Leicester Mercury police blog

Meet Teresa. She was mugged - but she's not going to let it beat her.

2010-05-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

This is Teresa Blick. I spoke to her today and was struck how lovely she was.

She was mugged last month and, bravely in my opinion, decided to speak to us about it.

She was walking home from the shops in Queens Road, Clarendon Park when she was literally jumped by a young thug.

He, for his troubles, walked away with a fiver.

I'm sure that's long gone. Into his arm presumably.

Teresa, who's 65 and a widow, struggled in the first few weeks after the attack.

She just didn't feel safe going out because of what this man had done to her.

Well, on a positive note, Teresa's attitude today seemed to be one of defiance.

"I'm not going to let this turn me into a recluse", she told me.

Good on her.

After all, people like Age Concern and Victim Support have told me down the years that crimes like this kill people.

Not instantly, but slowly as the victim withdraws from life and loses the confidence to be out in public.

There's only one thing outstanding.

When he took Teresa's purse our big man also took three photos of her grandchildren - who live miles away in the North East - and a mass card for a dear friend who died two years ago.

How can we get them back for her?

Seriously, if you live in the Montague Road area of Clarendon Park, check your gardens, alleyways and the like for a discarded purse, photos or a mass card.

It's a slim hope, but it's worth making the point.

My 50th post. This had better be good.

2010-05-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week, but I haven't got much to show for it.

On the plus side, Chief Supt Rob Nixon - the city's senior officer - sent a letter to the bosses to thank us for our coverage of the David Robinson story.

I've covered David's story at length on this site.

I'd suggest you go back a page or two and read the posts if you haven't done so before. Make a donation too, maybe?

On the news front, I learned a new word - clonking.

It came up in conversation with a woman I was talking to about an assault in Western Road. The allegation is that a couple of fellas attacked a man with baseball bats.

She said she saw it happening and described the sound of the bats' impact as 'clonking'.

I thought she'd made it up, but I checked the dictionary and there it was: "A thudding noise."

Another tale this week pointed out that one of our psychiatric units has been losing patients - mostly only for a few hours, admittedly - at an alarming rate.

Bosses at the Brandon Unit, at Leicester General Hospital tell us things are going to improve and when they take people out for a ciggie they'll count them out and count them back in again.

On the small beer, but still thuggish side of life, we ran a few lines about a man - and what a man - who threw a traffic cone at a passing car in Ratby.

Surely there are better things to do in the villages.

Not really sure what I'll be up to next week.

However, I'd be made up to hear from anyone who can tell me more about Romanian prostitutes sleeping under canvas in Abbey Park.

Congratulations to David and Almina - and say hello to Amelia.

2010-05-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

I've said before that some stories are a lot harder to write than others.

Over the past couple of months I've struggled with the stories I've filed about David Robinson.

He's a young police officer in the city who has cancer.

The tumours are incurable, according to doctors.

David needs to raise £100,000 to undergo experimental treatment in the US which he hopes will give him as much time as possible with his wife, Almina and their very new daughter, Amelia.

His colleagues at Mansfield House station have taken up the challenge of getting him on that plane to the US and they have been an inspiration.

It goes without saying, the couple's friends and family are doing exactly the same.

A couple of months in and the total collected has just gone beyond £30,000. Amazing.

People's health is such a difficult subject, very emotional.

I'm also conscious a lot of people are reading these stories.

These are people who care deeply about David and his family as well as, in a lot of cases, those who deal with me on a daily basis.

I hate to get things wrong in print and I worry about getting something back to front in these stories.

Anyway, this is a picture of David and Almina with Amelia. She arrived on Monday, weighing in at a delicate 5lbs and 9ozs.

For the full story and all kinds of things you might need to know, search Facebook for 'help us help a friend' or go to:

http://www.davidleerobinson.co.uk

It's come to this - a strongly worded missive to the Telegraph.

2010-05-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

Journalists are funny, picky creatures at times.

Most of us can be back-breakingly precious about the English language and how it's used.

We're like this because we should be.

I'm not above criticism for the errors I make, but I still make the bench for the fussy team.

I was reading an article on the Daily Telegraph's website today for a bit of background for something I was doing for the Merc.

I was astonished at the lack of care that had gone into its preparation for publication.

The words were all in the right order. In fact it was a good read.

But the punctuation was all over the place.

Anyway, I sent a quick e-mail to editorial at the Telegraph.

They may come back and say the punctuation went missing because of a technical glitch.

Or maybe, someone didn't know where to put their commas and apostrophes.

Despite my best efforts, my message ended up sounding like a fussy schoolma'am's end of term report on a must-try-harder pupil.

At least it was properly punctuated.

Beggars you say? Wearing gorilla suits?

2010-05-10T11:49:00.000-07:00

Sadly there is no authentic 'as-it-happened' news picture to go with this one.

The man in the suit is a fun-runner picked from our picture archive.

Anyway, this is about the latest twist on the travelling eastern European criminal thing we've been covering for some time now.

They're implicated in things like purse-dipping, baby-in-your-face begging, shoplifting and hawking particularly nasty fake gold jewellery around the city centre.

The headline to this post pretty much sums up what they were up to in this case - they were dressed as gorillas and they were planning to hassle shoppers for money.

I was walking through town heading for the office when I bumped into some police officers having their pic taken for an advert that's coming the Merc's way.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. All ad revenue is gratefully received.

As the group broke up I chased a police officer I wanted to speak to.

But no, he was off because he'd spotted a couple of people dressed in gorilla suits.

They were just sitting there in High Street and Humberstone Gate and he wanted to know who they were.

Because of the General Election I thought they were merry pranksters.

It became apparent though they were in town - from Manchester funnily enough, apparently the home town of the city's newest street girls - to ask shoppers if they wanted to pay for pics of their kids alongside men dressed in shabby suits.

It didn't sound like the smartest ruse for parting people with their money.

I have no idea if it would have been a winner because this pair had just arrived and hadn't got down to business when the police intervened.

Funnily enough, they didn't have a camera.

Anyway, the police told them the score and advised them to head out of town.

I've held off from writing the story because I'm desperate to get a pic of them in action.

But it looks like they've listened to the police and have gone back to Manchester.

I like odd stories - how often does a reporter get to write about beggars in fancy dress?

Not often.

How often does a reporter get to write an intro along the lines of "A shoplifter squeezed breast milk at a store detective..."?

Again, not often.

I had the pleasure of writing the above once. And I still remember it fondly.

I'm only human.

This is what happens when newspapers fail their readers.

2010-04-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

Someone in the office found this story on an Essex paper's website and e-mailed it around the newsroom today.

Reprinted below, it's bewildering stuff and I think it says a lot about standards in some sections of my industry.

Now, this is by no means a political blog and I apologise in advance because this post has nothing to do with Leicester or the police.

People have their views about the BNP, me included.

That's not important here. I would be making the same point if this was about any political party.

What matters is that this paper has given a political meeting the treatment I'd expect for a Blue Peter bring and buy sale.

At first I thought it was a spoof or an election stunt by the BNP. But no, it's there on the paper's website.

That is just not good enough and I don't want to see any party given a free ride like this. We're only a few weeks away from a General Election.

But I think I know why it's happened. It reads awfully like a press release doesn't it?

Newspapers are struggling and I know many are cutting back on staff.

There are so many supremely talented journalists out of work or just plain worried for the future just now it's scary.

I don't know these reporters in Essex, but I'm guessing some of them at least will be under daft pressure to fill their pages and a little 'cut and paste' isn't uncommon.

It's known as 'churnalism'.

PR companies, political parties etc send out their stuff and the lesser among us maybe tinker with it a little bit or drop it straight into the paper or on to the website.

If anyone from the Essex paper wants to defend their reporting I will include their response in full.

