Man charged with Keith Blakelock murder...

[max_tranmere]

I thought this case would never be solved, the murder of PC Keith Blakelock who was murdered in the Broadwater Farm riot in London in 1985. I remember when this happened, I was a teenager living with my family a few miles away, and I remember it lead to the biggest manhunt in history. Over 1,000 officers on the case. The guy they've charged is 44 years old which means he was 16 when it happened. I wonder if it will be argued that he was below the age of criminal responsibility at the time. I remember there was a "wall of silence" in Tottenham after it happened and the Police could procure few leads.

From memory, the events of that night went like this: major rioting took place on the Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham following a person dying during a Police raid on a house. The rioters that night were amongst the most savage I've ever heard of in British history, a group of Firemen (not Police) were lured to a dark corner of the Estate so that machete wielding nutters could attack them. PC Blakelock and his colleague went to help. Blakelock's colleague was wearing a stronger helmet than he was and that saved his life. His colleague was hit over the head so hard with a machete that when he got back to the Police station later that evening and he took his helmet off it fell into two pieces like an easter egg. That would have been his head, but for the helmet.

Blakelock was stabbed so many times and murdered. His Police jacket is hanging in the Police Crime Museum and apparently has yellow tape stuck next to every knife slit in it. There are so many that the jacket is almost completely yellow, you can barely see any of the original colour of it, which was black.

Fast-forward 26 years to the riots of 2011 and I remember someone from Tottenham being interviewed on TV after that area had gone up in flames (again). He said "last time we rioted they spent huge amounts of money refurbishing the estate and they built us a new swimming pool complex. I wonder what we'll get this time". It's great how communities are rewarded for doing bad things, isn't it? If I had my way people who riot who have to pay for the repairs themselves, and if that meant working for 10 years, doing 50 or 60 hours a week in a menial job, and all but the bare essential living money taken from them to go towards the repair bill, then so be it.

Anyway, they've got someone for it now. With all the sensitivity around this case, and how Winston Silcott was wrongly banged-up for it previously, I doubt they would have charged anyone without thinking they were sure he was guilty.

If you go to Muswell Hill in north London there is a small commerative monument for PC Keith Blakelock which I have seen, and it mentions how he used to patrol in that area. As a nice footnote to this horrible tale, Keith Blakelock's son grew up and became a Policeman, even though his father was killed doing it.

article:

[Essex Lad]

max_tranmere wrote:

> Blakelock was stabbed so many times and murdered. His Police
> jacket is hanging in the Police Crime Museum and apparently has
> yellow tape stuck next to every knife slit in it. There are so
> many that the jacket is almost completely yellow, you can
> barely see any of the original colour of it, which was black.
>
While the PC Blakelock murder was horrific, that's not quite true as can be seen from this photo of it

[max_tranmere]

I had never seen a photo of it before, but it is pretty "yellow" as you can see. That is a vast amount of stab wounds.

[Jonone]

"I thought this case would never be solved"

"Anyway, they've got someone for it now"

Max, I think where they're at is thinking that they can proceed with a prosecution. Whilst in your world that seems to mean that the case is 'solved' there is the matter of a trial which has yet to happen.

Have you done jury service ? Would you normally consider any announcement of a charge to be a done deal in term of the defendant's 'guilt' ?

[max_tranmere]

As I said above:

"With all the sensitivity around this case, and how Winston Silcott was wrongly banged-up for it previously, I doubt they would have charged anyone without thinking they were sure he was guilty."

Do you have any idea just how carefully the Police and the CPS have to tip-toe around issues like this, especially if it involves charging black people, in the wake of the fallout from the Stephen Lawrence issue? The TV media will have their guts for garters too - in fact I will be tuning in to the local news tonight to see how they treat this. There will likely be loads of "community leaders" that no one has ever heard of on the show lambasting the Police and for every 5 minutes they get a Police spokesman will get 30 seconds. The Voice newspaper will no doubt do a big thing about it too.

[Jonone]

If they'd been more careful first time around Silcott wouldn't have done time for something he didn't do.

[Essex Lad]

Jonone wrote:

> If they'd been more careful first time around Silcott wouldn't
> have done time for something he didn't do.

Yes because he was such a fine law-abiding, upstanding member of the community...

[Jonone]

I don't think that was the charge was it ?

[Essex Lad]

max_tranmere wrote:

> I had never seen a photo of it before, but it is pretty
> "yellow" as you can see. That is a vast amount of stab wounds.

Indeed but it is not so yellow that you cannot see that it was originally black. The mob tried to cut off his head in the melee.

[Essex Lad]

No but he was on bail on another murder charge at the time of the Blakelock murder.