localnews

Local and Neighbourhood News Stories

I do suppose that some of what I do online is not entirely unappreciated as many do not have the time to ponder at all on the news and the way it is presented: when in 2010 I first thought of changing the manner in which I had originally presented the question of current events in relation to the legal suits I seek to present I had off the cuff thought to divide stories of relevant interest into international, national and local sections. Various considerable technical issues being consistently ongoing, that proved to be a fairly big idea in terms of the fact of money and time being continually devoured by the workstation so in 2010 I started writing major stories into the narrative and set out to compose a couple of password protected local sections, it being the case eg among other things that there is to some extent a local neighbourhood watch scheme. Here and now at the commencement of 2025 I have still not quite got the kind of domestic facilities or wherewithal of one sort or another to allow for the complete going over of all the material that has been lost or destroyed by hacking or accident since the late nineties, which is probably at least as much again as that which is currently displayed on the site. I do want to get around to that and will probably revert to three sections at some point but in the meantime I have thought to put up a few stories from the locality that are of general interest.

07 01 25 Magistrates galore
10 01 25 Murder of Raymond James Quigley

This story about a 24 year old stepfather and this two year old child's mother having beaten her to death has raised quite a few eyebrows in the sort of community households that take much of an interest in the social and political functioning of the borough. It happened about a week after midsummer's day and only ten minutes walk from here which is pretty much slap dab in the middle of the better side of town and the sad tale seems very much unfortunately symbolic of a widespread negative perception about social care insofar as the deceased toddler was found abandoned in temporary housing. There have been many articles in the East Anglian about the matter and I have not quite grasped what the causative familial dynamics were from what I have managed to read. It is as horrible as anything I have read of late in that for instance she had not died as the result of a single sudden loss of temper but from what I can make out, was beaten into a lifeless condition over a period of some weeks or months so obvious questions ought to be asked of family and social services in respect of the fact someone must have had some idea what was happening to this innocent and hapless little girl: her father makes a great deal of how much he misses her but the obvious question that will arise in the mind of many is to the effect that where was he?

This ghastly story is generally salutary for a new government seeking to get to grips with huge costly ambitions and expectations in respect of health and social care. It has engendered quite a lot of coverage in the local papers with the picture of young Isabella having been published in the EADT on perhaps a dozen occasions since July of 23. It beggars belief anyone could do such a thing under any sort of circumstance and I daresay that many are entirely shocked and stupefied at such a fundamentally evil piece of behaviour.

One shadow minister criticises the sentences handed out despite that a twenty six year minimum for Mr Jeff is generally serious as far as cot deaths are concerned: insofar as crime and justice issues are clearly of relevance, it might help if the last tory government had spent more on prison facilities though one can never quite tell what to make of stories of inadequate resources for such services as are considered essential nowadays. A sense of disbelief pervading those who have had anything to do with the case might explain why so much of the detail of what happened is not clear. Of course I have never myself had to face up to parental responsibilities in that as I have been at some pains to elaborate over many years now, I have had to put aside any genuinely serious thoughts about a career or family in order to make protest at legal representation I have been gifted; the closest I have come to any consideration of parental responsibilities in any literal manner or sense was in once having changed a friend's daughter's nappy whilst babysitting on an odd occasion back in the mid-nineties. I daresay many cannot help but wonder what the whole story was in that for example I have only noted one article that specifically stated Isabella had tested positive for cocaine and cannabis: most will surely find it disappointing that some intervention did not occur though I believe the mother had been warned against him by her family.

