Torrey Pines State Beach Murders

More than thirty five years after, a notorious murder remains unsolved.  What is more disconcerting, is that another murder took place on the same beach six years later, and everything about both murders was the same.  Yet, it took Police many years to link the murders, then declared that they believed they knew who the killer was, but both crimes were committed by different assailants.  A fact that is not shared by many.  The first crime concerned 15 year old Cheerleader Barbara Nantais and her 17 year old boyfriend Jim Alt.  It was in 1978 that they and two other friends went to the beach, and stayed there overnight.  The other couple stayed in the car at a carpark around two hundred and fifty yards away from their campsite.  Jim and Barbara stayed on the beach.  Whilst they slept, a predator pounced.  He used a heavy piece of wood to smash Jim`s skull in.  Then he attacked Barbara in the most appalling manner.  What was strange was that she was not sexually assaulted.  But what else hi did was truly sick.  She was stabbed and strangled, had sand forced down her throat, had knife wounds around her genitalia and had one of her breasts mutilated.  

    It was the following morning when incredibly, Jim stirred.  He was not dead.  He could not see because his eyes were swollen shut, he groped around but kept grabbing sand.  He could not feel Barbara.   Survival instinct kicked in and somehow he managed to stagger and crawl in the direction of the car to alert the other couple.  The young man at first, could not recognise the blood spattered man calling for help, then saw it was Jim, due to his long blonde hair.  Police were summoned to find Barbara grotesquely murdered.  Jim was taken to hospital and lapsed into a coma for a couple of weeks.  The cops at first thought Jim was responsible and his injuries were self inflicted!  Duuuuhhhh!!!!!!!!  Jim had to have a metal plate inserted into his skull and have much of one side of his face reconstructed.  Police were never able to find any suspects.  Jim Alt cannot move on until the killer is apprehended.

    Fast forward six years to 1984 and to 14 year old Claire Hough, who was staying with her grandparents.  She quietly left the house, late one night, taking a boombox with her.  She stopped to buy cigarettes at a late night store, and that was the last she was seen of, until her body was found on Torrey Pines Beach.  She had not been raped but strangled, throat slashed, stab wounds around the genitalia and one of her breasts had been severed.  This case ran cold until DNA tests on cigarette butts found near the body.  The tests revealed the DNA of three women and two men.  Police revealed that they were ready to arrest a man late this year for the crime.  He was a forensic scientist with the Police, but this man had not been involved in the investigation of Claire`s murder.  They also declared that a convicted sex offender who had died in a boating accident in 2011 was also involved, but there was no link between the murders of Barbara and Claire.  There were newspaper claims that Police were linking them but now they were not.  There has not been any explanation of why these men were named.  It was wondered why Claire went out late at night, but taking a music player and buying cigarettes tells you plenty.  She was off for a rendezvous on the beach with friends.  Who did the DNA belong to?  Three women and two men.  What is incredible is that these individuals have never come forward.  Why not?  What do they have to fear?  It would certainly answer some forensic questions, but after thirty years of silence, I call that complete and utter cowardice.  They have really shown how much their friend really meant to them.  Nothing.

    The cigarettes can put somebody at the murder scene, but a suspect will have a good answer.  He walked past that spot, and discarded the cigarette he was smoking, earlier in the day or night.  He is being accused simply because he walked past a spot where a body was dumped later.  Look at the facts; the girls were 14 & 15, both had stab wounds around the genitalia, both had sand forced down their throats, both were not sexually assaulted, and both had mutilations of the breast.  Is it conceivable that the exact area has two sets of killers doing exactly the same crime?  Profiler John Kelly believes it was a soldier who had probably seen combat in Vietnam and seen and committed atrocities, as he did not hesitate in what he had done.  Was it a man with a grudge to women?  A jilted soldier?  There is a very large military presence in the area with a number of military bases.  Plus, many men returning from Vietnam settled there.  My thoughts on this are that the conflict in Vietnam ended in 1973 and the murders were in 1978 and 1984.  What was he doing before the first, and before the second?  I do not believe in the "cooling off period" I think killers commit their crimes simply because they want to.  Much more has to come out into the public realm before I would reconsider my verdict that the same man committed both murders.  The Police should declare what they know before accusing deceased people of murder.  You can suspect them of it but to declare them killers before a court trial can decide, smacks of desire to get the cases closed.