Anyway here's the full article:

BRENTWOOD: Nationalists show their support at BNP meeting
Wednesday, April 21, 2010, 08:0018 readers have commented on this story.
Click here to read their views.

PROUD nationalists were asked to dig deep to support an election candidate when the Brentwood branch of the BNP met for the first time.

Buoyant supporters packed into a back room of a patriotic pub for the inaugural meeting of the Brentwood and Chelmsford branch – which has been founded in response to the party's growing membership.

Paul Morris, Parliamentary candidate for Brentwood and Ongar, said: "It was a good turnout considering it was very last minute.

"We officially launched six months ago but this was the first meeting."

The party operates under a veil of secrecy to protect members from those who oppose their beliefs and did not reveal the location of the meeting until just minutes before it was due to start.

With the pub set to become a regular meeting place for the new group, they have asked us not to reveal where it is.

Christine Mitchell, a 68-year-old grandmother from Chelmsford, will be running the branch from here on in.

Mrs Mitchell, who is contesting the newly created Saffron Walden seat in the general election on May 6, said: "We are fighting for British jobs for British workers, that is the start but we are standing for other reasons – crime rates, the state of the education system and the fact MPs have stolen from the public."

The former Conservative leader of Westminster Council, Peter Strudwick, spoke for more than an hour during the meeting, rallying support for what he called "ideologies" for the future.

Unlike other parties which are funded by unions and wealthy donors, the BNP relies purely on members' donations and as the first half of the meeting drew to a close, Mr Morris stood up and asked for donations.

"Michael Bateman is standing in Chelmsford and we need a £500 election deposit," he said. "Can anyone afford to put £500 in the pot?"

Searching faces scoured the room until a man who had until then sat quietly in the corner, put his hand up to pledge £100.

Others then thrust crisp £50 notes in the pot before the less well-off handed over their screwed up £10 and £20 notes.

There was much applause and hand shaking as the money came flooding in, uniting the room in the campaign to bring about radical change.

Drug dealers? You can't trust them.

2010-04-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

I searched the internet for Leicester's mephedrone dealers the other day.

I came up with a couple of names, addresses and mobile numbers within a few minutes. Easy.

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure everything is above board.

I'm sure these advertisers want your money, but I'm guessing some of them have no intention of supplying that M-cat.

When you think about it, the online market for an illicit drug favoured by young people was always going to be a rich feeding ground for criminals.

So, they're not drug dealers. Fraudsters would seem more appropriate.

There's a lot of very made-up sounding names and some ridiculous claims that these 'companies' turn over more than a million dollars a year.

So, a couple of the numbers I tried were answered by people who clearly had nothing to sell and were more than a little surprised by my call.

Then I called on a house in a quiet part of Groby.

I was greeted by a very chatty retired gent. He wasn't selling either.

The question newspapers are asking right now is 'how many kids are using this stuff?'.

I think it would be interesting to find out how many are falling foul of these tricky online criminals.

In the meantime I'll press on with my attempts to chat to a dealer.

I want to know what he/she thinks of the ban, which will come into effect on Friday.

I'd like to ask if they still think mephedrone is a harmless, party drug which they would still like to sell to young people.

From what I've seen in the past couple of days there's a big sale on right now. Maybe they're busy clearing their stocks.

There's one who I think is selling, but he's not answering his phone.

So, 'Brian of Granby Street', if you're reading this, give me a call, please.

A breakthrough in the mephedrone thing? For now at least?

2010-04-07T10:58:00.001-07:00

Police have taken £13,000 from a man who apparently sells mephedrone over the Internet.

The £13k is the money they believe he's pocketed from sales - presumably, in some cases at least, to kids.

The confiscation is temporary and whether or not he loses his money will be decided in court later.

They didn't use the Misuse of Drugs Act to take this money. They couldn't because, at the time of writing at least, it's not an illegal substance.

Ah, but that's where the Medicines Act 1968 comes in.

It's an offence to sell medicines, chemicals etc unless you've got all the qualifications and authorisations.

That's where the police hope this man is going to come unstuck.

A welfare worker in Leicester pointed this out to me weeks ago - possession of M-Cat won't get you into legal trouble, but selling or distributing it surely will under existing law.

There's a hearing to take place in due course when this will be decided. So, we shall see.

In the meantime, we're all waiting to hear whether M-Cat is to become a banned substance under the Misuse of Drugs Act. It seems inevitable doesn't it?

If it does - and if the anecdotal reports of this drug having such a tight grip on our young are true - then it will be interesting to see the results.

How many kids will end up with criminal records?

Again, we will wait and see.

He's at it again.

2010-04-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

On a lighter note, I was chasing a 'street dance', erm, crew today called Diversity.

They won the Britain's Got Talent show, which I've not watched.

All I know about it is Piers Morgan appears on it. Hmm.

For obvious reasons they weren't in my contacts book, so I had to go through their PR people. Always a chilling prospect.

I still get the chills remembering an argument I got into with one of Sporty Spice's PR/tour people a few years ago.

I was getting carried away with my language when I realised that he was probably a pretty powerful foe. I shut up and took his abuse.

Anyway, Diversity's PR man, Joe, was great and came back to me with a comment by Ashley Banjo, Diversity's leader and choreographer.

The reason for this brush with celebrity is a police officer called Pc Harvey Watson.

His beat covers a big chunk of the University of Leicester and all of Victoria Park.

He's making a habit of collaring acts when they appear at the De Montfort Hall and asking them to film short crime prevention advice messages for the students and young people who follow him on Facebook and Twitter, where he's to be found as 'Campus Cops'.

Diversity did him proud when he got hold of them on Tuesday night.

Visit Harvey online to see the results and to witness a police officer using social networking sites to reach as broad an audience as possible.

So, in the space of a few months because of Harvey I've spoken to one of the Saturdays and, very indirectly, Diversity.

So now I'm a 3am Girl?

Eating my words. Again. Well, partially.

2010-04-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

I made a point of saying the other week that serious crimes against the elderly were rare.

Thankfully, that is absolutely true.

Well, relatively. Everything is relative, I suppose.

But, a couple of weeks after reporting the particularly nasty robbery which prompted those remarks, another one has come along.

Today, I went out to Oadby after the police told us an 81-year-old man had been mugged there.

The victim, who walks with the aid of a frame, was turned over in an alleyway at 3pm on Easter Monday.

What you would call broad daylight. On a no doubt busy bank holiday too.

Are these people making the point that they commit a crime wherever and whenever they like?

The old fella had just been to the shops in the Parade and he was walking home alone. A daily stroll no doubt, with his paper under his arm.

He was attacked from behind and pushed to the ground. Our big men then went through his pockets and took his wallet.

Shall we guess how much money he had with him? I'll go for a couple of quid.

We've not spoken to the victim because he's still too upset.

Bruised too, we're told.

As I walked around the part of town where it happened - near the Legion and St Peter's Church, should you know the town - I found myself thinking of my dad and his mates, who are in their 70s and 80s now.

I was scrutinising everyone under 40, wondering if they were the sort of people who could do a thing like this.

This was Oadby though. Everyone, regardless of age, looked to me like they ran a bank.

It's election time again.

2010-04-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

I've lived through a number of General Elections now and - despite myself - I invariably end up enjoying them.

Particularly as things move into the early hours and the results roll in from across the country.

I've covered a few too, most memorably for good reasons David Taylor's first victory in North West Leicestershire.

The low point was Blaby a few years back when it was the last but one consituency in the country to declare its result.

I was in that leisure centre in Enderby until 9.30am the day after polling day.

Apparently though, some spoilsports have dumped same-day counts and are going to wait until the next day.

I'll leave the proper politics to Jenny and David, who sit across from me.

But I'm guessing plenty of the people I speak each day will be wondering what the parties have in mind for the police.

