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Police withhold details of sex attack case for 11 days

Alex BlackwellA police force has come under fire after withholding details of four linked sex attacks for 11 days before issuing a public appeal via the media.

Leicestershire Police are investigating a series of indecent assaults believed to have been carried out by the same man during a 90-minute period on 22 November in Market Harborough.

But local weekly the Harborough Mail was not told about the attacks until 4 December with the story published on the paper’s website later that day.

The Mail’s deputy editor Alex Blackwell described it as “deeply disappointing” that no witness appeal was launched earlier by detectives investigating the assaults.

Alex, pictured, says had the information about the attacks been in the public domain before, women in the town would have taken extra precautions when going out alone in the following days.

Leicestershire Police has defended its decision not to release the details until a later date, claiming officers had “exhausted all other avenues” before issuing a public appeal.

Writing on the Mail’s website, Alex said: “With incidents of such a serious nature, the first 48 hours of any witness appeal are said to be the most crucial so it’s deeply disappointing to not hear about these worrying attacks until 11 days afterwards.

“Not to mention that this suspect has now been at-large for the past 11 days where further attacks could have been perpetrated.

“Taxpayers deserve to know what is going on in their community – and I’m sure if women knew this man was out there, they might have taken extra precautions when going out alone.”

Speaking on Thursday, when the appeal was issued, a spokeswoman for Leicestershire Police said: “The police press office only received information about the incident yesterday (Wednesday) and we put something out today (Thursday).

“The officers involved in the case were making ongoing enquiries into the incidents and looking at CCTV footage.

“They had exhausted all other avenues and then felt a public witness appeal was now necessary.”

16 comments

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  • December 9, 2014 at 9:22 am
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    While this is pretty poor by the police, why hadn’t the Harborough Mail’s reporters dug up this story themselves in the intervening 11 days?

    Surely they should have contacts in the police who may have leaked them, or at least in partner agencies, a local councillor on the ASB panel who’d have been in the know, or even just locals who had heard rumours about what had happened.

    Sadly I expect the answer is the few reporters are desk bound and don’t have time to properly maintain contacts as they’re too busy filling JP templates – and indeed the paper’s website shows an editorial staff of four (Ed, Dep. Ed, Reporter, Sports Ed).

    I still think they should have found this story though, even if just through Facebook.

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  • December 9, 2014 at 10:36 am
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    Welcome to the post Leveson era mates and expect a lot more of this. Police now are “ordered” not to speak to the press and routinely police can have their phone records checked and RIPA laws allow them to cross check with journalist telephone numbers. The CIoJ has raised this has an issue and spoke to the Justice Minister Simon Hughes at their AGM because the only losers are the general public in this stand off.

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  • December 9, 2014 at 11:29 am
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    Liz’s comments just support Mr Nice’s. Not hearing about this from an independent source just makes the paper look bad, I’m afraid. But presumably, despite the masthead, they’re actually operating out of a lock-up on an industrial estate 20 miles away from the scene of the crime, like most of us these days.

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  • December 9, 2014 at 12:20 pm
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    Mr Nice hits the spot. Papers are too used to be being spoon fed cop and council press relases. Time was reporters heard about crimes before press office. Need truly local reporters for that though, and enough of them!
    Local papers have got lazy.

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  • December 9, 2014 at 12:40 pm
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    The mind sadly boggles at the police response comments to this query about delayed warnings…..and of course news coverage of most areas of the UK has now been badly hit by staff cut-backs.

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  • December 9, 2014 at 1:46 pm
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    Instead of blaming each other lets just catch this person before its to late and something worse happens…

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  • December 9, 2014 at 3:41 pm
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    Just get off your backsides and find your own stories and then surprise the press office with them. much more professional and satisfying.

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  • December 9, 2014 at 7:34 pm
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    Don’t be harsh on newspapers which expect co-operation from the authorities.It was that way with police when I started in 1982, transparency with an Inspector to talk reporters through the last 24 hours’ incidents.
    It seems strange that journalists should expect the media to have ‘contacts’ to reveal details of stories which should be in the public domain for obvious reasons.
    The real reason forces balk at this is because of the “fear of crime” agenda which now frightens everyone in the public sector. Accept this as normal at your peril.