Joseph Menconi - French Gangster

Joseph Menconi is a Corsican gangster currently serving a long prison sentence but his record and reputation puts firmly in the top echelons of French crime.  There is no "Two Way Stretch/Wrong Arm of The Law" Sellers/Cribbins/Jeffries comic Underworld that some people like to favour, with this man.  The ability to carry out armed hold-ups gains you a reputation quickly, in the Underworld, and Menconi arrived with a bang in 1991, with a bank robbery.  Unfortunately for him, he was apprehended but was blessed with a mere five years prison time.  As it is with criminals, did he go straight when released?  Did he hell?  it was straight back into heavy crime and an assault on an armoured car in 1997, in Nice.  But soon after, he committed murder, killing a soldier who was trying to get too friendly with his girlfriend.  Back to jail he went on remand but escaped soon after, joining forces with another Corsican villain.  They hit another armoured car on December 26th 2000, getting away with the equivalent of 6.3 million Euros.

    Never one to shy away from conflict, he was thought to have been involved in a number of bloody Underworld feuds.  He has a particular penchant for escaping from prisons.  In 2003, he actually managed to escape from solitary confinement, and then, to add insult to injury, he simply walked out of the prison gate whilst other inmates created a disturbance.  He was recaptured just over three weeks later.  Reminds you of that scene in "Midnight Express" when Billy Hayes is seen to walk out of the prison gate dressed as a guard, except it never actually happened like that.

Lewiston, Idaho, Unsolved Murders

Another case highlighted by M. William Phelps in his "Dark Minds" TV series, features a number of murders and disappearances in 1982 linked to a local theatre in the town of Lewiston in Idaho.  The first concern was when Jackie Miller,18, and her step-sister Kristina Nelson, 21, went to a late night store to purchase some items.  They never returned.  Their mother searched but after time, called in the Police, who conducted a wider search.  The journey to the store would have taken them past a place they were both very familiar with; the Lewiston Civic Theatre.  They were both avid amateur actresses, working on various local productions.  A man was spotted going into the theatre, but he too, mysteriously went missing.  This man was 35 year old Steven Pearsall, like they, an amateur actor and also a musician.  But Steven was known to all as a very gentle,unassuming man, who had no maliciousness in him whatsoever.  It was inconceivable to picture him as a man of violence, but the mystery was his disappearance.  It did not bode well for him.  But it turned out that another man was there.  A man liked by some but disliked by others.  He admitted being there that night, and that Steven had been there as well, but claimed he hurt himself and went for a lie down in an office, and fell asleep.  He then claimed to have awoken the following morning.

    The case ran cold but some events did come to light.  In 1981, Kristin David, 22, vanished on a bicycle ride from the town of Moscow to Lewiston, a ride she had made many times.  She too, was part of the theatre.  So there was a connection to four disappearances; the theatre.  It was March 1984, and a young lad was on a roadside collecting tin cans, when, after the wind had blown his hat off, and he chased after it, he came across a skull.  It was on a hillside thirty miles outside of Lewiston.  A search by Police discovered two sets of remains.  Police thought they were the remains of Jackie and Kristina.  They were right.  A length of rope was found with them.  It was thought to be the same kind of rope used in the theatre.  Another connection?

    Phelps dug into the "Person of Interest`s" background.  This man had been interviewed twice by Police but now refused to take a polygraph and sought protection of a lawyer, stating he was refusing to talk to cops anymore.  This man had seemingly left a very dirty trail.  In 1979, 12 year old Christina White had vanished.  She was suffering from some sunstroke during a particularly hot day, and called her mother.  She advised Christina to bathe herself with some water and come home.  She would be watching out for her.  But Christina never arrived home.  She had vanished.  The last person to see her was "The Person of Interest."  He even offered to help in the search for her and was even trying to advise Police on where to look.  Was he trying to divert them away from where her body lay?  Christina was never found.