Who will have reassuring words for Leicestershire Police Authority, which controls the purse strings here?

As we've heard before, it's struggling for money and is thinking the unthinkable - redundancies among civvy staff? Unison is bracing itself for up to 150 people losing their jobs.

Police officer recruitment has been frozen since late last year and that shows no signs of changing any time soon.

Officers on the frontline are starting shifts wishing there were a few more bodies around.

However, it seems all we're hearing is that the public sector is in for a rough time over the next few years, whoever wins come May 6.

By the way:

Ken Clarke was in the office earlier today. I was in the lift with him and I was bursting to say "Giant Steps. What a record."

But I didn't.

Hello, this is the Merc. We're not here to take your call at the moment...

2010-04-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

We've had an interesting and very out-of-hours anonymous phone call.

Apparently, the caller was a police officer who wanted to get something off his chest about staffing levels.

Because he chose to call so late at night - deliberately, I guess - he ended up speaking to one of our answering machines.

His message was that when he looks around at the start of a shift he doesn't see enough bodies.

Story?

If anyone would like to help, I'll be reprising my quaint 'hush hush' thing. (See previous post).

Incidentally, I've been reading a handful of the bewildering number of anonymised police blogs recently.

Some of them are really pretty good and seem popular.

Well, that's an understatement.

Some of these people count their readers in the millions, get hundreds of feedback comments for each post and have publishing deals in the bag.

Have a look out for 'Inspector Gadget', 'PC Bloggs' or 'Which End Bites'.

Frankly, they stand out because they don't seem to hate the 'underclass' as some of their blogging colleagues seem to.

I get nervous doing the nudge nudge, wink wink stuff.

2010-04-02T08:07:00.001-07:00

I wrote a story last night about the search for Leicestershire's new chief constable.

Nothing surprising there, we've been waiting for some time now to find out who the new chief will be.

Three candidates were rejected after interview shortly before Christmas.

They just didn't come up to the mark apparently.

As a result the recruitment process had to begin again - and I'm sure that will have cost a few bob.

A few days ago I got the names of the four officers who have come forward since then and are shortlisted for interviews later this month.

The names came from someone who knows about these things, believe me.

I phoned loads of key people in Leicestershire and enlisted the help of people out of the county.

There was an awful lot of hush hush stuff along the lines of "I'll keep your name out of it, but could you just confirm I'm not going to look daft if I run these names."

So, after all these checks, we published these names today - a good three weeks before the interviews.

It was along the lines of: "The Mercury understands Mr So-and-so has applied for..."

One of them lives in Leicestershire.

I spent last night asking myself: "Does he read the Merc?"

And I've been wondering all day today: "Has he picked up a Merc yet?"

So, I've been nervous.

But it's my job to find news.

This isn't the greatest story ever told, but it's important and, ahem, it's in the public interest.

You hear a lot about 'the public interest'. Often it's a justification for printing some old tripe.

I think it works here because police officers often talk about 'public reassurance'.

(Well, the 'accelerated development, rapid promotion' types do.)

Some members of the public - not to mention police officers and civvy staff - might have been concerned that the first attempt to find a new boss had failed.

Although, frankly I admired the police authority for resisting pressure to appoint one of the three candidates they were faced with in December.

It showed strength I thought.

But we can all expect the force to be led by a strong team and we have a right to know who's in the frame.

It's a big job and whoever gets it will have a lot on his plate - the candidates are men - not least cutting £15 million off the budget next year and overseeing up to 150 civvy staff redundancies.

I should say the people in my story did not confirm the names, but merely gave me their thoughts on the recruitment process etc.

That's a lot lot of cutting.

2010-04-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

We're carrying a story today which is hardly breaking news - Leicestershire police are looking to slice £15 million of their spending.

They seem to have been cutting here and there for all the time I've been covering police matters.

Now it's official - they are to prepare for the anticipated public spending cuts by shaving £15 million of their budget in 2011/12.

I think it was two years ago they said they'd trimmed every last ounce of fat and they've been saying it at every opportunity ever since.

They've also been saying long and loud that they are not receiving the Government money they are entitled to. There have been many trips to the Home Office to plead their case.

In fact, they think they've lost £15 million over the past few years.

Well, now they've announced these cuts. It seems redundancies among the civvy staff are inevitable. Maybe as many as 150.

Police officers can't be made redundant, but you can run numbers down by operating a recruitment freeze, which they have been doing since November last year.

Officers have been saying for some time: "There's not enough of us."

Where is this leading us?

The crime figures look pretty good but things are obviously pretty bad when officers look around the room and think they need more bodies.

I spoke to a few civilian staff members about the cuts - which were announced yesterday - and they seemed pretty resigned to it and just hoped the redundancy notices don't come their way.

It's been a tough few years in the newspaper business these past few years so I know how that feels.

Easy interviews, tough interviews.

2010-03-31T11:04:00.000-07:00

Today, I spoke to a mum who believes her son has been groomed and sexually abused.

As I've said before, there are easy interviews and there are tough interviews.

She described to me today the way a man systematically befriended her lad - offering him alcohol, drugs and the like - before sexually assaulting him.

The man she believes did this to her child is in court soon-ish.

We'll be there to see the outcome.

If he's convicted we'll ask the police for his mugshot and we'll do the works on him.

Today, I just wanted to meet her face to face so we could talk through how the court thing works when there will be newspaper interest in the outcome.

I said several times that victims are never identified, that we will want to print her words, not her name.

I'm not sure she knew this is how it works.

I'd assumed, with all the support for victims and their families nowadays, someone would be telling her this.

I just didn't think it would be me.

I write some words, people read them and a man in need gets help. Simple.

2010-03-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

I'm made up. Writing for newspapers really is the business to be in.

It seems I've helped drum up support for the campaign to raise the rather daunting £100,000 city police officer David Robinson needs for cancer treatment.

David and his fiancee, Almina tell me that there's been a good response to the stories I've done so far. I'll keep writing them for as long as necessary.

The stories were also picked by the the local TV and radio people and their viewers and listeners have chipped in too apparently.

The picture above was taken for the Merc when David and Almina dropped in to meet Team Robinson, the police colleagues at Mansfield House station who are going all out to raise money.

Having said that, these two are clearly surrounded by loving family and friends who are doing more than their bit to let people know about this campaign.

To read David's story and to make a donation, go to:

www.davidleerobinson.co.uk

There's also a huge Facebook group.

This man was mugged for some tobacco and loose change.

2010-03-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

Once again, criminals have shown how they can turn our stomachs when they put their minds to it.

This 67-year-old man was jumped when he let his dog out for a wander and a wee outside his home in Saffron Lane.

I've been up to his neighbourhood this morning and chatted to some of his neighbours, most of them in their 60s and 70s.

Understandably some of them said they were pretty scared but the overwhelming emotion was anger.

I don't know if my words amount to much on occasions like this, but I did point out that I've been covering the crime beat for some years now and I've only covered a handful of cases like this.

Probably three or four in eight years in fact.

The simple truth is that violence against the elderly is rare.

For whatever reason, robbery, assault etc are younger people's sports.

PS: Three people have been arrested in connection with this one. They've been released on bail while the investigation goes on.

These are the toughest stories to write. Really.

2010-03-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Dave Robinson is a young CSO in the city centre. He's 28-years-old, is engaged to be married and his girl is expecting their first child.

He also has a number of 'aggressive' tumours.

I've written a couple of stories about Dave's situation over the past month or so and been struck - not for the first time - by the way people in the police 'family' stick together.

It's also clear he is surrounded by a loving bunch of family and friends.

There's loads of fundraising going on right now because there is a treatment available in the US which could help him.

I also hear well-wishers' letters and cheques are arriving at Mansfield House police station in the city centre at a steady rate.

He's just so young.

Writing stories about seriously nasty crimes can be hard sometimes, but I get by.

