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

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.

Apologies, this is an elongated harumph.

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.

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.

The most demoralising story of the year?

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.

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.