    But in 1972, a 17 year old girl, Antoinette, had argued with her boyfriend and stormed off along a beach one night, in Santa Cruz.  The next day, her body washed up on the beach.  She was nude.  Death was by drowning and Asphyxiation, so cops surmised it was suicide, as she had made suicidal comments before.  Seems tunnel vision is not the sole prerogative of British cops!  Then why was she naked?  Did she think, "Right, I am going to top myself but I must get completely undressed first?"  Yeah right.  But it does not stop there.  Police in San Jose received a call at 5.am, two days after the body was found, saying that somebody was trying to break into the Willow Glen mortuary!  Who did the cops nab carrying a torch and knife?  The "Person of Interest."  He pleaded to a reduced charge.  The only body in the mortuary, was that of Antoinette.  Why do you  break into a mortuary, carrying a knife?  What was he planning to do?  Then, fast forward to 1987, and a woman named Claudette was discovered dead in her home.  Police deduced it was an overdose suicide.  Who found her?  Only the "Person of Interest."  Is this man so unlucky to have death stalking him?  Or is there much more to him?  With Steven Pearsall not being found, there is always the lingering doubt that he may be the guilty man.  But many, and the Police also, believe he was a victim too.  He was thin and not very strong looking, mild mannered and no troublemaker.  A perfect patsy for a killer. Providing his body never surfaces.  There has been no proper evidence linking the P.O.I. to the crime and so cannot be named.  To this day, Phelps said he has done nothing to help the investigation or prove his innocence.  A terrible tale that hopes one day will be resolved.

Source; Dark Minds.

Cocaine Smuggler Foiled By Fuel

It is not everyday that a drug smuggler hands himself into Police but Stephen Powell, from Guiseley, near Leeds, did so.  He told the desk cop that authorities had something of his - £63 million of drugs.  He was part of a plot to smuggle into the UK £160 million worth of Cocaine, but the plot fell apart in the Atlantic Ocean.  Police found a satellite phone, enabling Powell to keep in contact with his yacht, The Makayabella, as it crossed the Atlantic from the Carribean.  But the smugglers were not to know that a multi-agency task force was keeping track of the yacht.  Authorities from the UK, Ireland, France and Venezuela were involved.  But the yacht was stopped in the Atlantic and the occupants arrested.  Powell had a motorboat called Sea Breeze, which ran out of fuel on the way to meet the yacht and was rescued by the RNLI.  The boat was taken to Rosslare, then piloted  to Pwllheli in North Wales.  Powell left his boat there and went to a Police station in Leeds.

    Powell, who had a window cleaning service, was jailed for sixteen years, whilst the others arrested on the boat faced charges in Ireland, and three others from West Yorkshire are on bail as the investigation goes on.  Powell was a gambling man, who got involved after his business collapsed, the Judge declared before sending him down via a video link to the prison he was being held in.  Question; how does a window cleaner get the money for a yacht and a motorboat?  Will this be looked at by the Asset Recovery Agency?  Only time will tell.  Source; Bradford Telegraph & Argus.

Killer Trucker - John Robert Williams

It was a person watching a TV programme about an unsolved murder that resulted in the arrest of two killers and the start of a possible serial killer case.  This person found that details in the show matched details of a murder a cousin of theirs was bragging about.  It resulted in the arrest of John Robert Williams , a truck driver, and his girlfriend Rachel Cumberland.  It was the case of Nikki Hill, who was found shot in the head with a handgun, and in the back with a shotgun.  Miss Hill, 20, had disappeared from a casino in 2004.  Williams was charged with kidnapping and murder, and jailed for life plus twenty years.  Cumberland took a plea to manslaughter and received twenty years.

    Now investigators were delving into unsolved murders that involved interstate highways, truck stops and prostitutes.  Williams is incarcerated in a supermax unit at Parchman Prison in Mississippi.  Now both were being interviewed about other murders, with Williams claiming to have killed 37 women!  Was this just boasting or was he coming clean?  There had to be some detail that could positively link him to a particular crime.  And he did provide it.  He said he had murdered a prostitute from Toledo, Ohio, and had dumped her body in a parking lot, ten miles outside of Indianapolis.  There was such a murder.  That of Buffie Rae Brawley, 27, from Portland, Oregon.  He gave a description of a tattoo on her.  It contained the name "Ebony" the name of Buffie`s daughter.  She had duct tape tied around her head, had suffered blunt force trauma and had been strangled.   Asked why he decided to kill her, the response was "she knocked on his truck window!"

