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They were an elite group of renegade Fleet Street crime reporters
covering the most notorious British crime between the mid-1930s and
the mid-1960s. It was an era in which murder dominated the front
and inside pages of the newspapers - the 'golden age' of tabloid
crime. Members of the Murder Gang knew one another well. They drank
together in the same Fleet Street pubs, but they were also
ruthlessly competitive in pursuit of the latest scoop. It was said
that when the Daily Express covered a big murder story they would
send four cars: one containing their reporters, the other three to
block the road at crime scenes to stop other rivals getting
through. As a matter of course, Murder Gang members listened in to
police radios, held clandestine meetings with killers on the run,
made huge payments to murderers and their families - and jammed
potatoes into their rivals' exhaust pipes so their cars wouldn't
start. These were just the tools of the trade; it was a far cry
from modern reporting. Here, Neil Root delves into their world,
examining some of the biggest crime stories of the era and the men
who wrote them. In turns fascinating, shocking and comical, this
tale of true crime, media and social history will have you turning
the pages as if they were those newspapers of old.
The Metropolitan Police of the mid-twentieth century, in particular
The Flying Squad and Obscene Publications Squad, has been described
as 'the most routinely corrupt organisation in London'.
Larger-than-life characters such as Ken Drury and Alfred 'Wicked
Bill' Moody routinely fraternised with underworld figures, paid off
witnesses and struck dodgy deals to get their man - regardless of
whether he was innocent or guilty. And the problem went far beyond
a couple of 'bent' coppers: in the end, fifty officers were
prosecuted, while 478 took early retirement. Using Metropolitan
Police files obtained under Freedom of Information, which have not
been accessed since the 1970s, author Neil Root can finally tell
the real story of how the Met became systemically corrupt, and how
Sir Robert Mark, who became commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
in 1972, finally cleaned it up.
On December 2nd, 2006, the naked body of a woman was discovered in
woodland just south of the Suffolk satellite town of Ipswich. Over
the next ten days, four further bodies were found. All were naked.
All were prostitutes. All had worked in Ipswich's red light
district. All five had been strangled.These tragic events caused a
local, national and international media explosion. Police were
drafted in from forces all over the country in a desperate effort
to stop this terrifying serial murderer. The speed of developments
stunned everybody, and then Tom Stephens, a 37 year-old supermarket
worker from Ipswich who had known all five women and sold his story
to a Sunday tabloid newspaper was arrested. Just days later, a 48
year-old forklift truck driver named Steven Wright was taken into
custody, forensic teams swooping on his bed-sit in the middle of
Ipswich's red light area, all in the full glare of the media
spotlight. Wright was charged and remanded in custody to await
trial whilst Stephens was bailed. The murders ceased, and the
British public felt a collective surge of relief. The media had
named both men, and Wright especially underwent a 'trial by media'
even before he was charged.This is the shocking story of the
Ipswich Killer. From the discovery of the bodies, the impact on the
families of the victims, the biggest police investigation ever
mounted in Suffolk, the trial and the verdict, and whether the
outcome could have been prejudiced by the naming of the arrested
men so early on. This is the story of a series of murders, which
produced more fear and terror than any in Britain since the hunt
for the Yorkshire Ripper twenty-five years earlier.
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