The news, unfortunately, tends to be full of depressing
stories, and one that was drawn to my attention earlier this evening was about
as depressing as a local news story can get, involving as it did the death of
an 84-year-old Wibsey woman named Joyce Moulson following an attack upon her
home by vandals last night. The latter threw stones at her front door, breaking
one of its glass panes. The stress engendered by this cruel behaviour caused
Mrs Moulson to collapse some ten minutes after the incident, and she later died
in Bradford Royal Infirmary.
The police stated that they were searching for “three male
youths” in connection with the incident on Fair Road, but rather oddly, the
descriptions of the suspects provided in the Halifax Courier made reference to
one of them as being “white, around 13 years old, of large build with dark,
shoulder length curly hair” whilst omitting to mention the racial background of
the other two who were simply described as “of similar age and of slimmer
build.” Why was this? Were the other two clad from head to toe in
all-enveloping clothing that hid any trace of their skin from onlookers? As for
the Telegraph and Argus, it didn’t mention any racial characteristics
whatsoever, as was the case with the later BBC report which revealed that the
West Yorkshire Police had arrested “four boys, two aged 12 and two aged 13,[who] . . . were being questioned on suspicion of manslaughter.”
When police are searching for suspects, surely racial
background is held to be a useful identifying characteristic as suggested by
the report’s reference to a “white” boy, so why was only the “white” individual
singled out? Were the others white, or not? The manner in which the report was
written suggests not, so what were they, and why was this information withheld
if it was known? To make reference to the racial background of one of the
suspects and not to that of the others is peculiar, not to mention a potential
hindrance to aiding in their identification.
About four years ago in the NE of England, we had an outstanding case of this deliberate neglect of duty. After a Christmas night out, a girl was brutally raped in the east end of Newcastle. The police issued an appeal for witnesses without giving a description of the attacker. A week later they issued another appeal identical to the first. Another week later an appeal for witnesses was issued but this time with a description of the rapist....'very dark-skinned'. later in the week, an e-fit was presented to the public. I won't go into the size or shape of his nose and lips or indeed the texture of his hair but they were right about him being 'very dark-skinned'.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I'm aware, he was never caught and is now probably living it up in the European country of his choice thanks to our polce service and the NUJ.
That represents a terrible neglect of the police’s responsibility to the public. Descriptions of suspects are useless if they omit to tell you what they actually look like.
DeleteGiven that it's Bradford, wait for hand-ringing about the behaviour of "Asians" to start.
ReplyDeleteIt may do, but I've not seen any yet.
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