    An investigator from Texas, told of Williams confessing to him of killing a woman and throwing her off a bridge in Texas.  There was such a case.  The murder of Casey Jo Pipestem, a 19 year old Seminole Indian from Oklahoma City.  At present, it is unknown if Williams will be charged with the murders of Buffie and Casey Jo, but the murder of Casey Jo could result in a death sentence for Williams.  He is a suspect in two other unsolved murders.  That of Jennifer Hyman from Oklahoma City, whose nude body was discovered below a railroad bridge going over the Tallahatchie River, by an engineer.  The other is that of Samantha Patrick, found in Yukon, Oklahoma, twelve miles west of Oklahoma City.

    Sometimes I get messages from people claiming that my facts are wrong.  Everything I put is in the public domain.  The information here was gleamed from Murderpedia and from Discovery ID documentary "Killer Truckers."

The Murder of Claire Tiltman - Solved

It is very gratifying to read that a notorious unsolved murder has finally been closed and the perpetrator put behind bars.  The murder of Claire Tiltman in January 1993, was such a case.  Claire had just turned sixteen when she was brutally attacked in an alleyway, close to her home, in Greenhithe, Kent.  Her case ran cold for two decades, despite an extensive manhunt by Kent Police.  Many potential suspects were interviewed but there was nothing to tie any man into the case.  The investigation eventually ran cold, getting cold case reviews every couple of years, but all came to nothing.  Until a man convicted of two violent attacks on women, made a comment to a fellow inmate about attacking a girl who had just used a pedestrian crossing.  He had the information passed onto Police, who checked into the two attacks the convicted man had carried out, but there were no crossings where the attacks occurred.  But it did raise the question in the case of young Claire.

    This man was former milk man Colin Ash-Smith, sentenced to three life sentences for two horrific attacks on two women.  The first victim was abducted, raped and Ash-Smith tried to then murder the young mother in a quarry.  Then in 1995, two years after Claire`s murder, Ash-Smith stabbed 22 year old Charlotte Barnard fourteen times,but miraculously, she survived, like the first victim.  Police found journals in his home detailing what he would like to do to women.  Violently.  He also had an extensive collection of various types of knives.  He admitted to Police he liked to go out for late night walks armed with a knife, looking for victims.  He was questioned about the murder of Claire but his mother provided him with an alibi, which much later turned out to be false.  His father was jailed for perverting justice in 1997, after he admitted destroying a particular knife the Police wanted to examine.  The mother later said that neither she, her husband or son had anything to do with the murder of Claire.  

    Then the information from the inmate sparked fresh interest in the murder of Claire.  They already had Ash-Smith`s journals on how he planned his attacks, describing himself as "an animal" and how he hated women and "was not a doormat."  He was convicted just days ago for Claire`s murder and jailed for a minimum of twenty one years.  Considering his history, he should have received a whole life sentence, showing just how dangerous he is to women.  The sad part of this saga, is that both of Claire`s parents died before before justice was served.  Both the Tiltman and Ash-Smith families knew each other, which makes things worse.  But let us look at the facts.  He had a huge collection of knives.  Does that not ring alarm bells?  His mother lied for him about the night of the murder - Police are considering whether to prosecute her.  Then his father deliberately destroying a knife so Police could not examine it, resulting in jail for him.  That says much.

    The murder of Claire Tiltman was long considered to have been committed by serial killer Robert Napper, by amateur sleuths, due to the extensive number of wounds inflicted, but now the truth is out and a very dangerous man is back inside.  Astonishingly, he was being considered for parole, despite 3 life sentences!!!!  Napper has been put in the frame for at least 8 murders by one amateur sleuth, including Penny Bell and Jean Bradley, but this is on account of the ferocity of knife wounds. There are killers, known as "commuters" by profiler David Canter, killers who travel to locate victims.  Sounds unreal does n`t it.  But the greater the distance between the killer and victim, the more chances he has of getting away with it.  And it is very uncomfortable to acknowledge that there are freaks out there who just simply want to kill.

Mexico - Narco State

Have any of you watched the Sky News special about civil war erupting in Mexico?  Why is this happening?  The answer; drugs.  The Mexican drug cartels are running amok with assistance from corrupt cops and military personnel.  The very people who are supposed to be stopping these criminal organisations, are actively helping them in their crimes and are also killing anybody who stands up to them.  Now the people are fighting back and have formed vigilante armies and are setting up prisons where they incarcerate cartel members and other criminals.  The difference between the vigilantes and the cartels, is that the vigilantes are not carrying out mass Nazi-style exterminations.  Mass graves are being unearthed all over a mountain range.  The victims , men, women and children, were slaughtered for not kowtowing to them.  Daring to refuse to take orders from bandits.  In ten years, more than 120,000 people have been murdered.  More than 27,000 are still missing.  As the reporter put it, "These people are suffering for our wild parties!"  This is all because the movement of narcotics from South America has for some years now, been straight through Mexico, onto the USA and Europe.

    After watching this, would the pro-drugs wankers make their way to the areas of Mexico ran by the vigilante groups and explain to them that they have gotten it all wrong, and drugs are nowhere as bad as the nasty authorities would have us believe.  Would you expect to see the Marks` and Fieldings of this world venturing their way there to fight the corner of the pusher and the addict?  Not a chance!  Out there, Marks would not have the protection of the British Security Services.  That is the strangest thing about Marks.  He has, according to, admitted he was an informer for the Security Services, yet you never hear anybody slagging him off, that he was grassing people up to the very people the so called "Counter Culture" allegedly despised; the Governments` spooks.  Yet Marks, like many criminals who go into autobiography, suffers from enormous memory lapses.  These activities never made it into his book.  This would obviously mean that he was given licence to import drugs provided he kept providing information.  Marks let his "Mr Nice" mask slip twice.  One, he complained that a DEA agent had it in for him.  My god, could it have been for the reason that all he ever did was import drugs?  Did Marks think he was above the law?  Secondly, going into prison, the food was not the Cordon Bleu standard he was used to.  Ah diddums!  He had to eat slop with the rest of the peasantry.  You poor bastard!   An interesting comparison is Paul Grimes and John Haase.  They all slag Grimes for what he did.  That is, make a stand against drugs.  Yet, it emerged that Haase was an informer for quite some years, yet do we hear people screaming that Haase is "A fucking grassing bastard!"  It seems not.  Funny that.

The Unsolved Murder of Lisa Hession

Delving back into the unsolved files brings up the case of 14 year old Lisa Hession, attacked and strangled on Saturday December 8th 1984, as she walked home alone, from a party.  Her body was discovered just before midnight in Rugby Road, Leigh, just hundreds of yards from the family home.  Her mother, Christine, reported her missing when she failed to reach the family home, but within a very short space of time, she received a call from Police to make her way to Leigh Infirmary.  It was there that Mrs Hession had the awful responsibility of formally identifying her deceased daughter.  Police reported that some of her clothes were disturbed, suggesting a sexual motive.  She had a black mark around her neck, suggesting some kind of ligature, and that she had a black eye, meaning the assailant stuck her first before carrying out his murderous assault.  Police launched a huge manhunt but eventually it ran cold, being given sporadic reviews, but in 2011, Police believed they may be on the verge of a breakthrough.  Thanks to advances in DNA technology, they were now swabbing men throughout the Leigh area, so it was clear that they were able to get DNA traces from Lisa, and hopefully get a match.

    But it seems there has been no positive match.  This case and others like it would bolster the need for a compulsory national database, ensuring that the guilty never gets away with serious crime.  Of course the wankers from civil liberties and human rights would be crying into their cornflakes every morning, but that shows what they truly feel about victims.  If you have nothing to be afraid of, then there is no problem.  I have no objection.  Is it not about time the victims of murder came first, and if a national database catches the killer, then so be it.  Nobody is above the law.