I'd forgotten how tough it is writing about someone who is very poorly.

This picture above shows Dave meeting Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson the other week. The club were great hosts, particularly the man they call 'Birch'.

If you want to read more of Dave's story and to make a donation to the £100,000 appeal go to:

www.davidleerobinson.co.uk

There is also a huge group on Facebook. Visit that too.

Sorry I should have posted this information a few weeks back, but keeping this blog as up to date as it should be has been a bit of a struggle just recently.

Apologies, this is an elongated harumph.

2010-02-26T08:34:00.000-08:00

I just wrote up a short witness appeal from a police press release - and then asked myself why I'd bothered.

Here's the release (from the force's website) in all its glory:

Police are appealing for witnesses after an elderly woman’s bag was stolen as she shopped for food.

The incident happened late last month on Friday January 22 at about 10.50am, while she was shopping at a supermarket in Humberstone Gate.

The 71-year-old victim believes that her bag was taken from her trolley as she was shopping in the bread aisle.

The bag is described as a brown reusable bag which contained a smaller bag and a black zip up leather handbag. Inside the handbag were keys, some cash, some bank cards and an umbrella.

PC Heather Brown, the officer, investigating the incident, is appealing for anyone with information about the theft, those responsible or the current whereabouts of the bag to contact her.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact PC 4598 Heather Brown on Leicester (0116) 222 2222, follow the instructions to leave a message for an officer and when prompted key in his identification number 4598. Alternatively, people can call Crimestoppers free* and anonymously on 0800 555 111.

* Some mobile phone providers may charge for this call

Two things struck me.

How about you?

Well, it happened a month ago and the supermarket isn't named.

Has the lady only just reported this to the police?

Possible and not uncommon.

My gripe here is the "supermarket in Humberstone Gate" bit.

Has the company concerned told the police not to name the store?

I think they probably have - even though we can all make a pretty good guess which shop we're talking about here.

This is happening a lot just lately and it's becoming a major harumph point for me.

Apart from the most serious cases, the police ask permission before naming businesses in witness appeals.

Victims - robbed shopkeepers, assaulted clubbers and the like - deserve anonymity and we give it to them routinely and willingly where the crime is so grave that their best interests are not served by being identified.

But big shops where thefts occur or bars where people get punched or glassed are in no conceivable way victims and, in my book, should be named.

The purpose of a witness appeal is to generate information for the police investigation.

On a good day the criminals get caught as a result of a good call to police.

As a reporter my heart sinks when I have to call up a big business.

They are self-serving sorts to say the least and, in most cases, run a mile when I ask for their help.

Do I have to mention Tesco again at this point?

Why can't the police toughen up and tell businesses "our priority is to find witnesses and criminals, not to worry about your reputation"?

UPDATE:
As I suspected, this Humberstone Gate supermarket appeal isn't going anywhere near the paper.

My name is Ciaran, I search the internet for people in uniforms.

2010-02-18T11:31:00.000-08:00

I've added a few police blogs to the 'who I'm reading' list on this site.

I found them by running 'police blogs UK' through Google.

I've not had time to read them too closely, although I've scanned a couple of them quickly and they seemed pretty funny.

It's all very day to day observations in the style of David Copperfield - the original police blogger, now apparently living in Canada.

I didn't spot any references to my kind in the couple of articles I read in this handful of blogs.

I'd love to know what they and other police officers make of us reporters.

What are police officers thinking when I ring up asking (or on occasions, begging) for a story or a bit of guidance?

If any of you want to chip in with answers to that I'd love to hear.

Answer came there none - part III. Or is it part IV?

2010-02-15T09:53:00.000-08:00

Still waiting for the Tesco press office to come back to me.

Harumph.

This is as complete a case of "declined to comment" as I have ever come across.

If our code of practice allowed, I'd start calling these corporate press offices claiming to be from the Daily Mail or the News at Ten.

Then I might get an answer.

It's time to move on I think.

One of my heroes is back.

2010-02-13T06:48:00.000-08:00

This is nothing at all to do with the police, the Merc or even Leicester.

Gil Scott-Heron is back on record after more than 15 years.

It seems he's been in and out of prison. Drugs-related a lot of it.

I'd often wondered where he was and, frankly, whether he was still with us.

Mind you there are one or two older street drinkers I've got to know over the years here who I haven't seen for some time.

Where are they? Have they come through the winter freeze unharmed?

Anyway, at least one 60-year-old who's had erm, 'substance misuse issues' is back with us for sure.

I'm away to town later to buy his new record.

UPDATE:
It's a record and a half.

The Tesco press office - answer came there none.

2010-02-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

Clearly, I'm at the back of the queue when it comes to the Tesco press office.

Going back to the strong cider and lager story from a few days ago.

I know, I know. I'm tired of it too now, but I should update it.

The offending items have been taken off the shelves at the London Road Tesco Express.

Fair enough.

But what about an explanation from the company?

I want to tell the readers whether they broke the terms of the licence through oversight or cyncism.

I said a couple of days ago that we had no co-operation from the company's press office on the original story.

I hate writing "so and so was not available to comment", but I had to.

Often the missing people are those the journalist most needs to hear from.

You know, a bit of an explanation, context or even an apology.

Oh well.

They do seem to be in the news a lot though don't they?

Maybe the press office is overloaded but is working something up for me and I'll hear from them in due course.

There are criminals and there are criminals.

2010-02-12T10:20:00.000-08:00

This is Anthony Wayne Jesson. He robs elderly women in their homes.

His speciality is cutting their telephone wires and threatening them with knives and hammers.

One lady, Rosie Coates, was tied up, despite the intense pain it caused her. Arthritis, you see.

Your body gets that way when you're down your 80s.

Mrs Coates died a few weeks ago, so we'll never know if she would have taken some comfort from knowing Jesson is facing a long spell in prison.

Doris Brown, also well into her 80s, was shoved to the ground when she found Jesson in her home, rooting through her possessions.

She ended up with a broken arm.

She doesn't go out on her own anymore and hasn't been sleeping well ever since.

I spoke to Doris' family a day or so after this happened to her, in November 2008.

I remember clearly this little detail.

They told me that Jesson calmly stepped over Doris on his way out of her home, completely oblivious to her pain.

A 78-year-old man also had the misfortune to cross paths with Jesson, who's from Collett Road, Beaumont Leys. We didn't manage to speak to him or his family for tomorrow's story.

A full report of his Jesson's trial at Leicester Crown Court is in tomorrow's paper. He will be sentenced next month.

The detectives involved in the case investigate some of the nastiest crimes. Speaking to them they were clearly as shocked as any of us.

Some dropped into the court this week to watch proceedings, even though they've moved on to new roles.

We're told some Leicester's criminals are deeply unimpressed with Jesson's methods.

As his trial unfolded this week - yes, he denied the crimes - some pretty tasty looking fellas were taking it all in.

That could be interesting.

It happens to the best of us.

2010-02-12T02:17:00.000-08:00

A funny story from my desk neighbour, education correspondent Ian Wishart, pictured here looking rather intense.

He posted it on his blog a few days ago and I know it will strike a chord with journalists everywhere.

Readers will enjoy hearing how we suffer when things go wrong.

An old boss of mine used to say: "The man who never made a mistake is the man who never did anything."

That was as long as he was somehow implicated in whatever disaster we'd created.

If the mistake was entirely down to you and he was in the clear his language could get pretty incendiary.

Anyway, Ian's blog:

Tramp Juice pt II

2010-02-10T10:16:00.001-08:00

Bad alcohol seems to be the theme of the week.

A fella who comes into the office to see me from time to time - frankly, he's a big drinker - was roaring drunk when I bumped into him in Cheapside the other day.

He was being loud, very loud and I was pretty sure someone was going to call the police.

