From Hell*

Strange times indeed. There is an alleged serial killer on the loose in the Ipswich area and we already have the media trailing all over the place, no doubt hampering the police investigation and when they have no actual news or helpful safety advice to offer to potential victims what do they do? Of course they bring out the experts who tell us what they would do if only they were in charge of the murder investigation and escalate public fears. I'm waiting until they blame it on the television, that and the hoax letters and confessions which will undoubtedly appear at some point.

At the same time the media have "responsibly" informed people of the location of a child sex offender in "the public interest" and effectively created a lynch mob of vigilantes to create public disorder until the offender moves somewhere else and the media can search for him all over again. All very laudable until they track down an innocent person who has the misfortune to share the same name as one of these paedophiles and the mob manage to lynch them, is this still "responsible" and "in the public interest"? Somehow I don't think so.

* Ripper Reference: On October 16th 1888 George Lusk, the president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received a three-inch-square cardboard box. Inside was half a human kidney preserved in wine, along with the following letter:

From Hell
Mr Lusk,
Sor
I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer

signed
Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk