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The two-inch scar on the dead man's cheek grew to two-and-a-half inches in one story, but shrunk to one inch in another report.

Even the name of the dockland pub, the Anchor Inn in Dock Lane, caught out some candidates. In one story, it became the Anchor in Pub Lane and in another it was called the The Anchoring in Dock Lane.

Only a few candidates had to be penalised for not writing to length, which was encouraging, but many forgot that they were writing for the following day's paper and dated their stories incorrectly.

While some stories were fluently written, others suffered from awkward phrasing - e.g. "the fled passenger", "his dead associate", "raised the alarm via his radio", "a fractured broken leg", "comfortable position" (instead of condition), "deceased for the past five years" and "the force of the crash had rendered it (the door) shut".

Howlers include: