What crime did Erwin James commit?

a sentence of that length suggests MURDER. That suggests the name might be pseudonym.

A Life Inside: a Prisoner's Notebook
Author: James Erwin

Nineteen years ago, Erwin James was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was in his twenties. Over the past three years, he has written powerfully about prison life for the Guardian.

So yeah, it was moider. I'd like to know the circumstances around this, and the details of the extra 10 yrs that Michael mentioned above.

Why the flaming Fuck is Winston Silcott still in jail?!?

eh?

Why the flaming Fuck is Winston Silcott still in jail?!?

He's been out for a while now:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,11255,1125536,00.html

anything conclusive on what erwin's crime was?

posting under pseudonyms on internet boards.

Erwin James who writes a weekly column in the Guardian.

... there's your answer

I'm pretty sure I remember reading that he was a violent youth who committed a double murder following a pub dispute.

upthread it says murder, NI.

xpost

I'm pretty sure we've established it was murder.

The best thing about this threa is the random outbreak of mancunian schoolgirldom.

where'd you read that, zelda? i've never seen anything about it, in the paper or online. the sentence does suggest murder but can't help being curious about the details

Sorry, can't remember where I read that. But googling reveals that he did indeed commit two murders. Also a rather coy biography, from some seminar site:

Erwin James was born to Scottish parents in Clevedon in Somerset in 1957. A family lifestyle described as 'brutal and rootless' by a prison psychologist following the death of his mother when James was seven, led to a limited formal education. He gained his first criminal conviction aged ten and was taken into care in Yorkshire aged 11. His teenage and early adult years were spent drifting, living with extended family members, and often sleeping rough. He worked in various labouring jobs, but also committed relatively petty, mostly acquisitive but occasionally violent crimes, (criminal damage, common assault.) His directionless way of life continued, including several years in the French Foreign Legion, until 1984 when he was jailed for life. In prison he took a degree course with the Open University majoring in History and graduated in 1994. His first article for a national newspaper, the Independent, appeared in 1994. He won first prize in the annual Koestler Awards for prose 1995. He wrote for prison magazines. His first article in the Guardian appeared in 1998. He began writing a regular column, entitled A Life Inside, in the Guardian in 2000. A collection of his columns A Life Inside, a prisoner's notebook, was published in 2003. A follow up, The Home Stretch, from prison to parole, was published in April 2005. Both were published by Atlantic Books. James was released from prison in August 2004, and continues to write for the Guardian. He also works as a development manager for a national charity. Erwin James is married and lives on the coast.

thanks for that, that's really interesting. i expected his to be a one-off crime of passion, surprised that's not the case. i really like his writing style, would very much like to read an autobiography

i expected his to be a one-off crime of passion

Why?

A one-off crime of passion wouldn't have got him 20 years inside. He must have done something pretty nasty. In some article I googled he said he committed "a crime of massive violence" but won't say what it was.

why? because i felt he had a really gentle writing style, not the type that'd reflect someone continually involved in violent crime. writing style doesn't mean shit, i guess, but it's all i had to go on.

it surprises me that the details of his crime hasn't been unearthed yet, what with him being a public figure and all. the foreign legion thing sounds most interesting.

surely a search of the newspapers of that year would turn up something?

Yes, can't be that difficult

Doesn't exactly like being photographed, does he, if Google Images are anything to go by?

I suspect it's been Martin Amis all along.

Killing An Arab?

A massively violent double murder suggests to me that he might have killed a couple, OJ style, but who knows...

Or WPC Yvonne Fletcher, or the Brighton bombing...

does seem awfully strange that no one has dug up this info and written an article about it, considering he's a public figure.

A massively violent double murder suggests to me that he might have killed a couple, OJ style, but who knows...

Or in the course of a robbery/break-in?

and often sleeping rough

Is his real name Anton Chigurh?

dunno, but it ain't erwin james.

dennis wise.

The best thing about this threa is the random outbreak of mancunian schoolgirldom.

TS Erwin James streetteam v Vampire Weekend streetteam

Well, Vampire Weekend exist, so that gives them an immediate advantage.

What crime have they committed?

They love too much.

would it have to have been murder? or was life sentencing in place for rape in some cases?

No way, murder or armed robbery would carry the longest sentences

was life sentencing in place for rape in some cases?

no, and certainly not in the 80s.

most murder sentences are under 20 years, as it goes, unless it's of a policeman or the guy is properly psycho.