I didn't want him to get lifted because he's a terrific man and he's had a stupid run-in with the legal system lately.

So I started escorting him through the city centre. It was like pushing a grand piano up the stairs.

He popped into a shop on the way.

A moment later he emerged carrying a two-litre bottle of nasty, cheap cider. It had cost him 73p.

Why did the shopkeeper not say "Sorry sir, you've clearly had enough today. May I suggest you go home and sleep it off."?

Yeah, I know.

Some hope.

That's me, with the 'tramp juice'. Don't I look happy?

2010-02-09T10:05:00.000-08:00

This is me after I bought a few cans of Tennent's Super and a bottle of Diamond White. Strong stuff indeed.

Normally, I'm more of a Guinness man.

I bought them from the new Tesco Express shop next to Leicester railway station for a story.

Tesco had voluntarily agreed it would sell no beers, lagers or ciders stronger than 5.5 per cent and that became a condition of the licence they were granted by Leicester City Council.

The Tennent's is an eye-watering 9 per cent and the Diamond White 7.5 per cent.

So, in the spirit of erm, Roger Cook, we had them. A big company. The Man.

I contacted the Tesco press office on Monday and we ran the story on Tuesday.

Funnily enough - and three days on from asking - I've still not heard anything from Tesco's press office.

How come?

I wanted them to make it clear whether this was all a mistake or something more cynical.

They have my mobile number and my e-mail address. Still.

In their defence, I also checked whether they were sticking to another condition of their licence. The shop opens at 6am and their idea originally was to sell alcohol as soon as they opened the doors.

Again, they volunteered to abide by a licensing condition and knocked it back to 8am.

I went in just after 6am on Monday and loitered in the alcohol section.

"Sorry, we don't serve alcohol until 8am. It's in our licence," an assistant said.

So, well done there then.

But, why anyone would want to buy alcohol at 8am is beyond me.

Is is really posh commuters stocking up on Chateau Neuf du Pape (okay, to be honest I just called out across the newsroom 'name me a posh wine') before they jump on a train for London?

Or is it people who get out of bed before dawn, raging for a drink?

But frankly high strength alcohol is nothing new.

Most places sell them and plenty of people drink them happily and without doing themselves any harm.

Plenty of shopkeepers who sell it to people who are clearly winos then have the nuts to complain to the police and us about the bad behaviour of alcoholics in their street.

Some shops I've spoken to this past year or so are choosing to not sell these products anymore.

They say there's not much profit there and (how to put this politely?) these drinks tend to be favoured by winos. Sometimes, not the most polite customers.

Selfish sometimes too.

Take a walk down certain streets in the city today and keep your eyes to the ground and - I guarantee - you will see their empties all over the place.

There's been talk of bans on the high strength stuff, but it's not going to happen is it?

So, street alcoholics who frankly don't know how to take care of themselves, will always get their hands on their favourite poison for the price of a bottle of mineral water.

Whether it's from the corner shop or a major chain.

At least, I'm guessing, Tesco Express in London Road will now have a clear conscience that at least they're not contributing to this very specific aspect of the country's drink problem.

That's it, I'm going home.

2010-02-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

It's been another bitty day. Coming at the end of a bitty week.

When I came in this morning I was feeling bright and pleased with myself.

You see, I had a couple of stories on the go and I was confident they'd come off before the end of play.

One did come together but wasn't as enthusiastically received by the bosses as I'd hoped.

I liked it though and so did the police officers who were involved in it.

A thief called Russell Archer stole a sat nav from a car and presumably thought he'd got away with it.

A few minutes later he got nicked in the street because he looked suspicious. Man lurking for no apparent reason in the street in the early hours etc.

The officers, from Spinney Hill Park and Keyham Lane stations, checked the most recent destination in the sat nav and went to visit the owner.

Archer got 30 weeks for that and other crimes.

Ho ho.

The stories didn't get done because 'such and such' or 'so and so' weren't around to speak to me.

Oh well, they'll keep until Monday.

I'm looking forward to one of them because it's not the kind of story I normally write.

If I'm correct - and I'm pretty sure I am - a big chain is selling something it shouldn't.

The other is about an estate where crime has fallen madly because police have succeeded in getting their top 10 criminals locked up.

They're all in jail at the same time and will be there for months to come.

Also, I think there's a gang going round cracking safes. How Sweeney-like.

So, it takes time to bring certain stories together.

We're quick, but if you want super-quick switch the telly on.

Sky announced this afternoon that John Terry had been stripped of the England captaincy a good 20 minutes before I saw anything on the BBC website or on the Press Association wires.

Ah, the lifestyles of junkies and winos. And people who hang around on stairwells.

2010-02-02T02:53:00.000-08:00

This is a picture taken by one of the beat officers down on Leicester's St Matthews estate.

It's a littered communal stairwell in one of the blocks of flats down there.

Look closely and you'll see a drinks can fashioned into a crack pipe.

Some of it is just litter, pure and simple. Ciggy butts and the like.

Now generally when I write stories I apply the 'what would my mum make of this?' test.

How would she feel walking through the city centre come Friday night? Would she be upset by groups of kids hanging around the Clock Tower on a Saturday afternoon?

In those cases I don't think she'd be much bothered. Although, some people tell us and the police they feel otherwise.

I don't need to ask how she'd feel if she had this crap on her doorstep.

One of the residents told us: "I am fed up with all the people coming onto the stairs where I live, they seem to be taking drugs and leaving the litter everywhere.

"Once I have been out shopping in the morning I feel too scared to come out again for the rest of the day."

Read that again.

This lady is staying in because she doesn't know what she's going to find outside her front door.

Wrong, wrong, very wrong.

The only positive here is the police team on St Matthews - good friends of the paper they are too - are going after the people who are putting this lady and others like her through this.

Walk on. I hope Rafa doesn't.

2010-01-15T12:02:00.000-08:00

I don't post things on Twitter too often.

Today, I was moved to write the following.

"Oh Rafa. My dreams be very tossed and very blown."

Nope, nothing to do with the police or anything else this blog is concerned with.

I just wanted to say it again.

Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard are both injured and the club is in turmoil.

Where are we going?

UPDATE:
Reading that back, it makes me sound wet. And a bit of a nut.

Bear with me, I'm just getting the hang of this blog thing.

2010-01-07T04:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I've had to remove a couple of readers' comments from the previous post.

Every day as a reporter I speak to people at length and then select two or three paragraphs of their comments to go in the story.

The skill - and believe me, it is a skill - is to accurately reflect their views.

Now, with the blog I've just censored someone by removing his or her comments because I saw a potential libel.

I'm not an editor, I'm a jobbing reporter.

Now, comments - and let's face it, there haven't been many so far - will
pop up in my inbox first before I decide whether to release them to the blog.

If the person or people whose comments were removed would like to contact me direct I'll happily discuss it with them.

While we're at it, who in Barnsley is reading this blog? I'd love to know.

UPDATE:
I've not gone censorship crazy. This latest deleted comment was just a test.
Or was it?
Well, yes it was.
Lord, this is complicated.
UPDATED UPDATE
I think Cutie speaks for all of us there.

I'm just not getting the hang of the Freedom of Information thing.

2009-12-29T17:02:00.000-08:00

With Christmas and the new year coming and the prospect of a few difficult news-free days ahead, I thought I'd get ahead of the game.

So I asked our public bodies for some bits and bobs under the Freedom of Information Act.

Several weeks on and the answers are coming back and I'm not getting much information.

Harumph.

I asked the police to supply info they've published before - at least twice to my knowledge.

Namely, how many people in Leicestershire are currently involved in drug dealing and how many of these have what they call 'firearms markers' against their names on the police intelligence system?

They've told me in the past that this stuff is updated on the force intelligence system every four weeks.

I know "intelligence" is just that. It's not cast iron fact.

