UPDATE
Thankfully I was wrong about this case, and I might add I’m very pleased to be wrong. The names were not being held back for politically correct reasons. It appears that this time Islamic Bearded Savages are not those who are suspected of this killing. The names of those who have been charged look Anglo-Saxon.
However, that doesn’t mean that South Yorkshire Police do not have questions to answer about how they handle other types of cases, especially Islamic child abuse, nor their obsession with political correctness. This is one occasion where I’m happy to be proved wrong, the implications of being proved right would be horrifying, it would mean we could no longer trust the police to treat every suspect equally.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/10/two-charged-murder-church-organist
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I thought long and hard before writing this piece, as commenting on this particular sub judice case raises both legal and ethical implications regarding discussing it.
We recently saw arrests of men in their 20’s and their 40’s for the tragic and brutal murder of Alan Greaves aged 68, a church organist in Sheffield, who was killed on his way to Church on Christmas Eve for Midnight Mass. I can’t help thinking that there is something fishy in the way the police are handling this case and more importantly in how they are dealing with the media.
South Yorkshire police have released some very poor quality CCTV, of people they wish to speak to – but who, according to the BBC’s Look North programme, are NOT those who have been arrested – and also the police have released the ages of those arrested and questioned. However, they have not yet released names of those arrested. Now this may be purely because they have not yet been charged and enquiries are still ongoing, or it may be because of other more nefarious, possibly ‘community cohesion’ reasons.
As I say, this may be nothing, this may be just the police being extra-cautious with this high-profile case, and the police have been legally burned in the past with regards to releasing the names of suspects prior to charge, for example in the infamous Chris Jefferies case. The Jefferies case was the one where the police picked up an innocent local oddball, Mr Jefferies, for the murder of Joanna Yates in Bristol in 2010. The Police released his details to the press, who then engaged in a vicious character assassination of Mr Jefferies, who later won damages for libel against the Press. Several newspapers were also fined for impeding justice and/or contempt of court over this case. It was established quite early on in the Joanna Yates case that Mr Jefferies was wholly innocent of any involvement in Ms Yates’s murder.
The after-effects of this case on both the police and the press may be why the police are being cagey with identification of those arrested, or it may be something more sinister. The question needs to be asked: ‘Are those arrested not being named because they are Muslim or a member of some other legally over protected minority?’
One important factor to think about is that Shaun Wright, formerly of Rotherham Council, is now the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire Police which covers Sheffield. Shaun Wright was a senior councillor in Rotherham, during the period where Islamic Child Sex Grooming Gangs operated, seemingly without hindrance, in Rotherham for years. Tellingly, Shaun Wright was the Councillor in charge of Rotherham Children’s Services while Islamic Grooming Gangs were preying on vulnerable young girls in Rotherham.
It may well be that details of the accused are being withheld, not for legitimate reasons of protecting justice, or to ensure that the accused, if charged, have a fair trial, but for base political or worse, politically correct reasons.
The fact that no names have been given, even for the men accused of murder but released on police bail, and the presence of Shaun Wright as South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner does cause me to suspect that all is not OK with this investigation, or with South Yorkshire Police. To make an analogy, if you saw a turd floating on top of a swimming pool, you would rightly assume that the water that the turd was floating in was also dirty. Shaun Wright is that turd floating in the pool of South Yorkshire Police, therefore I cannot help but suspect that all is not right or transparent with this investigation.
According to Det. Supt. Matt Fenwick of South Yorkshire Police this appalling murder appears to be ‘motiveless’ but what if the motive was hatred based on Mr Greave’s religion from members of those communities who have a proven record of intolerance for members of faiths other than their own?
What are we NOT being told about this investigation is the question that keeps popping up in my head.
This is one speculative piece where I truly hope that I am wrong, because if I’m right and the police are hiding details of the accused to protect the Sheffield Islamic community, then it is yet another example of why the British Police can no longer be trusted to treat everybody, no matter who they are, equally.
If I am wrong about my concerns about the handling of this case, then I invite a representative of South Yorkshire Police to contact me on either editor@fahrenheit211.net or farenheit211@mail.com to tell me I’m wrong. If I am wrong, and there is not any suspect ‘community cohesion concerns’ then I shall gladly and willingly a) issue a correction to this piece and b) remove this piece if necessary.
Links
UK Wired News
http://www.ukwirednews.com/news.php/1473691-Organist-Alan-Greaves-murder-Police-in-CCTV-appeal
Shaun Wright biography
http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/councillors/72/shaun_wright
The infamous Chris Jefferies case
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/aug/04/contempt-court-christopher-jefferies-tabloids
More on this case from the Daily Mail
Well, I hope you are wrong but I very much fear that you are right; if it had been a couple of white chavs we’d have names, addresses and pictures on the front page.
Robert, it was the ‘hyper-cageyness’ about the identifications that alerted me to the fact that there may be an issue here. Also South Yorkshire police has ‘form’ re fellating Islam, a few years back they dressed up some policewomen in Burkhas for some ‘in your shoes’ type diversity event. No woman at all should be put in a burkha, it is a symbol of female slavery and to my mind, to put a western woman in a burka is as offensive as asking a black policeman to wear manacles and a slave collar for a similar reason.
Thankfully I was wrong.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/10/two-charged-murder-church-organist