"...Erwin James, who is now in the pre-release phase of a sentence for two murders..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1010880,00.html

Must have been nasty

If they, or he, ever happened.

Is his real name Chris Morris?

Proof, if proof be need be.

An archived segment of a BBC webpage suggests that he murdered his wife and daughter. The archived segment is incomplete though and I don't really know if this is true. He refuses to discuss the matter though so it does makes sense that it might be something so ghastly that he is concerned that it will, even now, affect people's acceptance of him. The length of his sentence is also a good indication that it was no "spur of the moment" pub type bashing gone wrong.

If you use a library that subscribes to the Times online archives, you can find the relevant 1984 article with a bit of nous.

this thread is creepy.
slmost as creepy as the ask freud murder threads(s)

Why creepy? The guy has established a very public media career based on his experiences as a lifer. Surely a bit of curiosity as to what he did is not unreasonable?

it does makes sense that it might be something so ghastly that he is concerned that it will, even now, affect people's acceptance of him

i've gotta be honest, a single, double or whatever murder is pretty much doing this for me right now anyway.

circumstances would be interesting to hear. can't you just tell us zelda zonk?

I don't think it's creepy btw, I think it's understandable he doesn't want to talk about it but also understandable that people want to know.

I just did a keyword search of the Times archives and came up with this:

"28 August 1984
Man questioned about two London killings
The French police have detained a British deserter from the French Foreign Legion for questioning about..."

Unless there were two ex-legionnaire double murderers in 1984, that must be Erwin James. If you've got £4.95 worth of curiosity (or library access), you can go to http://archive.timesonline.co.uk and read the rest.

his name wasn't erwin james though was it?

im lazy. but if i can find what you found i'll post it here. i have a subscription. why so coy?!

i don't think it's partic creepy in a world where heave ho and dom passantino walk free.

Not coy - curious enough to search the archive, but unwilling to spend money to read the rest of the article! If you have a subscription, go to the archive, limit the time range to 1984, search for foreign legion.

Lexis Nexis has this from the Graun itself:

A British deserter from the French Foreign Legion is being held at Toulon in connection with two murders in London in 1982.
Scotland Yard said the extradition of the 27-year-old man was being sought.

A second unnamed man, serving a prison sentence in the North of England, has also been questioned over the killing of a theatrical agent, Mr Greville Scott Hallam, and a National Coal Board solicitor Mr Angus Cochrane.

The Legionnaire joined the Second Parachute Regiment, based at Calvi, in Corsica, and deserted on August 16, this year, French police said.

Mr Hallam aged 48, was strangled in September, 1982, at his flat in Haverstock Hill, north London, a television set and video recorder were stolen.

Mr Cochrane, 29, died from head injuries after being attacked in St James's Park, near Buckingham Palace. on December 4 the same year.

Mr Cochrane was section head of the coal board's legal department in Doncaster, and had been staying at an hotel in London. His wallet and personal documents were stolen.

I'd say that was definitely "Erwin James", who was born in 1957 hence was 27 in 1984.

I found his real name just now.

yeah, thought i'd leave that off the thread. pretty common name anyway.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Erwin James is a pseudonym used by a Guardian journalist. His real name has not been revealed but it is known that he was a former life sentence prisoner and served 20 years in prison for a double murder[1]before entering journalism.[2] The circumstances leading to his arrest and conviction and the identities of his victims have also not been revealed.

you are doing some pioneering work here fellows.
and i was not creeped out by your interest, but by the prospect that a double-murderer is out of jail and has a public life while choosing to keep his identity secret. also was creeped out by the prospect of a wife/child double murder. that's always sad.

It says that this person "received two life sentences".

Wikipedia has now been updated to show his full name and crime, i'm guessing someone here did it.

and now its back to how it was...

hmmmm

changed back by someone at Bristol Uni.

of course the name etc are still in the revision history.

if Muchness was actually Erwin James all along that might explain why he's such a dick about deleting funny shit from the Fluxblog entry

interesting that this muchness guy on wiki has completely deleted the revision that said erwin's real name. it's possibly right & decent that they're giving the guy a break (paid his debt to society etc), but should wiki be censoring things like this - has muchness given any reasons why?

Yeah he attached a link to the biographies of living persons guidelines, which say "caution should be applied when naming individuals who are discussed primarily in terms of a single event. When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed (such as in certain court cases or occupations), it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context."

Can someone post his name and the text of the Times article? The suspense is killing me.