Public Executioner - Is It An Exciting Job?

You do not hear much about the hangmen of Great Britain, although much always centres around Albert Pierrepoint.  But reading a recent article in a crime magazine written by a former prison officer who worked around jails in the condemned cell, it confirmed my long held belief that the executioner who took over the number one spot from Pierrepoint, Harry Allen, enjoyed what he did.  The recent film about Pierrepoint, starring Timothy Spall, tried to humanise the hangman.  But my opinion on Allen was first formed many years back when he told his story to a Sunday newspaper, after there were calls for the Conservative Government of the time, to reintroduce the rope.  The way he described it, it gave the impression that he enjoyed his job.  He passed judgement on two cases - Derek Bentley and James Hanratty - that he was involved in.  He was assistant to Pierrepoint on hanging Bentley and said he deserved to die.  I was never aware that hangmen were also judge and jury.  I wonder what Allen had to say when in 1993, a pardon or partial one was granted to Bentley, after suppressed evidence came to light.  Namely, the evidence of PC Claude Paine, who was never called to give evidence because he was not prepared to lie through his teeth like all the others.  I bet Allen kept his mouth firmly shut on that.

    In regards to Hanratty, people can scream "DNA" but I wonder how his semen found it`s way on to the panties of the victim.  Could it have had anything to do with Hanratty`s offer to supply blood, saliva and semen, in order to prove his innocence?  He gave a false alibi but his second alibi was proven to be true.  He had been in a bed and breakfast  in Rhyl, in North Wales, but his downfall was his alibi witnesses were honest, law abiding people.  Which was in total contrast to the prosecution witnesses, thieves, liars, police informers, all paragons of truth and honesty.  I could go on endlessly about this case but will leave it there.  My view is, and one I openly expressed on one of my Criminology courses, was that Hanratty was fitted up all the way to the gallows, and on to Allen in the Execution Chamber.

    The prison warder told of how Allen kept telling him and his colleagues "anecdotes" on the people he helped hang.  He loved it.  Legendary crime reporter "Black Prince" Nicholson said that Allen loved the publicity.  I was under the impression that it was a very grim job, but it is nice to know that executing people can be fun!!!!  Pierrepoint tried to keep it low key.  One old hangman, Robert Baxter, was censured by the Home Office, after it was discovered he was touting for business.  Baxter assisted John Ellis in the execution of Edith Thompson and hanged Guy Browne for the murder of PC George Gutteridge, another controversial case.

The Bowler Hat Murder

This sort of case that Sherlock would have sunk his teeth into; the only clue was a bowler hat.  Yet, it led to the arrest, conviction and execution of a killer.  It was Christmas Eve 1938, when Jeweller Ernest Key was discovered in the rear of his shop in Surbiton, Surrey.  He was blood spattered and unconscious, but died on the way to hospital.  The attack on him was extremely savage, with him receiving more than thirty stab wounds around the neck, head and face.  The motive to Police was obvious; robbery.  The only clue Police had was a Bowler hat found at the murder scene.  The hat was examined by leading Pathologist Eric Gardner, who gave opinions as to the owner, from the size of the hat and strands of hair inside.  Then Pathologist Bernard Spilsbury arrived to take over.

    Police soon discovered the owner of the hat.  It belonged to Bill Butler, aged 29, who lived in Teddington, Middlesex.  He was married with two children but was currently unemployed.  Butler had a criminal record for house breaking and on top, Police discovered that he had attended a hospital, after the murder, to receive treatment for cuts to his hands.  He gave hospital staff a false name, Charles Jackson, and a false address.  His explanation for the cuts was that he had been using a wood chopping machine.  Within weeks, Butler was arrested, but now claimed the injuries were caused by being knocked down by a motorcyclist.  His explanation for the false name and address was to avoid costs - this was pre-NHS.

