BS: Ipswich murders, man charged

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 07:02 AM

"While you are correct in saying that,

Come off it Peter, I acknowledged the possibility of a wrongful arrest in the first 7 words of that post, stop clinging on to your mistaken assumption, and admit that it's a personal problem you have with my post, and not just semantic nit picking?
G.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 06:56 AM

OK. giok, there is no implication in your first post that those who will rest easy are right to do so. Perhaps you were even criticising them for leaping to an assumption of Stephen Wright's guilt. But if you were thinking along those lines, why did you not make that clear in your second post?

In your second post you responded to a guest who said: "Why a sigh of relief? Because a man is charged does that mean he is guilty? Until we're sure, a murderer is still at large."

This was your response: "While you are correct in saying that, it is not very often the UK police charge someone innocent with 5 murders. This is not some tinpot dictatorship where the police beat someone till they confess, whether they did it or not. Safe in this knowledge, a lot of people will sleep easier in their beds tonight!"

You say there was no implication here that Stephen Wright was guilty as charged? Come off it Giok. This isn't nitpicking. There was only one inference to be drawn from that post.

On the question of how our faultless police acquire confessions, you might like to take at look at (say) the Carl Bridgewater case or the Guilford Four case.

Jacqui, of course people relaxed their guard after charges had been made. It's the populist reaction you would expect. The question is whether they were right to do so at that stage of the inquiry. For all that you can quote cases in which we assume the right verdict was reached (but see Richard Bridge's pertinent question above) it is unarguable that many mistakes have been committed down the years. And here I'm talking about convictions, where people were allegedly found guilty "beyond reasonable doubt." It is not necessarily a mistake if police charge an innocent person, because it is not a police responsibility to decide about guilt.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 01:45 PM

Timothy West he did the Jack the Ripper jobs, when he was Prince Eddie.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 01:43 PM

Spot on ard. at last we find a point of agreement.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 01:39 PM

Welittledrummer you are right about the press they once again set up an innocent man,they have had a long history of this, not forgetting the bastards in blue who fed the press the libelous information, both acted disgracefully.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 12:28 PM

the press should notname anyone until the person is charged.
which brings me to the case of Ian Bailey, an acquaintance of mine, WHO IS INNOCENT of the murder of Sophie DU PLANTIER, and who has had 10 years OF being classed as guilty,and who lost a libel case [based on a star witness ms farrell],who later admitted she had been mistaken over Baileys identification. his name should never have been released to the public, until there was enough evidence to charge him. NOW STEVEN WRIGHT HAS BEEN CHARGED.
Innocent until proved guilty.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 12:14 PM

The press is not not untramelled. It is tramelled by its own laziness. They all reported complete bollocks about the miners strike. I don't think any of them ever came out of their offices in Fleet Street to write what they did.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: jacqui.c
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 12:03 PM

I agree with you Giok and it is clear from billybob's post that there was a lift in the spirit of the town when it was heard that an arrest had been made.

It may be that there are a lot of foolish people out there who still have some faith in the ability of the Police to track down and deal with wrong doers. If so, I'm glad that I'm one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 11:54 AM

Peter you must be the most nit picking poster on this site. I said that people would rest easy, I did not say they had got the guilty man, all the negative inferences were on your part, but then you're good at finding meanings in other peoples' posts that were never there in the first place.
Why can't you say, I'm sorry I misread your post instead of trying to justify it by drawing in even more posts and precedents in order to justify your specious argument.
G.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 11:11 AM

Sorry I forgot to switch off the italics in my last post.

Billybob/Wendy, what you describe exactly illustrates one of the najor problems. There is no easy answer. To detain people without naming them would raise new problems, for such people would, in effect, have been "disappeared".

One thing I would like to see challenged (and I say this as a journo myself) is the untrammelled right of the British press to behave as a law unto itself. I would rather see the press put under the control of the government of the day - even Blair's, or Thatcher's - than see a handful of billionaires exercising their freedom to whip up emotions and print whatever trash they like. Our newspapers have had several chances since the minister with responsibility for press and broadcast matters (then David Mellor) said they were drinking at the last-chance saloon.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Scrump
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 11:05 AM

That's good - hopefully we'll be spared that bloody awful 'Sunday Love Songs' on Radio 2 now they've arrested him.

... eh?... not the same bloke?... ah....

... I'll get me coat.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 10:58 AM

Timothy West jacqui? Not the famous actor husband of Prunella Scales?

