
1	Lambeth	12	8	4	24
2	Tower Hamlets	6	8	5	19
3	Southwark	11	6	1	18
4	Lewisham	5	6	6	17
5	Newham	5	7	4	16
6	Croydon	5	7	4	16
7	Brent	11	4	0	15
8	Enfield	9	4	1	14
9	Greenwich	5	6	3	14
10	Hackney	5	6	3	14
11	Waltham Forest	7	4	3	14
12	Haringey	4	8	2	14
13	Islington	7	3	3	13
14	City of Westminster	4	4	3	11
15	Ealing	5	4	1	10
16	Wandsworth	4	6	0	10
17	Barking and Dagenham	2	3	3	8
18	Sutton	3	3	2	8
19	Barnet	3	2	1	6
20	Bexley	3	3	0	6
21	Hillingdon	3	2	1	6
22	Harrow	1	3	2	6
23	Merton	5	1	0	6
24	Redbridge	4	1	1	6
25	Bromley	0	4	0	4
26	Camden	1	2	1	4
27	Hammersmith and Fulham	1	1	1	3
28	Hounslow	1	1	0	2
29	Havering	0	1	0	1
30	Kensington and Chelsea	0	1	0	1
31	Kingston	0	1	0	1
32	Richmond	0	0	0	0
	Total	132	120	55	307

*The figure for 2010 relates to the first six months (to 30/6/10) only.

The above statistics are taken from the murdermap database.

You, The Murderer - A Journey Through the Justice System Part One

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

You have just been arrested on suspicion of murder. You may or may not be guilty. You may have been caught in the act, with blood on your hands. You may have confessed, tormented by guilt. You may have escaped justice for 30 years. You may even have been accused of a crime you did not commit. Whatever the circumstances, in legal terms you are innocent until proven guilty. Either way you're going down to the police station for questioning.

An officer tells you: 'You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.' In other words, you have the right to remain silent but the jury might hold it against you. Or not, depending on how persuasive your lawyer is at trial.

You confirm you understand the caution. You can offer an opinion at this point, but the police officer will record it in his notebook and it may be used against you in court.

At the station you have to give your name, address and date of birth. The police have the right to take your fingerprints, a DNA sample and your photograph. They may also take your clothing and provide you with an evidence suit. You are then placed in a cell to await interview.

You have the right to legal advice. You can either phone a lawyer you know or rely on a duty solicitor. You speak to your solicitor, who will be present during the interview.

Your interview is recorded on tape. The detectives ask you a lot of questions. They question you about your family, your background and your lifestyle, as well as the offence you are suspected of committing. They often ask the same questions in different ways. They can question you without charge for 24 hours, or 36 hours if an officer of the rank of Superintendent or above gives authorisation. Or up to 96 hours if a Magistrate agrees to an application by the police.

Your solicitor will normally advise you to make no comment. You do not have to follow his advice. You could answer some or all of the questions. You could issue a prepared statement. The police will still ask you a lot of questions. They may present you with evidence, such as CCTV footage, witness statements and photographs of the scene.

At the end of the interview you could be released on police bail or charged with murder. You are charged with murder. You will not be walking out of the police station. You will be kept in custody until your appearance before the nearest Magistrates' Court the next day. It will be your first public outing as an accused killer.

Part Two

'One punch manslaughter' - the value of a life

Mon, 2 Aug 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

It seems like a rare event, a freak occurrence - an innocent person is hit with a single punch and falls back on to the pavement, striking their head hard on the ground. Tragically they suffer a fractured skull and brain damage and die within a few days despite advanced medical treatment.

That is exactly what happened to Ekram Haque, a 67 year-old retired care worker. He was minding his own business, waiting outside a mosque with his three year-old granddaughter, when he was knocked to the floor by a 16 year-old boy for 'fun'.

It was not the first time Leon Elcock had attacked a stranger in a so-called 'happy slap' attack. Minutes earlier he and his friends had attacked two men in the same street. Luckily they survived despite suffering head injuries that required medical treatment.

Elcock did not intend to kill Mr Haque - but surely he must have realised the risk?

Sadly far too few people realise how common such deaths are on the streets of London. In 2008 there were at least six cases that could be described as 'one punch manslaughters'.

In 2009 there were eight, including Ekram Haque. This is not an insignificant number, when you consider it amounts to nearly seven per cent of the total number of both murders and manslaughters that year.

One might think the victims of these attacks were all elderly or susceptible to head injuries. Not so in the case of Jade Defoe, the half-brother of England footballer Jermaine Defoe. Jade was knocked to the floor with a single punch and died four days later after suffering a fractured skull and brain damage.

The families of these victims naturally expect justice for their loved ones. They expect the offenders to be punished severely for taking a life so casually.

