The murder of Danny O’Shea in east London last week highlighted one particularly divisive issue – when can you classify a murder as racially aggravated? There have been questions – particularly from what you might call ‘right wing organisations’ such as the BNP – as to what exactly distinguishes the murder of a black victim …
Author archives: murdermap
Contempt of Court: Open Justice?
The idea behind the 1981 Contempt of Court Act was pretty honourable. Everybody deserves a fair trial and to have their guilt decided by a jury rather than be convicted by the ‘Press’. Since then it has come under increasing pressure from the right to freedom of expression, first in the printed media and more …
Jury Go Home
Quiz question: In what year were jurors first allowed to go home while deliberating their verdicts instead of being shut up in a hotel? It’s not as long ago as you might think. Or perhaps you believe the quarantining of jurors should never have been abandoned, given the supposed new dangers of prejudice via Twitter …
The Jury: Perverting the Course of Justice
Forget the legal inaccuracies, the irrelevant sub-plots and the intrusive commercial breaks. What really killed off ITV’s The Jury was a lack of confidence in courtroom drama. It looked promising enough. Written by the Oscar-nominated author of Frost/Nixon and The Queen, Peter Morgan, The Jury was screened over five consecutive days and starred Julie Walters …
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The Met’s Five Year List of Murders
The Metropolitan Police recently agreed to release details of all ‘murders’ (actually all homicides, including manslaughter) in the last five years following a Freedom of Information request. There are a few discrepancies with our own list of murders but these actually illuminate how the Met records each homicide. The Met already releases monthly totals and …