Giok, I might have accepted that your first post was intended as a criticism of other people's prejudices if it hadn't been for your second. It is quite simply wrong to assume guilt before it's been proved. As I've said before - a point jacqui discounts - proof can be very elusive and in the absence of proof our system has far too often seen people convicted anyway. That is a failing, and no amount of safe convictions can make it right. For as long as unsafe convictions continue, none of us has any reason to feel complacent about British justice.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: billybob
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 10:49 AM

I shop in Ipswich and the past two weeks have been really horrible, very quiet as soon as it got dark.Going back to the car in the underground carpark was eerie as it was diserted after 3.30.The girls working in the shops were very on edge and were going home in taxi's.My daughter and I were shopping on Monday when they said they had arrested Tom Stephens and the atmosphere changed immediatly!
The next day they arrested Steven Wright,maybe the police should just say someone is helping them with the case and the press should not name them?
wendy

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 08:42 AM

Against which you also have to set the fact that there are those who's agenda is to discredit the police, and authority in general!
G.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: jacqui.c
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 08:29 AM

One thought here (and slight thread creep).

I note the high profile and very public instances where an innocent man has been incarcerated as a result of faulty evidence etc. but what of all the cases where the right man has been brought to book?

Please don't tell me that the prisons are full of innocent men, all there because the system did not work properly. Those are the ones that, generally, don't get publicised because they aren't dramatic enough and don't provide for the bread and circuses mentality that the media seems to want to feed these days.

Against those wrongly accused think of those like Sutcliffe, Timothy West, Harold Shipman, Ian Brady, Denis Nilsen - the list goes on.

I would think that, against the pressure to find the culprit nowadays, there must be a mounting pressure to get the right man, if only to avoid the scandals that will surely ensue as a result of a faulty arrest. While that authorities may desperately want to be able to chalk up a successful arrest if they are not certain that they have their man they risk leaving the real culprit free to commit further crimes and that ain't going to make them look very good the next time a woman turns up murdered, is it?

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 08:13 AM

Well you were wrong, I do not rejoice in the weaknesses of others, I suggest that you restrain your urge to rush to criticism, unless it is clear what the poster intends, and not to make assumptions that suit your own prejudices.
G

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 08:09 AM

Yes. that's what I was suggesting, Giok. Or at least, assuming. The terms in which you opened this thread, complete with that triumphalist-looking exclamation mark, was in my view a rush to judgment of the kind we should have learnt to guard against.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 06:39 AM

Are you suggesting that I am part of that lynch mob Peter?
Fear is not an emotion that is amenable to reason, and whether they have got the right person under arrest or whether they haven't, it is a fact that many people will feel safer because of that fact. My ex was in deep dread while Peter Sutcliffe was on the prowl albeit we were living more than 200 miles away from his scenes of crime.
We can all go back and drag up historical examples right back to Tim Evans and beyond, they prove nothing except human fallibility.
G.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 06:28 AM

No need to apologise, its what you think. Its what I think, when I've just dealt with one of the buggers.

On reflection though........I think my Dad did me a big favour keeping me out of that game.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 06:20 AM

Sorry, wld. I'm not going to pretend I believe its easy or that they don't have to deal with obnoxious people but I do believe they (or quite possibly just bad elements) bring much on themselves. I also believe they are paid to behave respectably, even in difficult circumstances.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 06:03 AM

Thoughtful post, wld. Maybe it began with Sherlock Holmes, this idea that any crime is solveable if enough brainpower can be thrown at it. It's certainly a myth the press have bult on ever since. In reality it can be impossible to establish past events beyond doubt.

Even with advances such as DNA analysis, police and juries must in the end rely on expert witnesses who argue between themselves about the interpretation of such evidence, or in the case of the late, unlamented West Midlands regional crime squad, a senior witness who consistently lied about the forensic evidence.

Here's a link to a case that makes interesting reading for anyone who thinks fingerprint evidence is always conclusive: Shirley McKie.

Giok, I detest the lynch-mob mentality and have often complained when it's been in evidence in the US. So I'm not going to ignore it when it raises it's ugly head here in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 06:00 AM

Dunno bout that, Guest.

My Dad was a cop. I think its easy to forget how much it isolates you from the general community. Dad was very suspicious of the norms of human contact. Friendship and normal warmth was something he lost the talent for. The day he retired, he found that the only people who had wanted to be his friends were no longer interested in even speaking to him.

To give him his due, he was aware of this at the time - and as I worshipped him, I wanted to be a cop like him, but he was having none of it.

One time I talked to to a couple of police women who were doing a talk for the kids in the school where I taught.

The life they described was unspeakable. Apparently their outer clothes are coated with spit after they have policed the average football match. The coats went straight in the shed, and then straight to the cleaners. I give a wry smile whenever I hear mudcatters say what a grand bunch of lads English football fans are.

The policewomen were ex-directory of course, but they have to change their numbers at least once a month - because of predatory and abusive callers.

I imagine you could multiply that by ten when you're a serving soldier in NI - after all, its not unknown for people to draw a round of a general acclamation on mudcat for the act of killing soldiers.

You may find thuggish unfriendly behaviour a total mystery Guest. I don't think it quite such a bottomless conundrum. It may be no fun dealing with police and the army, but I don't think it requires a great leap of imagination to see where they're coming from.

best wishes

al

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 05:49 AM

Peter K..those 'innocents' you refer to may not have been innocent at all....there were around four groups of people who subject to appeals were released as evidence against them was unsafe....unsafe evidence does not mean they were innocent. I would sure love to know how many of those released in the nineties and early 2000s have been in trouble since.
One of the sad parts of our UK justice system is that we can know for certain that someone is guilty but the 'weight of evidence' has to be 'enough to convict' them. Consequently many obviously guilty people have had to be released.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: bfdk
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 05:45 AM

The papers over here claim that dna evidence links him to 3 of the bodies found. Far be it from me to condemn a man ahead of time, but if that is true, this bloke at the very least has some serious explaining to do.

Wolfgang, it seems to me that your otherwise excellent English let you down momentarily there..

Best wishes,

Bente

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 04:47 AM

Well Peter nice to see you in sneering mode again, you really are a condescending pratt. I don't know what you think you have that makes you so omniscient, but it certainly doesn't show to the naked eye.
G.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 04:46 AM

The expectation that the police or army should not behave like thugs should not be unrealistically high, wld.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 04:00 AM

One day someone will do a study about the potent myth in England, of the good inspector (Morse/Frost/Dalgleish/Dalziel) and how it runs through our modern national psyche. Perhaps it stems back to JB Priestley (An Inspector Calls) and the idea that one day someone will turn up and expose all our moral weakness - and in that shining hour, the truth about life itself will somehow emerge.

Either way we have unrealistically high expectations about those who administer the laws of the land. Witness the gasps of astonishment, claims and counter claims on the Irish threads about the army - when its wearing policemen's boots.

There is a lot of pressure on cops to produce a resolution of our fears. Sadly, David Jason isn't always available for the gig.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Paul Burke
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 03:36 AM

In a case like this, the police are under immense pressure to come up with a result. Consequently they often get it wrong, so much so that a local murder, that of Wendy Sewell in Bakewell churchyard, has never been solved. Stephen Downing was convicted, and (18 years) later released as his "confession" was extracted by force. It is widely believed in this area that the real murderer was the son of a local dignitary, and that the police covered this up.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 03:29 AM

Something that seems to being overlooked at the moment is the position of Tom Stephens, who has been released on bail. Now, he may be guilty of something connected with the murders, but he could easily end up being charged with nothing at all. If so, he has certainly been the subject of a massive intrusion into his life, albeit to some extent of his own volition.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 08:08 PM

Unusually stupid remarks for you, Giok. The reason the plods don't often charge anyone innocent with five murders is that they don't often charge anyone with five murders.

And what has the figure five got to do with it? Were you not able to sleep easier when Colin Stagg was charged? Or Stefan Kiszco? Kiszco, you may remember, spent 16 years in prison for murdering Lesley Molseed, during which you presumably slumbered peacefully. Another guy has now been charged with that crime, so if the police are right as ever, she must have been murdered twice. Then there were the 11 innocents caught up in the Guilford bomb trial fiascos. And the Cardiff three, And ... but oh, the list is endless.

British justice is perhaps no worse than in several other developed nations, but none so far as I am aware comes with the smug hypocrisy that characterises the British system.

Here's a BBC report in which the agency responsible for prosecuting Stephen Wright urges restraint in commenting about him, on the basis that like anyone else, he is innocent until/unless proved guilty.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 07:32 PM

Even if this one is the killer there's always a possibility of someone else getting inspired to copy the killings, especially with all the media attention.

Look at the way school killings in the States seemed to set off similar events in far distant places.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 07:21 PM

Is there some reason we all have to be so testy and curt with one another?

Giok, thanks for letting us know.

Women will always have more concern for their safety, whether a murderer has been caught or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 07:06 PM

Giok, how do you know?

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 05:33 PM

While you are correct in saying that, it is not very often the UK police charge someone innocent with 5 murders.
This is not some tinpot dictatorship where the police beat someone till they confess, whether they did it or not.
Safe in this knowledge, a lot of people will sleep easier in their beds tonight!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: jacqui.c
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 05:32 PM

No Wolfgang - these were young women working for an Insurance company in the centre of Ipswich. I'm pretty certain that they were concerned for their safety in spite of the fact that the victims had all been said to be prostitutes.

Until the motives of the murderer are known any woman is going to worry as it would not be certain that he wouldn't branch out or escalate.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 05:27 PM

Why a sigh of relief? Because a man is charged does that mean he is guilty? Until we're sure, a murderer is still at large.

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: Wolfgang
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 05:26 PM

jacqui,
work colleagues? Like the murdered?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: jacqui.c
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 05:21 PM

I had work colleagues in Ipswich. I'm sure that they are breathing a sigh of relief now.

Subject: BS: Ipswich murders, man charged
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 05:18 PM

The lorry driver Steven Wright has been charged with all 5 murders.
A lot of people will sleep easier tonight!
Giok