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 …
Continue reading “Open Justice and Court Reporting: Dull or Drama?”
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 was bludgeoned to death at his home on July 17, 2009. His killer, 20 year-old …
Continue reading “Teddy Highwood: Family of murder victim ‘failed by police and the IPCC’”
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 …
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 …
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 …