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  • December 9, 2014 at 7:40 pm
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    Seriously ladies and gents, what world do you inhabit where local journalists are ‘lazy’ and should ‘find stories’…? Clearly you don’t work in media anymore or you’d be only too acutely aware that there are NO resources left. It’s just a couple of souls putting most of these papers together while a bunch of whining suits moan about content…I feel sorry for the women who were attacked, as the journos are doing their level best to publicise appeals, but with too few resources. Forget about your long distant careers, and actually try a stint in local ‘stripped to the bone’ journalism before you start mocking the efforts of a very few…

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  • December 9, 2014 at 8:45 pm
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    Hi Mr Nice,
    I’m Alex Dawson (real name), a reporter on the Harborough Mail. It’s true we don’t have dozens of reporters. Sorry. But we do, frequently, get our own crime stories. There are at least three crime stories in this week’s paper alone that the police didn’t tell us about; a carjacking, an arson and a raid on a newsagents linked to illegal cigarettes. Just so you know…

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  • December 9, 2014 at 8:52 pm
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    Hi cleanrecord,
    I’m Alex Dawson (real name), still a reporter on the Harborough Mail. Would have replied to your mid-afternoon comment a bit earlier, but I’ve only just got back from interviewing one of the victims of the sex attacks. In her house; not on the phone. I feel we’ve let you down, and possibly the profession too. Sorry. All I can say is, we work pretty hard, and we do our best.

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  • December 9, 2014 at 9:23 pm
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    @cleanrecord The reason we reporters are on our “backsides” is because if we dare to leave our desks and go outside to find proper stories there wouldn’t be anyone left in the office to type anything up and actually fill the newspaper. Or even anyone to answer the phone.

    In case you hadn’t noticed there are no longer enough staff left to get out there and do proper journalism. You can blame the incompetent bean counters in charge of our industry for that.

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  • December 10, 2014 at 9:40 am
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    @Current Local Journo:
    Your nom de plume would apply to me too, so please don’t assume I don’t know how it is working for regional papers these days. As you’ll see, I qualified my comment by acknowledging that JP have cut the staff at the HM. No mocking intended here.

    @Alex Dawson:
    I’m sure you do get your own crime stories Alex, and well done for doing so. I’d never insinuate reporters are lazy (as others do) because I know you’re as hamstrung as I am by useless managers who don’t value you. My comment was simply expressing surprise you didn’t come across this story yourself in the 11 day period before the police came forth with it, as I’d imagine it was the talk of the town, although from the other stories you had Harborough sounds like Beirut compared to my patch…

    @oldcrimehack:
    I’ve always found the best way to circumvent the old “public fear of crime therefore no press” problem is to build a relationship with your local coppers and explain to them what your agenda is – i.e. simply to inform and educate. As a regional reporter I’ve no interest in sensationalising stories, just in reporting fact, and a few meetings with the local Chief Inspector is easily enough to convince them of that.
    I meet the CI and CID’s DI once a fortnight and have an open invite to sit in on daily morning briefings whenever I want (granted I don’t have the time to do so as often as I’d like thanks to resource cuts). Anyway, the point I’m making is that building relationships is probably the most important part of our job and that doesn’t happen at many papers these days. I fully accept that 99 per cent of the time this isn’t the reporter’s fault – but I do think it’s sad nonetheless.

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  • December 10, 2014 at 10:46 am
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    No one would dispute anything you’ve said, Golam. The point I and others were making is that you don’t need to go out and hunt for a story like this; it ought to come to you, via a phone call from a member of the public, if the paper plays the pivotal role in its local community that it should. These attacks must have been widely discussed in the community long before the cops bothered to tell the reporters and to be among the last to know is inevitably embarrassing. The papers I worked on when I started had their contact details on the folio line of every page with a request for people to get in touch with news, and they did. No longer: and it’s not just down to manpower, it’s an attitude of mind, higher up the chain – and not just among the bean-counters. The various editors I’ve worked for in latter years all decided the paper was part of the local establishment, sucked up to the local bigwigs, sat on panels and committees, filled the paper with guff and propaganda and were then surprised when the readers switched off. One new broom’s first brilliant idea was to accept a request to join a committee which decided to approve a massive increase in allowances for the hugely unpopular local council, and then banned us from running readers’ letters criticising the decision. The so-called competition from the internet is just a figleaf to excuse the catastrophic business decisions of those who’ve deliberately run decent papers into the ground in the pursuit of profit and personal prestige.

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  • December 11, 2014 at 3:48 pm
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    Lazy is perhaps overdoing it a bit in today’s hideous staffing climate but I do think young journos have got into a mental mode where they do not cultivate contacts and wait for next e mail. Understaffing does not help this situation.

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