By coincidence my wife and I spent 24 hours in Bristol during the Christmas week. Like everyone else we had been upset to hear of the tragic case of a young woman found dead on Christmas day in the city. We were reassured to hear on the local news local police say then that they did not believe local women were in particular danger and mystified by the comments that the police seemed to know more than they were letting on.
Over the last ten years I have taken an interest in the way in which murders are investigated and how decisions are made to identify certain people as suspects. This is not a macabre interest on my part but one that comes from my experience of supporting an appeal against a serious miscarriage of justice. I read the surviving statements of a case twenty years after a conviction (most of the paperwork had conveniently been destroyed) and was appalled to see how the police put one individual in the frame and then built the case around that theory.
This experience came to mind with the lurid coverage of the first suspect arrested in the present case. Apparently the "suspect" was little bit of a local character - even a Liberal Democrat activist - and that led the media during a quiet bank holiday week to speculate about the "suspect's" private life, sexuality, links with previous crimes and colleagues who had acquired criminal records. Some of the techniques used only just fell within the law.
All in all it was a disgraceful week for what we used to call Fleet Street. In a previous generation the material would have been collected and written as a "backgrounder" pending publication following a guilty verdict. Many of the articles published on Friday assumed a guilty verdict against an individual who had not even been charged.
It wasn't until Friday lunchtime that a weak and ineffective Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, (whose father incidentally I fought an election against in Solihull in 1979) warned the press that their coverage could prejudice a possible trial. Surely the police bear some responsibility for having so dramatically and publicly put him into the frame? Right from the start the press should have been warned about speculation.
Now the "suspect" has been released, just like the defendant in the case that I took up. I can't take my arguments further on this, but the release on "police bail" looks suspiciously like a bit of window dressing.
Women in Bristol have now been told to take precautions to protect themselves from attack. The "suspects" whole life and reputation has been destroyed and he is now in hiding for fear of vigilante attacks. And the press is beginning to snipe at the police.
Why on earth should all this concern a Methodist Preacher or any other Christian? Because our Bible teaches that the rule of law is paramount. That due process is everything to justice. That bearing false witness, as the press has done in recent days, distorts investigations and leads to questionable outcomes.
The chances of a successful outcome to the investigation and the family of victim recieving their justice has been reduced, not enhanced, by the circus of the last few days.![]()
Over the last ten years I have taken an interest in the way in which murders are investigated and how decisions are made to identify certain people as suspects. This is not a macabre interest on my part but one that comes from my experience of supporting an appeal against a serious miscarriage of justice. I read the surviving statements of a case twenty years after a conviction (most of the paperwork had conveniently been destroyed) and was appalled to see how the police put one individual in the frame and then built the case around that theory.
This experience came to mind with the lurid coverage of the first suspect arrested in the present case. Apparently the "suspect" was little bit of a local character - even a Liberal Democrat activist - and that led the media during a quiet bank holiday week to speculate about the "suspect's" private life, sexuality, links with previous crimes and colleagues who had acquired criminal records. Some of the techniques used only just fell within the law.
All in all it was a disgraceful week for what we used to call Fleet Street. In a previous generation the material would have been collected and written as a "backgrounder" pending publication following a guilty verdict. Many of the articles published on Friday assumed a guilty verdict against an individual who had not even been charged.
It wasn't until Friday lunchtime that a weak and ineffective Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, (whose father incidentally I fought an election against in Solihull in 1979) warned the press that their coverage could prejudice a possible trial. Surely the police bear some responsibility for having so dramatically and publicly put him into the frame? Right from the start the press should have been warned about speculation.
Now the "suspect" has been released, just like the defendant in the case that I took up. I can't take my arguments further on this, but the release on "police bail" looks suspiciously like a bit of window dressing.
Women in Bristol have now been told to take precautions to protect themselves from attack. The "suspects" whole life and reputation has been destroyed and he is now in hiding for fear of vigilante attacks. And the press is beginning to snipe at the police.
Why on earth should all this concern a Methodist Preacher or any other Christian? Because our Bible teaches that the rule of law is paramount. That due process is everything to justice. That bearing false witness, as the press has done in recent days, distorts investigations and leads to questionable outcomes.
The chances of a successful outcome to the investigation and the family of victim recieving their justice has been reduced, not enhanced, by the circus of the last few days.