It is all too inescapably evident that this murder besides being preventable and perversely motiveless, points to a sort of apocalyptic unwholesomeness in contemporary society and I believe we are often absurdly overoptimistic in our assessment of the ability of even correctly and effectively functioning public services to deal with it. In such a straightforward question as to how a toddler of thirty months has been beaten to death it all too arguably ought not to firstly cost a Crown Court weeks of work to obtain a guilty verdict without a genuinely serious question mark about the identity of the perpetrator(s). Now that the Lawyers, Court Officials and others have discharged their services and been paid there is the bill for thirty six years of prison time to be considered. It is an interesting question as to whether or not such proceedings can be reasonably streamlined; I tend to think that we need to firstly properly understand how lawyers run peoples' lives. Prevention is always better than detection of course and one cannot help but wonder if any lessons may have been learned in respect of state provision for the assistance of the most vulnerable. I cannot help but ruefully recollect that it all too arguably seems I had been lucky enough to have grandparents who took me in when I was about her age and surely no-one would have begrudged her some worthwhile effective assistance in this most serious of matters: it also seems apt to reiterate that parental responsibilities are a serious matter not a kind of lifestyle trend that can be picked up and discarded at will.

07 01 25

This one is I suppose quite arguably an example of how news reporting and information is changing in that I do not know anything much about social media at all but it all too arguably to some extent demonstrates a certain sort of anomie in the conventional media. Judge Martyn Levett clearly has a little bit to say about the role of magistrates which reads a bit like an A level history lecture. When I first read it I thought it arguably too much like a bit of smug social propaganda and I mean to say, alleging Magna Carta ensured "justice to all" is quite a sweeping statement. This very document was somewhat more recently in 1679 described as "Magna Farta" by one Chief Justice Lord Keylring and suffice it say that many would surely seek to express some indignation at the assertion that justice was ensured in this country or anywhere else for that matter: given especially of course the existence of widespread evidence to the effect that injustice remains endemic in contemporary society and across the globe.

It is a legitimate sort observation that magistrates do continue to play a 'crucial role' in the ministration of justice and that Edward 3rd supervised their formal introduction as a response to the disorder and destruction inflicted by the Black Death in 1348. Whilst I do agree that the JP system of managing local justice is an interesting and fairly singular example of institutional continuity, I do not quite understand how the practice of branding should be viewed as somehow separate from this continuity; Charles the first was for example still getting into an image problem with things like the ear cropping of William Prynne a couple of centuries later. That the role is prestigious and rewarding is generally open to little question though I seem to recall besides the fact I did know they were formally introduced in 1361 and perhaps in view of contemporary views of a crime problem, that strictly speaking they were also unpaid amateurs which might surprise many. The remark is worthy of some further qualification in that it is interestingly and perhaps relevantly the case as far as various sorts of public servants are concerned, that they are only required to be available for thirteen full days annually and can claim expenses like lost income: it seems thence an obvious question as to whether or not the public interest could be better served by a more businesslike, meaningful and perhaps professional approach.

This is to say among other things perhaps that the remark the role requires a "unique combination of skills, experience, and qualifications" is really just a clever sounding piece of wordplay since it is eg most unlikely indeed that various widely assorted individuals would all have the same unique combination of attributes and characteristics under any reasonably envisioned sort of circumstance. Comments about human nature and legal principles might also sound a bit vague and complacent within the context of a broader perception of public service crisis, there being some eight million crimes or more successfully reported annually. What is without question in view of for instance the highly questionable and misunderstood evidence in the Letby trial, of the remark that a medievally based legal system is significantly failing to adapt to technology and science in the 21st century. These developing areas increasingly demand more specialised and more detailed knowledge of research in order to comprehend for instance the dialogue between those who worked around Letby and the preconceptions of hospital management about the nature and quality of their specialised services. The aftermath of the Letby trial in particular was that matters had not been managed well by a legal system obsessed with testimony and the elicitation of remarks about early childcare in the NHS that were swiftly called into very serious question by various of the most well informed authorities: this of course does refer to the work of prosecutors rather than magistrates or judges but it tends to add up to an unnerving picture of another dysfunctional looking public service.

