There’s a criminal trial going on at the moment that’s interesting on three levels:
1) ‘pensioner dies in attack on home’ – the usual tabloid-friendly, ‘you’re not safe from hoodlums even in your own house’ story of an old man who was tracked down and harrassed after a road rage incident by the other party’s husband and his brother, to the point where the old man’s dicky heart gave out. This is pretty much the angle the press has taken.
2) ‘your data is not safe’ – the thugs tracked the old man down by getting a bent copper to procure his details from the Police National Computer, and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that the policeman in question is being prosecuted or has been sacked. Hopefully once the trial is over, we’ll find out the score (note to self: check this one later). This is the angle bloggertarians tend to have taken.
3) ‘boorish thuggery isn’t just for feral yoof’: the 79-year-old old man started the whole affair off by unleashing a torrent of rage on a young woman in a car-park over nothing, leaving her almost in tears (and onlookers worried that he was going to die of sheer anger on the spot, which might have been better for all concerned). The husband was 40 and the brother in his early 20s – truly, we’re living in an equal-opportunities, age-indifferent society when it comes to childish bullying and lack of self-control. This is an angle that nobody else appears to have taken, so I’ll claim it as mine…
Interesting "young wife = obviously chav scum" stuff from the principled libertarians over at DK. Nice.