by holdthefrontpage staff
A man walked into a London police station to admit he was responsible for a hit-and-run which left a woman in a coma – after seeing a series of reports on the accident in the East London Advertiser.
The Advertiser splashed on the story for two weeks after the father of 21-year-old victim Amy Verlander approached the newspaper for help instead of the police.
Editor Malcolm Starbrook said: "He was very upset with what he saw as the slowness of the police in trying to find the driver.
"At that time he did not know if she was going to pull through. He came to us to see if we could help.
"The relationship between police in Tower Hamlets and the media is by far the worst in the area.
"We had not heard a lot of details about this accident, and four or five days after she was injured he phoned us."
Left to die The victim's father was also hoping for help to find a Samaritan who found Amy in the road and prevented any further injury.
The paper carried a front page picture of her lying in hospital in a coma taken by her father and organised by reporter Jess Smith – and once the Samaritan had come forward, more emotional photos were run by the Advertiser, as Amy had come out of the coma by then.
The suspect handed himself in after seeing the photo of Amy unconscious, and the story of the man's admission to police made page 3 of the latest edition. He was bailed to return to an east London police station in December.
Malcolm said: "We were told by police that a man went to talk to them because of the publicity in the Advertiser.
"It's nice when you can do something special as a newspaper – it's the opposite of the usual brickbats you can get about intruding on people's grief."
Parents meet good Samartian
Amy is still in hospital, in a stable condition after suffering a broken neck, punctured lung, fractured pelvis, damaged diaphragm, crushed ribs and a broken arm.
Malcolm added that there were still no "scene of accident" signs up appealing for witnesses to the incident.
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