In almost every case they are disappointed. The two killers of Ekram Haque, Leon Elcock and Hamza Lyzai, 15, were jailed for four-and-a-half years and three-and-a-half years respectively. The killer of Jade Defoe was jailed for three years. They will all walk out of jail in roughly 18 months, having served half their sentences before being released on licence.

The public outcry following the Ekram Haque sentence was inevitable and the Attorney General is now to review the case with a view to possibly referring it to the Court of Appeal.

It was only in December 2009 that the Lord Chief Justice said that in future attention must be given to the 'problem of gratuitous violence in city centres and the streets.' Anyone watching the CCTV footage of the attack on Ekram Haque would have no doubt that this was gratuitous violence.

But is it possible to reflect the fact that death was caused by just a single blow? Can you put a value on a life?

In 2001 the Appeal court highlighted the factors which could increase the sentence for manslaughter: burglary, robbery, public concern and the need for deterrence, whether violence of any kind was intended and the extent to which risk of serious injury or death was apparent to the offender.

On the other hand, one guideline case used by defence lawyers is R v Furby from 2006, relating to death caused by a single punch from a man who was a friend of the victim and had no previous convictions. In his case the sentence on a guilty plea was just 12 months. Such low sentences take account of the fact that if the victim had not died the attacker would only be charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, when the maximum sentence is five years imprisonment.

The killers of Ekram Haque were originally charged with murder. The prosecution accepted a plea to manslaughter on the basis that only one blow was struck with a fist and there was no intention to cause 'serious bodily harm'. This decision was criticised by Ekram Haque's son, although it is likely any jury would have cleared the pair of murder on the basis of lack of intent.

Elcock and Lyzai had a history of violence and so might expect harsher sentences. But in their favour they were only 14 and 15 years old at the time of the attack and there was no robbery involved. As a result of their guilty plea and their young age their sentences would have been reduced by a third.

The result appears to be deeply unfair. A family have lost their beloved father and grandfather, while the two teenagers who hit him 'for fun' will walk out of prison before their 18th birthdays.

UPDATE: The Attorney General has decided the sentences were not 'unduly lenient' and will not be appealing to the High Court for an increase.

______________

Further reading: An article in the Barrister Magazine on how many one punch manslaughter cases are punishing defendants for 'bad luck'

The Identity of Jon Venables

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

How many people know Jon Venables' new identity? Well, for a start, everybody who was in court 14 of the Old Bailey last Friday morning.

Given the number of times we were told his life was under threat, it was a big surprise to hear the name he adopted in 2001 being read out by the prosecutor.

We also got to hear the exact address where he had been living when he was accessing child porn on a personal computer. Not that we could report either of these details, thanks to an injunction.

One person who was in court was Denise Fergus, James Bulger's mother. There were many others - about 40 members of the press, the judge, the clerk, the usher, a shorthand writer, a handful of police and probation officers as well as about a dozen laywers (representing the prosecution, defence, Cheshire Constabulary, Media and Attorney General).

None of these people is likely to start travelling the country shouting out Venables' current name from the rooftops - but it does make you wonder why the Attorney General and Venables' barrister were so keen to maintain the injunction.

A third identity now seems inevitable, particularly as 'Jon Venables' blew his cover so spectacularly. Those who knew him in Cheshire will put two and two together, and the likelihood is that someone somewhere will broadcast his assumed name over the internet, on Twitter or Facebook, just as someone named the mother and stepfather of Baby P before the court order was lifted.

Fellow prisoners are also likely to guess who he really is, meaning he'll probably be kept in isolation for fear of attack.

In a few weeks we might be in the ludicrous situation where everybody knows Jon Venables' name but the media will still be unable to publish it for fear of being taken to court.

Jon Venables, meanwhile, will go on being Jon Venables, the the killer of two year-old James Bulger.

Murdermap: Review by Twitter

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

One of the most interesting aspects of launching the murdermap website was seeing the reaction of members of the public.

A few years ago this might have involved asking friends for opinions, googling the name of the website and checking newspapers and internet blogs.

But on Twitter, gossip spreads faster and further. Within a few hours of the first mention of the site, it had been picked up by hundreds of people across London.

That first day, Thursday July 15, there were nearly 1,000 unique visitors to the site via Twitter alone.

Not all the comments were complimentary but the feedback was invaluable for a website that is trying to offer a public service.

Here are some of the tweets we spotted:

Tamara_dugard - is it incredibly deranged that i am fascinated by this?

rowli - liking this map of London murders - not as bad as you think given that this is over at least 2 years

johnaggs - Check out how likely you are to be murdered in London areas! Yaaay

johnkell - A new Google map plotting murders in London. Chilling, ghoulish, unnecessary, grim, horribly fascinating

cinnamon_sally - sick but somehow fascinating.

codepo8 - grim but good

iamadamsullivan - This is the scariest thing I've seen in ages

Miss_Marmite - Phew! Only 1 murder near me, and the murderer was caught with the victim's head in a carrier bag.

sajarina - Ghoulish and a bit pointless? I am curious in spite of myself though

TimesCrime - www.murdermap.co.uk is well worth a look; put together by court reporters and researchers, a treasure trove of info on London crime

Murder Statistics

Thu, 1 Jul 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Every year there are over 700 crimes initially classed as murder in the UK.