But it is indicative of where the city is going and, I think it might be of interest to the readers.

Very few people in Leicestershire can or want to lay their hands on a gun. Let's get that straight.

But let's also be very clear that we do have a number of armed criminals in this city and beyond.

Having said that, I was happy - yes really, I was happy - the other day to report that there was only one occasion last year where a shot was fired. But, I have also written about guns - the real thing, not replicas - being seized from crims - again, the real things, not replicas.

So, I am not chasing a 'Leicester's gun crime mayhem' story. I don't do that kind of thing, thank you very much.

This time they told me they weren't obliged to answer my question.

Their answer seemed to boil down to the idea that my story would be a tip-off to our armed criminals.

I wasn't asking for names and mobile numbers, just some stats.

A couple of days later the Foreign Office responded to another of my FOIA questions.

I admit, I ripped this one off from a former colleague.

A couple of years ago a Daily Mail trainee called Matt spent a few months with us.
He asked how many people from so-called rogue states had been barred from travelling to study at Leicestershire's three universities. National security and all that.

That Daily Mail lad got an answer. I got a knock-back.

If anything's going to feed a regional journalist's inferiority complex....

Another day, another refusal.

I asked the Ministry of Justice to list the contraband seized from inmates and visitors at Leicestershire's prisons. Drugs, phones and the like.

Big public interest argument in favour of us getting the goods, you might think.
"It would take too long", they said today.

Ho hum.

Maybe it's me. Do I draft my requests badly?

Or, should I be thinking the Freedom of Information Act isn't all it's cracked up to be?

There's a largely taxpayer-funded quango in the city which, days after its arrival, told us it was exempt from the FOIA. It's not their fault - and they do say they intend to "operate in a spirit of openness". But how many other public bodies are exempt?

The legislation allows me to appeal first to the bodies which turned me down and then to the independent information commissioner if I'm still unhappy.

Anyone with expertise in this area care to offer their thoughts?

UPDATE: just to be clear, what I was moaning about was the fact that the quango was exempt and when I said it declared itself exempt, what I meant was that it made a point of highlighting this fact almost as soon as it came into being.

This particular quango is jointly owned by two local authorities and that’s what makes it exempt – if it was owned by just one, it would be covered by the Act.

It still spends our money. How sensible is that?

David Taylor MP

2009-12-27T08:14:00.000-08:00

There was a real sadness in the newsroom today as we worked on the breaking story of David Taylor's sudden death.
Some of us here go back quite a few years with David, MP for North West Leicestershire since 1997.

He had a heart attack on Boxing Day while he was visiting Calke Abbey.

The news - and we had to deliver it over the phone to some of his friends and associates - has hit people very hard.

I was a cub reporter when I first met him, back in 1994 when I joined the Coalville Times.

David was a parish and borough councillor then. I'm pretty sure he was working full time too.

That's a lot of politics to squeeze in.

Well, as Oscar Wilde said: "Socialism would be great if it didn't take up so many evenings." I'm paraphrasing.

And, it might not have been Wilde.

But, it's a good line.

When I arrived in Coalville there was much talk among the senior members of the Labour Party about 'Young David'.

I'm not sure how many attempts it took, but he won the seat from the Tories in the landslide of 1997.

I went down to the count at Whitwick leisure centre with the-then editor of the Times, (of Coalville, not London).

A few of us got a little drunk - we weren't covering, we were there for the fun of it all - and I remember being 'shushed' by someone from the Mercury because we were getting a little over-excited as we watched the political map changing locally and nationally.

For the next few years David was a good friend of the paper and was in it all the while doing his job - fighting for a constituent or opening a community centre here or there. You get the idea, MP stuff.

I don't know much about Parliamentary politics. Come to think of it, I don't know too much about the town hall stuff either.

But I could tell David was one of the good ones. I've met some of the bad ones in my time and it's not always down to duck islands and home flipping.

He will be much missed.

Mercury the Messenger, chapter II

2009-12-16T13:56:00.000-08:00

Back to police stuff.
Every time I file a story I am acutely conscious - let me repeat that - I am acutely conscious there is a consequence.

If we report a bad run of muggings in your neighbourhood do you begin to wonder if it’s safe to go out any more? You may do.

There's been a couple of nasty ones where I live and it gave me pause for thought when I wrote the story and reflected that it was about a spot about 200 yards from my house.

But, of course it's safe to go out.

Ask someone how many cars got turned over in New Parks or Stoneygate this week. “Don’t know”, they’ll say. “Sixty?”

The answer might actually - in a good week admittedly - be none.

Have newspapers inflated the fear of crime? I don't know.

Bad reporting by definition distorts the way people see the world.

To me it's a case of 'good or bad, it's all news'.

An officer called me today and said he'd arranged for me to talk to an 89-year-old woman whose shopping bag had been stolen by some sneak.

Christmas presents, pension, personal stuff. All gone.

When I get the story together I will include some background.

Purse 'dipping' is big at this time of year - the shops are crowded and purses are bulging with savings drawn out for the big shopping trip.

While telling this lady's her story I will say that the picture is relatively good so far this year.

In Leicester city centre, the number of thefts has been low this past couple of weeks compared to previous years, some thieves have been locked up and the police (with the help of us as well as the telly and radio people) have done a great job
letting elderly women know that they have to be careful when they pop into town.

I know we’re in a position to influence the way people feel about all kinds of crime and, as a consequence, how at ease they are as they go about their business.

Going back to that earlier stuff about the council, for me it’s not whether I talk the city up, down or sideways.

It’s about telling people’s stories and keeping a sense of perspective. Let me know if you think I get it wrong.

Mercury, he was that messenger fella wasn't he?

2009-12-16T11:52:00.000-08:00

I had words with some people from the city council today. They keep accusing the Mercury of "talking the city down".

The politicians have been saying it for some time and now, most recently in a letter we published last week, the civil servants are saying it too.

One of them rang up to ask me why I'd left a fairly facetious comment in response to the letter on our website. I decided to defend our honour.

Why, I'm asking, is this same phrase cropping up time and time again.

It smacks of a PR strategy. I might be wrong though because this really isn't my field.

But, my reading of it is that some of these council people really do see our scrutiny of their affairs - sometime critical, sometimes supportive - as an attack on the city itself.

No, it's nothing of the sort.

If we have a pop at a council policy we're aiming at an administration, not a city.

There is a big difference.

Browsing Twitter earlier today, we found this post from the "Labour voice of New Parks", Councillor Colin Hall - otherwise known as Ultra_Fox. We know from past experience he's not our biggest fan.

He has referred to us as the Daily Heil. A good socialist lad should know better than to mess around with Nazi imagery. It's poor taste, isn't it?

He was reflecting on the failure of the city's bid to be part of the World Cup party. He's not happy with the football authorities and, it seems, us.

Councillor Hall - the city's high bailiff no less - wrote the following: "Recriminations over this defeat will continue. In particular, the treachery of the Mercury in past 6 months won't be forgotten or forgiven."

We've backed the bid from the very beginning.

Treachery?

Isn't this all getting a little overheated?

Thankfully, my job doesn't take me too far in to the political world.

I covered the city council beat for a wee while some time ago while we waited for a new correspondent to arrive.

I hated every minute of it.

A few days in, I wrote a story about some part of town getting new road safety measures.

I spoke to one of the local councillors. "Great news for my ward, I'm delighted.....", he told me.

A day later someone from another party said to me: "I saw your article. Did you know he voted against those road safety measures at every opportunity?" Grrr.

Someone read the blog, I said, someone read the blog.