"An archived segment of a BBC webpage suggests that he murdered his wife and daughter. The archived segment is incomplete though and I don't really know if this is true." - I posted this above and have gone back and checked the archived content. The first segment is definitely referring to James but the middle segment is missing and then comes the reference to the murdered wife and daughter. There is nothing directly connecting the two.

James Monahan

James Monahan's arrest, conviction and sentence for the murders of Scott Hallam and Angus Cochrane is publicly available information. This is surely relevant to the Wikipedia article on "Erwin James" and to consideration of his continuing public commentary on criminal justice issues. The Guardian originally argued that the pseudonym (Erwin James) was necessary to protect him because he was writing his column from his prison cell. This arrangement, however, ceased some years ago and Monahan has been released after completing his sentence.

So he didn't murder his wife and child then?

It looks like he murdered two guys in 1982

I've posted on Wikipedia under the discussion section of the Erwin James article. We'll see what the response is, if anything.

Could always create an article for James Monahan.

So he didn't murder his wife and child then?

bummer! ;)

wouldn't the guy have a different name right now? (not Erwin James, not Monahan)

no, i thought he would have changed it too, but apparently not. he mentions on his erwin james biography that he's a trustee of the prison reform trust, which lists "jim monahan" on its website.

If Erwin James is James Monahan, as it seems he almost certainly is, then he hasn't been totally honest about his past. He's obviously proud of his time in the Foreign Legion, but he's exaggerated it considerably. On his website he says he was in the Legion for "several years". In an interview he said it was four and a half years. Only last month in the Guardian he said he joined in 1981. But his last crime was in December 1982. Since he deserted in August 1984, then he could only have been a serving legionnaire for a bit over a year. In that short time, he claims he served in Lebanon, Chad and Cameroon, as well as spending months in Corsica. Possible, but I'm sceptical. Some tabloid journalist is sure to rake him over the coals one of these days.

By the way, his second victim, Greville Hallam, seems to have been quite an accomplished Shakespearian actor. Simon Callow mentions him in his autobiography. Callow also writes for the Guardian, I wonder whether he's met Erwin James?

I got the following response from Wikipedia ... Erwin James real name Wikipedia does not permit Original Research. Information which is not in any single source, but constructed by combining multiple sources or interpeting one in ways that are not obvious is considered Original Research. Do not post claims, either here or in the article, as to what James' real name is unless those claims (explicitly linking James and the alleged real name) have been published in a reliable source, such as a major newspaper. If you think you have such a case, exercise caution by posting here first, and merely linking to the source you want to include. (See policy on living persons for why are we are particularly careful in such cases.) Rd232 talk 13:01, 21 March 2009 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Erwin_James";

I guess that's actually fair enough. I mean, I don't feel fobbed off or anything like that. At the end of the day, I think it's only reasonable that soemone who wants to contribute to public debate does so transparently but good luck to James Monahan (Erwin James, whoever he wants to be today), he did his time, and I wish him the best for the future.

Well he's served his sentence. He's free to get on with his life, perhaps it's better his real name isn't used so the family of his victims dont see it (assuming they don't already know he uses this name)

Also if he has kids, they could get bullied at school if his real name was revealed.

In relation to the timeline above, Jim Monahan, James Monahan, Erwin James or Beau Geste could have committed the murder or murders of wives, daughters, shakespearian actors and Coal Board functionaries while serving with the Foreign Legion. Perhaps he did so while on leave back in the UK. It seems that he joined the Legion in 1980 or 1981 and then deserted in 1984 (probably because the police were already on his case as demonstrated by one of the articles suggested that he deserted from the Foreign Legion, was detained by French police and extradited to the UK in the same month - August 1984). Does anyone have the exact dates of the two murders?

Some tabloid journalist is sure to rake him over the coals one of these days

Why? It's not as if he's a public figure living a lie. He wrote a column under a pseudonym; the details are hazy; who, other than a handful of people on a message board with too much time on their hands, is going to care?

This:

good luck to James Monahan (Erwin James, whoever he wants to be today), he did his time, and I wish him the best for the future

is the attitude.

This:

If Erwin James is James Monahan, as it seems he almost certainly is, then he hasn't been totally honest about his past

is a bit daft.

(And by "is the attitude" I mean "is the right attitude", just in case there's any doubt!)

Cap'n Save-a-murderin-journo ;)

:)

Seriously, though: try ringing up the Sun with that one.

"See Erwin James? Well, he wasn't entirely honest about his time in the Foreign Legion ... No, Erwin. Erwin James ... What do you mean, who? ... Well, he had this column in the Guar ... Hello? Hello?"

his columns just slay me

no, grimly, it would be the daily mail, inside feature by i dunno geoffrey levy, with quotes from relatives of his victims and contrasting it with his life of comfort with his wife by the sea, with heavyhanded mentions to the amount of money he's earned as a guardian contributor and sneering references to anything liberal he's written about the prison system. the fudging of dates to obscure his identity would be the figleaf of moral justification to go after him.

bit suspicious about lukeybaby tbh, who has apparently never posted on any other thread.

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/phantom%20scooby%20doo%20unmask%201.jpg

'Erwin James' is just the name he uses for listening to funk on last.fm

lukeybaby's on fire
http://www.legalbanter.co.uk/uk-legal-legal-issues-uk/11319-erwin-james.html

reviving a thread on a forum that's five years old just because it's high up in the google searches - what's this guy's beef? it's natural to be curious about this, but going on a publicity campaign is just weird.

I dunno, I consider myself liberal but I don't think you can be a public columnist and at the same time try and hold your past back. It's not fair or right and the biggest problem with him doing this column is his reluctance to talk about his actual crime. I think he'll realise this too at some point, and when he does the results will be v interesting.

sorry i don't know if i was being very clear, but i was referring to lukeybaby's appearance on the legalbanter's forums. i've got no problem with ilx trying to answer the thread's question - i posted a lot of the details myself. but i thought it was weird that this guy felt the need to run with the info to wikipedia, and when he failed with that, to post it on a forum thread that was long dead but had a very high google ranking for ej's name. that seems like more than mere curiosity to me.

sorry i don't know if i was being very clear, but i was referring to lukeybaby's appearance on the legalbanter's forums. i've got no problem with ilx trying to answer the thread's question - i posted a lot of the details myself. but i thought it was weird that this guy felt the need to run with the info to wikipedia, and when he failed with that, to post it on a forum thread that was long dead but had a very high google ranking for ej's name. that seems like more than mere curiosity to me.

so good it was worth saying twice. sorry.

I've got no axe to grind but was emailed by someone (from here) who referred to the question being asked on the legal banter site. My interest was peaked after I emailed "Erwin James" about the issue and he emailed back but declined to answer. So there's no hidden agenda from me just a concern about transparency. After receiving the response from James, I then searched on google and yahoo, finding this site and wikipedia. I contacted Wikipedia over the fact that the article did not make reference to "Erwin James" being a pseudonym. That much, at least, was acknowledged by the Guardian and James, himself. The Wikipedia content nbow acknowledges that, with my amendments, and I'm happy about it. It seemed a valid point to make. The thread has been interesting and the issue seems to be resolved, at least as far as it is ever going to be.

no, grimly, it would be the daily mail, inside feature by i dunno geoffrey levy, with quotes from relatives of his victims and contrasting it with his life of comfort with his wife by the sea, with heavyhanded mentions to the amount of money he's earned as a guardian contributor and sneering references to anything liberal he's written about the prison system. the fudging of dates to obscure his identity would be the figleaf of moral justification to go after him

Ha, yeh, OK: I could sort-of imagine that -- but I still think it's very unlikely. It hasn't happened yet, it becomes ever less likely to happen with each passing day ... and really: how many people out there know or care who Erwin James is?

Either way: I certainly don't think "oh my god! He might not have been entirely honest about how long he was in the Legion!" is of any interest to anyone, ever :)

It's not fair or right and the biggest problem with him doing this column is his reluctance to talk about his actual crime

Maybe he feels that it might look like glorifying the details? I'm not sure: I appreciate what you're saying, but by writing under a pseudonym and not revealing details he's also -- arguably -- preventing too much prurient interest that could unearth a whole lot of horror for a whole lot of people. (Er, this thread excepted, natch.)

Personally, I have absolutely no interest in what he did. As I think someone said upthread: murderer = kinda enough information for me.

peaked

I am not the kind of cunt who does this but it's "piqued".

Also, I concur with the opinion that it's good that James has served his time and been rehabilitated but I don't think that should confer the right to publicly speak about issues relating to yr experience as a convicted murderer without owning the murders.

exactly. even if you don't judge it on a moral basis, his pieces would surely be better and more interesting if he did mention his own crimes. not like every week or something, but it feels a bit of a dodge.

peaked

I am not the kind of cunt who does this but it's "piqued".

