Fatality at Balham?
 

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 21:57:19 -0000 someone who may be "Richard"
wrote this:-

Only car-on-car. Remember train crashes often see the line closed for days.

It now seems to be weeks.

Pedestrian killings are regularly mopped up and ignored within an hour or
two.

That's easy. The police blame the pedestrian and don't want to
inconvenience the really important motorists.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
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Fatality at Balham?
 

On 7 Feb 2004 03:10:11 -0800 someone who may be
(Matt Ashby) wrote this:-

Surely when investigating a crime, the police should be given all the
time that they need.

The police are incompetent enough as it is. In fact they are, in
common with much of the legal world, one of the last bastions of all
that Mrs Thatcher complained about. Giving the police all the time
they need sounds to me like the sort of thing party politicians say
when they are trying to please the public.




--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

Fatality at Balham?
 

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 17:49:28 +0000 someone who may be Five Cats
] wrote this:-

Before the advances in DNA testing etc., the only thing to do with blood
etc. was wash it away, not sample it and record where that sample was
taken from.

This helps investigation of the cause in what way precisely?


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

Fatality at Balham?
 

David Hansen wrote in message . ..
On 7 Feb 2004 03:10:11 -0800 someone who may be
(Matt Ashby) wrote this:-

Surely when investigating a crime, the police should be given all the
time that they need.

The police are incompetent enough as it is. In fact they are, in
common with much of the legal world, one of the last bastions of all
that Mrs Thatcher complained about. Giving the police all the time
they need sounds to me like the sort of thing party politicians say
when they are trying to please the public.

I was told by station personnel that the body in question had a knife
wound; so hardly a routine fatality. What was amazing was that SC
could not organise a diversion as they do at weekends.

Fatality at Balham?
 

MartinM wrote:
David Hansen wrote in message . ..

On 7 Feb 2004 03:10:11 -0800 someone who may be
(Matt Ashby) wrote this:-


Surely when investigating a crime, the police should be given all the
time that they need.

The police are incompetent enough as it is. In fact they are, in
common with much of the legal world, one of the last bastions of all
that Mrs Thatcher complained about. Giving the police all the time
they need sounds to me like the sort of thing party politicians say
when they are trying to please the public.


I was told by station personnel that the body in question had a knife
wound; so hardly a routine fatality. What was amazing was that SC
could not organise a diversion as they do at weekends.

I suspect that is because during the weekday peak the system is at
capacity and it isn't at weekends. There are probably also power-supply
issues on any diversion route as well as the route being slower.

I was rather suprised though that SCT didn't turn trains at East Croydon
- they were still well out by the evening.

John.

Fatality at Balham?
 

"Jack Taylor" wrote in message k...
"CIG_BIG_CIG" wrote in message
om...

Male person, scene treated as a crime scene by BTP and body not
recovered until 1300 approx. The lack of a contingency plan by SCT for
the main lines being closed during the peaks meant services ran up to
180 mins late!

Which once again highlights how bloody disgraceful it is that nowadays the
police are permitted to cause disruption on such a scale to the general
public. Perhaps they should be forced to compensate all of those caught up
in their incompetence (as everyone else seems to be expected to these
days) - that might focus their minds to get the job done more quickly.
Bearing in mind that this incident allegedly occurred at around 01:00 the
railway should have been cleared and open for operation by 05:00 at the
latest.

On the day in question there were many rumours doing the rounds
including that the person was a 14yr old "graffiti artist". Any more
news on the truth yet ?
I have to say that I was amazed how the Sth central service was still
doing at 13.00 when I went to work some 12 hours after the initial
incident. Just to show how bad:

13:02 Victoria to Portsmouth CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:03 Victoria to Dorking CANCELLED AT EPSOM 36" Late
13:05 Victoria to Sutton CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:06 Victoria to Brighton CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:07 Victoria to West Croydon CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:11 Victoria to London Bridge CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:15 Victoria to Caterham CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:17 Victoria to Southampton CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:20 Victoria to Epsom CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:22 Victoria to London Bridge arrived 50" late having started CJN
13:23 Victoria to East Grinstead CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:25 Victoria to Epsom Downs CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:32 Victoria to Chichester CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:33 Victoria to Horsham Arrived 20" late having started CJN
13:35 Victoria to Sutton CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:36 Victoria to Brighton Ran E Croydon to Brighton only
13:37 Victoria to West Croydon Ran RIGHT TIME Claphm to WC !
13:41 Victoria to London Bridge Ran 6" late
13:45 Victoria to Caterham CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:47 Victoria to Hastings Ran E Croydon to Eastbourne only 30" late
13:50 Victoria to Epsom CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:52 Victoria to London Bridge CANCELLED AT VICTORIA
13:53 Victoria to East Ginstead Ran East Croydon to East grinstead 58"
late
13:55 Victoria to Epsom CANCELLED AT VICTORIA

!!!!

I actually done Selhurst to Kings Cross by CAR instead ! Not something
I would normally do even in quite bad times/

Fat Richard

Fatality at Balham?
 

Until, of course, its a member of your family that is the victim of the
suspicious death, when you would be asking why the police didn't do
everything possible at the scene to detect the offender. These things
take
time, thats a fact of life.

It's only in the last handful of years that it has taken anything like the
ludicrous amounts of time that it now takes to resolve such matters. That,
despite the significant advances in forensic technology and DNA testing
etc.
that have been made. As other posters have noted: it doesn't take as long
anywhere else in Europe, it doesn't take as long to resolve a road
incident
and it never used to take as long to resolve railway accidents or suicides
as it does now, suspicious or otherwise.

Surely the best option would to check CCTV if there is some and if it shows
a push then they can collect the evidence and if there is no CCTV ask the
driver and do the same. They can spend time checking pushes, but if its a
suicide then they should have no reason to collect DNA etc,
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Fatality at Balham?
 

In message , Graeme Wall
writes
surely the long time it took to investigate this particular incident
points to a lack of immediately available resources, rather than a lot
of work being required.

Points to nothing of the sort, how do you know what amount of work was
required?

Simply that 12 hours to recover a body appears excessive.
--
Roland Perry

Fatality at Balham?
 

Joe wrote:
Until, of course, its a member of your family that is the victim of
the suspicious death, when you would be asking why the police
didn't do everything possible at the scene to detect the offender.
These things take time, thats a fact of life.

It's only in the last handful of years that it has taken anything
like the ludicrous amounts of time that it now takes to resolve such
matters. That, despite the significant advances in forensic
technology and DNA testing etc. that have been made. As other
posters have noted: it doesn't take as long anywhere else in
Europe, it doesn't take as long to resolve a road incident and it
never used to take as long to resolve railway accidents or suicides
as it does now, suspicious or otherwise.

Surely the best option would to check CCTV if there is some and if it
shows a push then they can collect the evidence and if there is no
CCTV ask the driver and do the same. They can spend time checking
pushes, but if its a suicide then they should have no reason to
collect DNA etc,

Pushes? Suicide? Your post was 4 hours after another in the same thread
which said that the body had a knife wound. In this instance, it does
sound as if a thorough scene-of-crime investigation was justified, whatever
we might feel about other railway accidents.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Fatality at Balham?
 

On Sat, 07 Feb 2004 20:45:14 +0000 someone who may be Graeme Wall
wrote this:-

They don't need, but certainly get, plenty of cretins complaining
because theor oh-so-important journey has been delayed 5 minutes.

Nice try. However, the delays mentioned din this thread are rather
more than five minutes.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.