2009-12-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

Kingswood have removed the 'to let' sign one of their contractors attached to the front of my house.(See below).They came within a couple of hours of my complaint and took the sign away - but left some bits of wood and a couple of nails.
Oh well, it's a victory of sorts because the few lines I wrote about this the other day attracted a reader's comment. And not someone who sits within 15 yards of my desk.
Is this the start of an online publishing sensation?
My contributor is called Ned and I followed the link to his blog and, although I haven't read it in too much detail just yet, I noticed he has posted a series of photographs of Leicester's best buildings.
There are some ace places in this city and I think it's easy to forget that sometimes - especially when I'm walking past the spot where the Pump and Tap and the Bowstring Bridge used to be.

My name is Ciaran and I like meeting people in uniforms.

2009-12-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

I broke into new territory this week - Keyham Lane police station.
For vague historical reasons - I've no idea what they are - we've never really had so much to do with this place, even back in the days before I got here.
It's in Hamilton, Leicester and it covers a huge part of the city, neighbourhoods like Belgrave, Thurnby Lodge and Netherhall. Big, important and, above all, newsy places.
I arrived at the station the other night and, straight away, one or two officers pointed out that other stations get all the publicity.
Well, the job now is to win the trust of these officers and see if we can get them in the paper as often as some of their colleagues.
I look forward to doing that - the softy stuff and the less easy side of life there.
It started really well.
I spent a few hours walking around Belgrave and St Marks with Pc Laura Nutt.
This will be part of a series of features I'm putting together toward the end of the month.
I've got half a notebook of shorthand notes and I'll get around to reading and translating them over the next few days.
Pc Nutt was great though. A real beat officer.
She knows what makes this area tick, what gets under people's skin.
She also dealt with one of the resident ne'er do wells brilliantly. I watched her search the lad in the street, while chatting to him like a concerned mum.

Why do the small things bother me so much?

2009-12-11T08:51:00.000-08:00

Slightly off topic this one.
Imagine my surprise when I got an angry call from home earlier today to inform me that my little castle is apparently on the market.
It's mine, all mine - and I've got the mortgage statements to prove it.
Kingswood estate agents apparently have other ideas.
A contractor working for them stuck a 'to let' sign in my front yard earlier today. Grrr.
I made a couple of calls to their office - which is a couple of hundred yards away from home - and asked them to take it down.
Six hours or so later it was still there.
I'm leaving the office shortly and I'm hoping it's gone by the time I get back.
Again, I say 'grrr'.

I used to like the Guardian, now I despise it.

2009-11-10T02:16:00.000-08:00

My colleague, education correspondent Ian Wishart, sent me a link to this Guardian thought piece. What a demoralising start to the day.I have only the vaguest of ideas who George Monbiot is because I stopped reading the Guardian years ago.
I stopped when I realised I'd started to hate its snobby elitism. It's just so back-breakingly right-on about everything.
Now, I'm a progressive sort myself, but it said absolutely nothing to me.
From its news to its fashion spreads, its music coverage and even its football writing, everything annoyed me.
Plus - and this is the big one - so many its readers I've met are nothing short of know-it-all bigots.
The disrespect Monbiot shows to local newspapers and journalists in this piece - not to mention his shallow research - is breathtaking.
Why doesn't he tackle the question of standards at the paper he's associated with and the other nationals?
Collectively, they cosy up to the most powerful political and commercial interests in the land and never let on that they're doing it.
I've written this in work time.
So, I'd better get on.
Bosses from a large supermarket chain, the chief constable and the council leader are popping over to deliver the plan for next week's Mercury.

I love writing fluffy stories. There, I've said it!

2009-11-06T10:13:00.000-08:00

So, I've been moaning about how I've spent the past couple of weeks looking for conventional hard news stories. And failing miserably.
The week ended with me marking the retirement of a police sniffer dog called Bill.
I enjoyed meeting Bill and his handler and companion for the past seven years,Pc Terry Durham.
Bill bowed out on Friday having helped police trace all kinds of drugs and guns. He's going to live with a real friend of the paper, Leicestershire's beat bobby of the year, Pc Harvey Watson.
The happy pic on the left of Harvey and Bill was taken by one of our snappers.
The story was fun to write and it went down well with the bosses, it's today's page five fluffy story.
Knowing how stats-obsessed the modern public sector has become, I asked the police semi-seriously if they could provide Bill's detection rates.
They couldn't, but I wouldn't have been too surprised if they'd said: "No, but we can say he has consistently scored 90-plus per cent in public satisfaction surveys."
I love the mad directions this job sends me in.
The stories we cover are often distressing and it's easy to go home feeling a little blue about the world.
Hopefully next week will bring something a little harder my way, but I hope the fluffy stuff keeps coming.

Join the Q.

2009-11-05T09:51:00.000-08:00

The police officers I've been speaking to this week have all agreed: things are quiet pretty much everywhere across the city.

Only they don't use what they call the Q-word.

I guess they think they'll jinx themselves if they do. I tend to ask them if it's been 'eventful' or not on their patches.

Well, it's been a quiet time for me too.

As someone who lives in the city - and will have done for 10 years come the end of the month - I'm more than happy. In fact it's great.

However, as a reporter I have to say it's not a good situation.

I'm wondering what my newsdesk colleagues are thinking. Are they running out of patience with me?

If they are, they're hiding it well.

So, as a citizen I should be glad that the stories I've been looking at have been about relatively minor - but never trivial - matters.

This past couple of days it's been bike thefts, purse 'dipping' gangs, a small cannabis 'factory' and, today, a lady who has cooked curry for 200 police officers to raise a couple of hundred pounds for the Poppy Appeal and Help for Heroes.

Reporters like big crash, bang, wallop stories.

There's no escaping that, but I will never lose sight of the fact that losing out to a petty thief is a nasty experience.

The elderly ladies I've talked to down the years after their purses have been lifted from their shopping bags have been among the most troubling interviews I've ever done.

One, she was in her late-70s, once told me: "I didn’t come into the city centre for some time afterwards because I didn’t like the idea of being in a crowd.

"I was convinced it would happen again. It wasn’t about the money they took from me – that was only a couple of pounds.

"What they did was make me feel unsafe in the city I was born in."

Most newsrooms have long since banned phrases such as 'callous burglars' or 'cold-hearted thieves'.

I agree, they are rotten cliches and I've not been caught trying to smuggle them into my stories for a long time, but sometimes they just fit.

Maybe things will start to speed up next week.

And maybe Liverpool FC will start to speed up too.

And maybe, just maybe something will come out of the blue to save the Pump and Tap and the Bowstring Bridge.

What's the opposite of the Midas touch?

2009-10-29T13:09:00.001-07:00

The police invited me along to an early morning drugs raid the other day.

They were calling on a man they think is selling heroin from a relative's home.

I did warn them.

Whenever they ask me to come along on these things the people they are looking for are invariably elsewhere.

So, the front door went through after a couple of mighty blows with the battering ram and officers piled in.

Andy the snapper, a lad from another paper and I waited patiently outside for the nod to come out of the shadows.

Then we heard the voice from inside: "He's not here duck."

I'd jinxed the police again.

For the record, the cutie sniffer dog picked up traces of class A - heroin and the like - throughout the place and the team behind this raid are still on the suspect's trail.

I'll stay at home the next time they go for him.

They were doing what? Firing a paintball gun at prostitutes?

2009-10-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Picked up an odd story the other day. It was in the Mercury midweek.

It's one I'll never have to write again if I stay at this desk until I'm carted off to a home for retired hacks.

I heard that a group of young men was cruising the city in a posh car firing paintball gun pellets at working girls in the city's vice areas.

I can't tune into the way those men must look at the world or what motivated this spiteful stunt.

I have a feeling their thought process ran something like this: "Let's humiliate those women. We'll give them a paint stain and a nice little bruise to remember us by."

It was a twist on a story I've looked at many times down the years - violence against the women who we all see when we nip up London Road for a curry or drive along Humberstone Road.

So, attacks on the women is not a new story.