No, you're exactly the kind of cunt who does that! :-)

The main problem I see (and it's a perfectly legitimate one) is that neither the Guardian nor James/Monahan allow independent verification of his authenticity. His public claims of expertise are made from behind a veil that prevents scrutiny of those claims. For all anyone can prove, "Erwin James" is really a 20 year old cadet journalist with long blonde hair and big tits and the closest she's ever been to confinement is a knee-trembler out the back of the policeman's ball. If you claim authenticity on the basis of arrest, conviction and sentence, then the minimum you should disclose is where you were arrested and for what, the court where you were convicted and the circumstances of that conviction (eg charges, plea etc), the sentence you were given and (particularly in this case) the prisons where your served your time. But, the original decision to use the pseudonym seems appropriate given that James/Monahan was still in the prison system. Once he left the prison system, the Guardian (at least) should have set the record straight or provided another justification. As outlined above, I even emailed James/Monahan and asked him the question but he declined to answer. Anyway, this has been a great thread but I've got to go back to my proper job. Good luck to James/Monahan. Good luck to the Guardian. Good luck to you.

His real name and a lot of background info :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/24/erwin-james-journalism

gotta hold the hands up and say fair play to the guy, must have been hard (harder than we could know) but that column was always coming.

(erm is anyone else wondering if the board is ILX?)

http://i44.tinypic.com/2po5xk6.gif

Of course I wondered but what are you gonna do? I think he's dealt with this very well.

i think it must be - it's on the front page of searches for "erwin james crime", for instance. i'm guessing that the article was prompted by someone at the guardian reading this thread and wondering why they were misled in earlier features: they'd have to take that quite seriously. (the julie myerson/living with teenagers fiasco has probably made them more jumpy about their anonymous columnists.)

i can see why he feels "stalked" by the interest, but it's only what's on the public record. it's a good piece, anyway, and i hope he doesn't get any more fallout from this.

good piece. (should've published it the day he left prison or something)

lying to the guardian was his real crime, tbh.

it's a shame that people on a message board had to go and speculate as to the real identity of a mysterious columnist-with-a-past in a national newspaper, but...

LG: I hope not. The poster who came here to concern troll/play investigative journalist seems to have been active on a few sites and his tenor struck me not as someone who was looking for transparency in an impartial way, but as some borderline personalty disorder case with an axe to grind, possibly for overapplied personal reasons. I really hate it when randoms use ILX in this way, and I hate it when people who've completed their sentences and satisfied a parole board that they have processed and understood their offence to the degree that James has done are subjected to a malice that they are actively working against in their new lives. Yes, I understand the anger and sadness victims' families exhibit but clinging to rancor for the rest of their own lives isn't going to bring a loved one back or move anyone forward, and it's just as irrational to ask a prisoner to live aspic-suspended in a past moment just because your loss is the only thing giving your own life meaning.

In our current criminal justice climate - and even in other, more peaceable times - it is essential that there are journalists who have been in the system as prisoners, and it isn't just crime that sends criminals to prison, it's the whole dysfunctional life they've led up to that point. There are hundreds of prison writing programmes run by charities and the Arts Council (if you're a novelist it's actually a pretty good gig to teach writing seminars there) with the expectation that allowing a prisoner to learn ways to express themselves clearly in writing has a knock-on effect in how they value themselves and others; it gives them a centre of gravity or some kind of rudder and often it's the first time in their whole lives where that's been possible. People who have an outlet like this go on to live productive lives, no question.

(the julie myerson/living with teenagers fiasco has probably made them more jumpy about their anonymous columnists.)

lol looks like i was right. related stories link is "Open door: Siobhain Butterworth on the Guardian and the Julie Myerson affair".

ian katz says he knew the details of james' crime, but blames the "fictionalised" paragraphs on a "lapse" by the writer. so shouldn't an editor have queried it? i don't think the whole thing's that big a deal even, but the editors should share the blame and not leave the writer hanging out to dry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/apr/24/erwin-james-monahan-guardian

IF ONLY WE'D GIVEN THE KIlLER A PAINTBRUSH EARLIER etc

Not to be QUITE as reductive or just generally out of one's depth as you, DM, but yeah, pretty much. Read John Waters' accounts of teaching filmmaking and writing seminars in Maryland prisons in the '80s if you want to know more about how the programmes work. Alternatively, if you just want to post stupid ignorant shite on topics that would otherwise be intimidating, carry on.

i had dinner last night with john waters and a lazy zing, actually OMG

or, alternatively-

i believe i'm every bit as out of my depth discussing where violent criminals come from as a social question as you are, but i'm sure your parlour discussions around it are extremely interesting.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2q88w04.gif

Is that sugar popcorn or savoury, Stan?