According to official figures, this is close to double the amount recorded in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Does this mean that Britain is a more dangerous place? How much of this increase is down to population growth and changing society and how much to better detection and classification of crime?

Looking more closely at London in particular, it appears the murder rate is actually decreasing despite concerns about the influx of criminals from abroad.

It dropped from around 180 in 2000 to under 160 in 2008. In the 12 months up to February 2010 it reached a 20-year low of 119.

This was partly due to the 'exceptionally low' total (in the Met's own words) of just 13 murders in January and February this year.

What lies behind this recent trend remains to be seen.

It may be argued that the recent decrease in the murder rate is down to improved policing, including the high strike rate of the Metropolitan Police's 'Murder Squad' - also known as the Homicide and Serious Crime Command.

There have also been large increases in the life sentences handed out to murderers since the introduction of the 2003 Criminal Justice Act.

Another deterrent is the prevalence of CCTV cameras of some kind or another now tracking our every move throughout the city.

One interesting explanation recently offered was the growing expertise of NHS doctors and surgeons at saving lives, partly due to their exposure to life-threatening injuries on the frontline in Iraq and Afghanistan. (http://timesonline.typepad.com/crime/2010/03/comment-of-the-moment-6.html)

Surgeons are often flown straight to the scene by London's air ambulance (HEMS) to operate on victims of knife and gun crime before they bleed to death.

But it may be the recent drop in the murder rate is just a statistical anomaly, much like the temporary peak caused by the 7/7 bombings in 2005 and the massive spike caused by serial killer Dr Harold Shipman in the 1990s.

Indeed in March this year there were at least 11 murders, including the murder of 15 year-old Sofyen Belamouadden at Victoria station, a very public crime that again gave the impression that youth crime is spiralling out of control. In April there were at least 13.

It is well known that there are more homicides in the summer months, perhaps because the hot weather raises tempers and brings people out on to the streets.

We hope to return to this subject at the end of the year to look at the numbers thrown up by our database.

Whatever the answer, London has one of the lowest murder rates in the Western world.

In the late 1990s it was calculated that there were roughly 1.8 murders per 100,000 population, in comparison to Washington DC with 69.3, New York at 16.8 and Amsterdam at 7.7.

_______

For more detailed information on the UK murder rate and its statistical breakdown, further details are available in a 1999 House of Commons Research Paper: (http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-056.pdf)

The Metropolitan Police also provide a map of London detailing the number of crimes, including homicide, by borough: (http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/)

Welcome to Murdermap!

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

This site has been almost a year in the making from conception to launch, but the hard work is only just beginning.

Over the next few months, we will be transferring hundreds of cases from our archive to the database. It is a mammoth task, but one we believe is worth the effort.

We also hope to include a few of the more notorious murders in British history. If you have any suggestions, let us know.

For those who do not live in London it is important to point out that our long-term goal is to cover the whole country.

In the meantime, we hope you find our website both useful and informative.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

How does Murdermap work?

The details of each murder are placed in our database as soon as possible after they occur. The cases are then updated regularly to show the progress of the investigation, from the charging of suspects to the end of any trial. We aim to compile a comprehensive record of every murder case in London.

Where do you get your information?

Our reports are based entirely on information provided by the police and from court reports. We strive for accuracy at all times. However, if you are concerned about any aspect of a case, please contact us at mailbox@murdermap.co.uk

Can I help?

If you know of any recent cases that we may have missed then do get in touch. We are also interested in tracking down photographs of any murder victims that are currently unavailable.

What's next?

At the moment we have only inputted the homicides from Jan 1, 2008. We will be doing 2007 over the next few weeks. The plan is to (slowly) work our way back through the years to 1888. However we will be adding a few famous cases from history as we go. Get in touch with your suggestions.

Can you explain the colour-coding system on the map?

Each murder pin is colour-coded according to the main weapon used (usually the cause of the fatal injury). Most categories are self-explanatory, but 'none' refers to a death caused by the use of punches or kicks and 'Ligature' refers to strangulations using cords, wires or materials such as scarves or ties. The category 'other' includes death by fire/arson.

How do you decide which date to file for each case?

We always use the date of death rather than the date of the fatal attack (although they are usually the same). A case only becomes a murder when the victim has died. If there is a delay between the incident and the death then we attempt to make this clear in our case summary.