Their 'boyfriends' (pimps actually, but I always feel too self-conscious to use that word - this is Leicester, not New York) are more often than not a vicious, money-grabbing bunch.

Then there are apparently quite a few punters who pay up, do the deed and then mug the girl to get their money back.

The paintball gun story came to me late in the day, so the people who would normally put me in touch with the women had gone home for the day.

A word here about those people. It's a welfare group called New Futures and they are top.

So, I headed out alone to the two areas where I expected to run into the women.

I was nervous. I've heard all kinds of stories about the 'boyfriends' and assorted oddballs who hang around the backstreets.

In the event, I spoke to six busy women and managed to avoid the erm, pimps.

Some had heard about the paintball gang, some wondered what I was on about and asked me if I'd be hanging around long because I was "putting the punters off".

But they all had plenty to say when I asked them to speak more generally about the grief they almost expect every time they come out.

All had been assaulted in some way in the past couple of weeks.

One girl I didn't meet that night is as far as I know still waiting for news on whether she's lost her hearing in one ear permanently.

A man came up from behind her and hit across the side of her head with a brick.

One of the women said someone had pinged a small metal projectile at her with a catapult.

And so it goes on.

Happily - and I know that sounds odd - there is something positive to conclude with here.

Now I'm guessing New Futures and sound and sympathetic policing has had an influence here, but the women speak to the police and when they are victims of crime they have come to expect justice.

That wasn't always the case and it certainly isn't universal even now.

But instead of soaking up the punishment they are beginning to feel that they can expect to be listened to and, if they are willing to stay with it and make a statement, action can be taken against abusive, dangerous men.

One punter was jailed for raping several women earlier this year really only because the women stayed with it, made their statements, put up with the vagaries of the criminal justice system and had their day in court.

That man won't be around to harm women for years.

I think the conclusion is that a largely ignored, hidden, even sometimes reviled group of women, is slowly claiming one of the most basic rights.

Incidentally, a day or two later I heard one of the women had passed on the registration number of the posh car the paintball boys were travelling in.

The driver was a well-paid young professional. He's been visited at home and, although he won't be seeing the inside of a courtroom, he's had the fright of his life by all accounts.

Incidentally, I must admit to a little hesitation when I realised I'd inadvertently indulged in a spot of cliched alliteration when I filed the story.

I put the words 'prostitutes', 'pot-shots' and 'paintball gun' - in the first paragraph.

I left it the way it was because I couldn't think of any other way of putting it.

In an earlier post I said something dismissive about cliches in news copy and probably implied that I could never do such a thing.

Clearly I can.

The most demoralising story of the year?

2009-10-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

Until yesterday, I hadn't had been involved in our coverage of the most demoralising and difficult story of the year - the Fiona Pilkington case.

Fiona killed herself and her daughter, Francecca, two years ago. She was driven to despair because her family had been singled out for vile abuse by a group of kids who lived on her street.

Some of the abuse must have sounded pretty trivial to police call handlers - otherwise known as the people who pick up the phone when you call.

Fiona complained about kids throwing snowballs, kicking footballs around the place and generally being nuisances.

Ah, but then there were far more sinister things happening too.

Fiona's children, Francecca and Anthony both had learning disabilities. So they were obviously fair game to a gang of vicious young bigots.

Both were at times pushed around, pelted with stones and subjected to taunts and name calling.

Fiona had been complaining about it for years, but it seems the police and assorted council sorts - weren't really listening to her.

If they were, they certainly didn't put the pieces together and work out that there was a pattern, a very nasty pattern, in Bardon Road, Barwell.

And we all know what she did to find peace.

I'd read our coverage of the inquest, which took place over several days last month, and wondered how things could go so wrong.

After all, this is Leicestershire - the home of common sense and, dare I say it, old fashioned neighbourhood policing.

It all seemed so at odds with what I see and hear day to day.

Over the past few weeks I've racked up more than 20 hours out and about with beat officers in Braunstone, Eyres Monsell, Saffron Lane and Mowmacre, Stocking Farm and Abbey Rise.

I was spending time with them for a series of features which is slowly taking shape.

I'm worrying now that it is going to end up looking like us doing a 'bobbies on the beat' PR favour for the police in the aftermath of the Barwell stories.

It was our idea and it's been planned for ages. It has nothing to do with what happened to Fiona and her family.

It struck me that those officers are involved in every area of life in these places, whether it's putting a door through on a drugs house, visiting the vulnerable at home, calling in on shopkeepers or pushing the authorities to clean up a play area.

Yesterday, the great and the good came together at police HQ in Enderby to plot their way through the mess.

Senior officers reassured the members of the police authority that things had and were changing.

Chief constable Chris Eyre's repeated apology to Fiona's family was genuine and heartfelt.

I kind of know Mr Eyre. I don't get too many opportunities to speak to the men and women who work at that level, but whenever I've spoken to him - about everything from people trafficking and enforced prostitution to stripping proper, top-level criminals of their beloved 'bling' - he's struck me as a good sort. Officers at all levels seem to like him too.

Was Barwell a one-off? We'll have to wait and see.

******************************************

Home Secretary Alan Johnson did something I'm happy to call stupid this week - he read a quote in a couple of national newspapers and took it as an absolute truth.

They weren't the kind of publications I'd expect a good progressive lad like him to be reading.

He picked up on a comment made during the inquest into Fiona and Francecca's deaths.

It was made by a senior Leicestershire officer and went something like "Dealing with anti-social behaviour isn't a job for the police alone."

This was reported as "Police abandon the streets to feral youths."

Can you spot the difference?

Chief constable Chris Eyre said the two nationals had "dramatically misreported" his colleague's comments.

Oh well, what do those journalists care? They won't be back in Leicestershire any time soon.

It's a funny thing how some of our nationals, especially the ones I'd call pro-establishment, seem to enjoy taking a pop at the police.

Whenever the police are in the firing line, one old hand who works at a city station always points out the cliches which come thick and fast in the reporting.

If the papers don't agree with an arrest - say, it's one of the paper's political or commercial chums - the following tend to appear:

They are inevitably "bundled into the back of a police van" before being held in a "cold and damp police cell".

If they see the inside of a prison (and we know how rare that is for the friends of these national newspapers) they are invariably thrown in among "murderers and rapists".

Funny that.

Say what you like about the way I write my stories - and people do, just look at our website - but I've never stooped that low. Cliches? Eugh.

Welcome to the Leicester Mercury police blog.

2009-10-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

So, even I'm doing it now - blogging.

Writing for newspapers comes naturally, but doing so in the first person for a blog is hard and against my grain.

After all, there's no 'I' in journalism.

Oh, there is. Sorry.

I'm just short of a decade into my time at the Leicester Mercury and I've been covering the police beat for the past eight years or so.

I have a rather pompous job title - social affairs correspondent. Put simply, I talk to the police a lot.

For the record, I love what I do. Most days.

It hasn't been a particularly busy week for me. Great time to start a blog.

I am still sore that my favourite haunt - Cafe Roma in Halford Street - was burgled four times in the space of a week.

It was a strange experience writing a crime story about a place I know so well.

If anyone is reading this and fancies a good Italian meal, can I suggest they call in and help them replace the money that was stolen.

Fortunately my colleagues have been hard at work.

The imminent demolition of the Bowstring Bridge - and the uncertain future of the Pump and Tap pub - continues to divide readers.

I have to say I'm a Pump and Tap boy so I'm feeling sore about this too.

The protesters have been there every day this week. Doing what?
Well, it seems they're there to share their resentment at the loss of a rather beautiful old thing.

They've had a lot of coverage in the Mercury, so I was feeling sore - I know, it's been that kind of week - when one of them was verbally abusive to one of our reporters who'd gone down to chat to them.

On the way to the Pump that night I made my feelings known to them - forcefully, I hope.