See, I'm not out of my depth at all, because of past work experience and the like. The only opinion I've formed about you is that you might be more conservative than I am - and it's only an opinion because I don't know you well and have no desire to. I'd much rather deal constructively with issues around the question of prisoner rehabilitation in a world where victims' families have feelings and rights, as does any prisoner with a discharged sentence. That is maybe the best thing that could be done right now with what is actually a pretty crepey thread.

cosign

lonely ex-con just thinking baout things
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Society/Comment/Columnist/2009/4/24/1240562572899/James-Monahan-Erwin-James-001.jpg

I'd much rather deal constructively with issues around the question of prisoner rehabilitation in a world where victims' families have feelings and rights, as does any prisoner with a discharged sentence.

well, self congratulatory posts on a message board are certainly the best way to do that. Carry on, by all means, and mind the soapbox on the way down.

How, exactly, was I congratulating myself by pointing out the existence of prison writing programmes or questioning the crepey motives of a one-off poster to this thread? How does a desire to see convicts rehabilitate successfully constitute the annexation of a soap box?

and i'm reductive.

agreed on the creepiness of one-off subject poster, i'm sure we all know that prison writing programmes exist and i'm equally sure we all wish for full convict rehabilitation. jeez, how did we ever end up calling each other names?

http://i41.tinypic.com/2q88w04.gif
^^^
Stan - I just did that cliched snorting tea over my keyboard thing.

http://i44.tinypic.com/2lc78ra.jpg

(xpost lol)

looks like this is going to feature in the mail on sunday tomorrow :\

by lukeybaby?

what crime did lukeybaby commit?

More like stalkybaby amirite?

The Mail article is more of an attack on the Guardian.

I hate it when people who've completed their sentences and satisfied a parole board that they have processed and understood their offence to the degree that James has done are subjected to a malice that they are actively working against in their new lives. Yes, I understand the anger and sadness victims' families exhibit but clinging to rancor for the rest of their own lives isn't going to bring a loved one back or move anyone forward, and it's just as irrational to ask a prisoner to live aspic-suspended in a past moment just because your loss is the only thing giving your own life meaning.

lot to unpack in this. wouldn't want to subject anyone to malice, but completing a sentence and satisfying a parole board are irrelevant to the point at hand. if EJ had processed and understood his offence, maybe he wouldn't have come clean about with his readers? idk, seems off to me.

as for 'clinging to rancor', etc: you sound way out of your depth here.

the guardian say they needed someone who'd been inside for a long time -- ok, maybe. but maybe a double-murderer was pushing it. or, coming from another angle, d'you reckon they'd have stood by a paedophile or serial rapist to this extent? i don't think they'd have risked it, personally. the living victims may well have clung to their rancor in public.

ha, this whole deal reminds me of this
http://www.break.com/tv-shows/saturday-night-live/prose-and-cons-626242.html

The Mail article is more of an attack on the Guardian.

― weight and bulk are your enemies (Ned Trifle II),

Who'd have thought it, eh?

ha, this whole deal reminds me of this
http://www.break.com/tv-shows/saturday-night-live/prose-and-cons-626242.html

The requested video cannot be displayed in your region because we are stupid.

Disappointing lack of comments on that Mail article - it's as if nobody really cares.

if you google eddie murphy and "prose and cons" you might get another source that plays it. it's a classic snl short that spoofs on the whole norman mailer/jack henry abbott debacle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abbott

Henry, I'd like to know exactly why you believe I sound out of my depth here, as your dismissal was a bit...shallow. I draw on many things I'm not prepared to discuss in depth on a public message board but what I will say is that I've had a lot of access to law enforcement opinion over the years and have helped to administer prison writing programmes in the past. I also have zero time for over-reliance on victim status as a kind of everlasting gobstopper of emotional blackmail when other victims and survivors aren't like that. My opinion isn't derived solely from watching how the topic plays out in the media and if there's a non-spectator element behind your words some clarity is in order, because it doesn't seem like it.

I'm satisfied with EJ's rationale behind his previous anonymity and I wonder what the reasoning behind his outing *really* is. Attack on Graun for its recent stance on criminal justice, maybe?

To answer your other question, comparing murderers with sex offenders for the purpose of this discussion is a bit apples and oranges.

At least this thread is good for one thing: capturing the reptile-brain thought processes of tabloid reporters in real time.