    His trial at the Old Bailey began on February 15th 1939, where he ran a defense of self defense, and so said he should have been charged with Manslaughter.  The problem here is that Mr Key was stabbed thirty plus times.  How can you deflect that?  Did Mr Key repeatedly throw himself at the knife deliberately?  Believe that and you believe in Santa Claus.  The Jury certainly did not and convicted him of murder.  He was executed at Wandsworth Prison on March 29th 1939 by Tom Pierrepoint.  Reports say that the newspapers exaggerated the part in the case of Eric Gardner, in regards to the hat, but if it had been Spilsbury examining the hat, no doubt the reviewers of the case would have been shouting from the rooftops about how wonderful and truly brilliant Spilsbury was, and would have been nothing more than they expected.

Pair Jailed For Carrying Firearms

A recent case here in Bradford was that of two men sentenced to a total of thirteen years for possessing illegal firearms.  Everything started on June 10th, this year, when the two were chased through the Great Horton district by Police.  The duo, in a Mitsubishi Pajero 4x4, were pursued by Police, but stopped the vehicle outside Southmere Primary School in Great Horton, fleeing on foot but were detained by Police.  The Mitsubishi was searched, with a haul consisting of a sawn off shotgun, cartridges, balaclavas and gloves being discovered in a bag.  A further firearm was discovered hidden in a tree at the rear of Ali`s home.  The two men were arrested were Zulfiqar Ali, 33 of Listerhills, Bradford and Jordan Farooq, 24, of Great Horton, Bradford.  Ali received seven and a half years and Farooq, five and a half years.  Both had numerous previous convictions.  Ali had 11 convictions and Farooq, 12.

    The case was sparked by suspicious officers on a routine patrol resulting in firearms being recovered, and if you carry them, you go down.  But regular readers will know this is simply not true some times.  I have harped on about it a few times but when a grandmother goes down in Liverpool for allowing loan sharks to leave stuff in her attic - a gun and ammunition - but somebody else can stand up in court and admit two serious firearm offences for which he is NOT facing charges, you have to ask yourself, why?  Why is possession of an illegal firearm an automatic five years prison, yet does not apply to certain people?  Why are they so special?  No doubt your conclusions are the same as mine!

Back on Track Once Again.

Due to numerous problems with the PC that have now been sorted, I can get back to what I love doing.  Much has happened over the last week or more.  A man holds up his hands on a New York street and gets jumped from behind by a cop and ends up strangled - yes, I have seen the footage.  Then a man in Ferguson, Missouri, dies fleeing from a cop and is shot eight times!  It was some days before it was revealed (over here) that twelve shots were fired in total and the distance was over 140 feet!  What questions does that raise?  Plenty.  Was the cop in question, a marksman?  This is not the world of films and television where a cop hits a suspect over fifty yards away, running, with one shot.  Naturally, such a situation would bring out the white supremacists in support, but with all the protests going on throughout the US highlighting how black people feel about being arrested by the Police and ending up dead, one wonders how Law Enforcement can weather the storm.  True, there will always be those who will exploit a situation for no other reason than mayhem, but there were genuinely protesting.  According to reports , the National Guard were drafted in.  Ah yes, the National Guard!  You could join them in the 60`s and early 70`s and avoid the Vietnam draft.  (I had to get that in!)

    We did have one incident over here, just like the one with the young lad with a ball bearing gun.  We had some wanker pointing one at people in the street and thinking it was funny.  Police did not think so.  Nor did the people who found themselves staring down the barrel of a gun.  In the media uproar that followed, one apologist said that the Police and media over-reacted.  Really?  Has this fucker ever had a firearm pointed at himself for a laugh?  If an armed patrol had come across him and he raised it in their direction, then he would be asking to be shot.  We have constant armed patrols in this city, and many a time you can see them getting food from Morrisons and Asda.  Whilst on delivery, I came across armed officers who pulled a car over, but as the guy was not spreadeagled on the floor, I realised it was just a traffic stop. Would anybody in their right mind, cause bother when cops have a gun on their hip?  This may sound contradictory in regards to what I put earlier, but there is right and wrong.  My opinion is that the incidents in the US were wrong but in regards to the young lad who was shot waving a ball bearing gun - I believe he was just 12! - could it have been handled better?  My US readers might want to offer their opinions, so feel free to comment.