10 01 25

The items reproduced from the EADT and the BBC refer to a rather cruel and utterly pointless murder which has been broadly blamed on gang culture as the killing of Raymond James Quigley seems to have been prompted by the murder of a friend/associate of the two convicts in Norwich the previous year. What really captured the horror and shock of local people besides the fact those involved are of little more than school age, was that this outrageous attack happened in broad daylight office hours right in the middle of Ipswich in front of hundreds of shoppers.

The comments aired by Councillor Muhith and Commissioner Passmore are quite predictable and if they come across as quite soberly down to earth and learned, it is no doubt because of the stark nature of the murder, and the fact it tends to show local authorities and the Suffolk police in a bad light. What is unfortunately of the fact I am going to have to distastefully reiterate that the Suffolk police have continued to treat attempts to report my father's death at the end of 2008 as a murder despite eg the fact it was the ER staff who called them owing to the homicidal behaviour of a younger half brother with an impressive record of violence and delinquency: this was swiftly followed by the murders of Rosie Hunt and Desmond Thorpe in which I understand the local force were to some extent found negligent. It was my father's sister who had called him to the ER and what is of presently surmising that there must be something questionable about her having inherited a detached desres from my grandmother at the age of 33 which most would consider pretty good going. What is very much of the remark that this is the only really genuinely plausible motive for her behaviour in that eg my younger half brother cannot incriminate her in any respect relating the events of the 1970s. It is absurdly difficult to explain such actions on her part as motivated by some fifty year old sex and/or drug scandal, since in the fallout from these events it seemed apparent that she had spent a lot of time assiduously bum steering accurate approbation of relevant matters by social services and education officials over quite some time: one of her cousins a Joe French had strongly hinted that there was something sinister about her personality that she did in fact take great pains to disguise, her management of the property seemed very much culpably incompetent and it is not too difficult to imagine that my father could not dispute any different Will or anything such without being carted off back to prison.

The murder of RJQ reflects some simply cowardly behaviour in that two teenagers Alfie Hammet and Joshua Howell used machetes to attack another apparently unarmed teenager, one of them using such a weapon to deter passers by from assisting. As far as the remarks passed by the Commissioner and Councillor are concerned, what is firstly of the remark that Mr Passmore happens to be a card carrying tory party member though he lost his district council seat to the greens recently, and that despite his personal professions about "a host of projects to encourage young people to find more positive ways to spend their time" his government had done a very great deal to cut back on the kind of support services for urban youths that might have forestalled or mitigated such behaviour. I do not quite see how negative connotations about a musical style could have a negative impact on youth behaviour and that is significantly because I do not think any sort of rap qualifies as music. It is an insult to music if you really want my opinion and I think its evolution rather more to do with urban politics and sociology than music. Neither do I quite see that dark subject matter and sinister headgear might be a dangerous influence in that eg even the best adjusted of individuals arguably views several hundred simulated murders and killings each week on TV: the comment that many young people make bad choices through no fault of their own is quite progressive sounding for a rural county's police commissioner. The issues they discuss are for me about freedom of speech in that whilst as Councillor Muhith says, correlation does not imply causation I feel he should have said it does not necessarily imply causation but it is hair splitting in either case if you ask me.

What is after all from a policepersons point of view that glorifying violence as some of this drill rap unquestionably does, has to be viewed as a form of criminal incitement which is approximately where we have to draw the line when it comes to freedom of speech. I think it more correct in terms of legitimate legal issues when to call into question the lyrics rather than the so called 'musical' style. I tend to prefer an apocalyptic contextual interpretation of such events involving overpopulation and environmental degradation as leading to more and more violent crime. You can only fit so many healthy young people into so few square miles of concrete without them turning on each other thus, even if by some unlikely twist of legislative fate the huge revenue streams caused by drug prohibition and being collected by organised crime were to be cut off: Someone, somewhere, is making a huge amount of cash out of the fortunes being spent in the black market on (not so well) controlled substances and I do not think it is any of these erring teenagers.

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