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‘Arrest feedback story not an April Fool’, says regional daily

A regional daily which splashed this morning on plans for police forces to introduce customer feedback forms for arrested suspects had to clarify the story was not an April Fool’s Day joke.

The East Anglian Daily Times ran a story on its front page, pictured below, about a report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission which suggested officers could hand out ‘How Did We Do?’ such forms to canvas suspects’ views about being forcibly arrested.

The Ipswich-based EADT tweeted a link to the story after it was made live on its website, but added the qualifier “not an April Fool” at the end.

Actual spoofs published across the regional press today include stories about plans to microchip babies, a proposal to make a floral clock digital and two stories about the European Union.

April EADT

The microchip proposal came courtesy of The Scotsman, which reported the Scottish Government would keep the chips inside children until they reached 12 years of age.

However ‘Olaf Ripol’, of Scotland Protects Youngsters (Spy), said the plans didn’t go far enough to protect children.

Topically, the Peterborough Telegraph opted to run a poll on the renaming of Bourges Boulevard in the city if the UK opts to leave the European Union.

The road is currently named for Peterborough’s French twin town of Bourges, but ‘Lady Rasp Folio’ was quoted as saying a new name would give the city’s people something they can “call their own”.

On a similar theme, the Hinckley Times reported a new retail development called the ‘Crescent’ had been deemed too curvy by Brussels bureaucrats, and would require a £10m refit to straighten it out.

The Croydon Advertiser published plans to paint the town’s tower blocks the same colour as the sky, while its rival the Croydon Guardian claimed Kevin Spacey was set to star in a Hollywood film about the race to win the Croydon Central seat at last year’s general election.

In Yorkshire, the Whitby Gazette ran a story on plans to make a floral display of a clock digital, while over the Pennines the Lancashire Evening Post claimed an ambitious bid was being made to build a new international airport in Chorley.

The LEP claimed the first flight routes proposed from Chorley International include “Poolin-Ma-Legg in China, Joakerr in Bulgaria and Asif in the Middle East”.

6 comments

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  • April 1, 2016 at 12:08 pm
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    Ah yes, ‘these days’ – I didn’t think it would be long before that inference was made.
    As regular visitors to this site will know, absolutely everything was better in the glory days of journalism. Yawn.

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  • April 1, 2016 at 12:36 pm
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    i dont think being taken in by an obvious april fools prank@here we go again is ” better in the glory days of blah blah blah

    however your reply could always be an april fools jokey though ,if so nice one!

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  • April 1, 2016 at 2:47 pm
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    I think back in the “old days” a story about “a 50-metre tall banjo statue to rival the Angel of the North” might just have warranted a further bit of investigation before it went into print.

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  • April 1, 2016 at 3:07 pm
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    The Anglian story was nicked out of Thursday’s Sun.

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  • April 1, 2016 at 6:08 pm
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    Exactly Mal Content, back in ‘ those days’ ” Investigstions units” were called ‘ reporters’ and press releases were checked,double checked and followed up to establish the validity of the facts, unlike ‘here we go again’who didn’t bother reading the post by Jo Bann before jumping on the old ‘yawn heard it all before’ cliche band wagon

    Wasn’t like that back in ‘t day

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