July 12, 2009
Who killed Jade Goody?
She died as she lived — in the media spotlight. But did its glare obscure the fact that she could have survived?
On her own account, Jade Goody’s “la-la” was examined at the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow just before she went to India at the beginning of August last year. The hospital gave Goody the okay to travel to Mumbai, where she had been signed up to appear in the local version of the reality-television show Big Brother — known in India as Bigg Boss.
read online at The Times website
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June 14, 2009
Fear and hatred on the streets of Luton
When troops returning from Iraq marched through Luton, all hell broke loose. Muslims protested, white residents rioted and the Sikh mayor was viciously attacked. Can this multicultural community ever find peace — or is this eruption of long-simmering tensions a sign of even worse to come?
Later that day, after the soldiers’ parade had dispersed, Kier was walking across St George’s Square in his England shirt — “Eng-er-land! Eng-er-land! Eng-er-land!” the crowd had been chanting at the protesters. Kier was still feeling wound up by what he had just witnessed back by the Arndale. He had a cousin in the army, a family friend who had been killed in action. Bloody Muslim extremists, Kier was thinking to himself. How dare they!
read online at The Times website
May 24, 2009
Eve Stratford: the bunny girl who was murdered
This bunny girl’s brutal murder was one of the most sensational unsolved crimes of the 1970s. Now, three decades on, is the net finally closing in on her killer?
They are a close and protective community, the old bunny girls from the Playboy Club in Park Lane. They post images of themselves as they once were — wire ears, pompom tails and all — on Playboy-staff reunion websites, using their old bunny names, reminding themselves of their lost world of glamour.
read online at The Times website
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May 10, 2009
It’s official: there was no child abuse in Jersey
Jersey’s authorities say its child-abuse inquiry was a waste of time — that the police got it wrong. So was all the ‘evidence’ a red herring or a whitewashed inconvenient truth? David James Smith, Britain’s foremost crime writer, investigates
As one dissident Jersey politician who wished to remain nameless said to me when we huddled together one lunch time in a cramped St Helier cafe, you might have thought Jersey — its politicians and civil servants, its police force, its tourist industry — had something to celebrate when the police concluded that there had been no murders at Haut de la Garenne, the now-notorious children’s home.
read online at The Times website
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March 22, 2009
Skinheads revisited
It was the era of ska and skins, punk and race riots. Gavin Watson lived it and documented it. But what did the photographer find when he went in search of his old gang?
Even now, 26 years later, Kelley can still remember how she looked, the night she met Gavin. Her hair was orange — a bleach gone wrong, it had got her suspended from school; she would later try to repair the error and send it cabbage-green instead — a black leather miniskirt, a pink-and-black leopardskin top. Kelley — pronounced as Keely — was 14, and her parents, her mum and stepdad, had specifically asked her to tone down her dress for the family party. It would be a boring party full of very ordinary-looking people, she knew. Just the thought of it was hell on earth to her.
read online at The Times website
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