This week’s EFL trophy game between Walsall and Port Vale attracted less than a thousand spectators. Two thousand less than the last time they met in the same competition. This is partly due to supporter unease about the presence of academy teams from bigger clubs in a competition designed for the lower leagues. One of […]

130 years ago, today a woman who called herself Mary Jane Kelly was murdered by Jack the Ripper. Her true identity, like that of her killer, is unknown. All genealogists have to work with is a story given by her ex-boyfriend, Joseph Barnett, at the inquest. Extensive searches have failed to trace her with that […]

The book I am most looking forward to in 2019 is a study of Jack the Ripper and the Thames Torso murders by Drew Gray and Andrew Wise. Gray currently runs the police magistrate blog, covering cases from the 19th century courts. As the subject of my next book, William Onion, was a frequent visitor […]

Anyone looking for inspiration this week should have found it in the fourth Invictus Games, taking place in Sydney. Athletes from eighteen countries participated, all being wounded, sick or veterans from the armed forces. Each has their own personal story of overcoming, and defying, adversity to compete in sports that many able-bodied people find difficult. […]

Last year there were 68 calls from British MPs to the immigration hotline. A group of charities have requested that MPs pledge not to inform on illegal immigrants who seek their assistance, arguing that they have the same rights as everyone else. MPs have a duty, like all citizens, to report illegal activity. However, the […]

This week Pakistan played Australia in front of an empty stadium in the United Arab Emirates, a thousand miles from home. Since the Sri Lankan team bus was attacked in 2009, some countries have refused to tour Pakistan. This is at a time when the future of test cricket is being questioned due to larger […]

October is Mental Health month, and for me, it began with the news that my latest book was voted Jack the Ripper Book of the Year at the Jack the Ripper Crime Conference in London. Many of the 333 suspects described in the book suffered from what we might now call mental health disorders. Then […]

This weekend marks the anniversary of one of history’s most notorious crimes. On 30 September 1888 two women, generally regarded as the third and fourth victims of a single killer, were killed in separate incidents in Whitechapel. After these murders the police made public a postcard and letter purporting to come from the killer. He […]

Whenever I see pictures of the Brexit bus promising more funds for the NHS  I am reminded of the speech below which was given in Parliament, by the late Tony Benn on 22 November 1995. There was a boat race between the NHS and a Japanese crew. Both sides tried hard to do well, but […]