25 April 201317 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Jailed for stealing gingerbread man… dead in the prison

originally by: The Independent
published: 1 April 2013

James Best’s death in prison, where he was being held for stealing a gingerbread man during the August 2011 riots, was one of the most tragic episodes of the disturbances which shook England that summer.

Mr Best, who took the gingerbread man from a looted bakery in Croydon, had at that time only come back to the UK after a period spent living and working in Portugal, and a month before the riots he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act after self-harming in public.

25 April 201317 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Police ‘stood over vulnerable man and watched him die’

originally by: Daily Mail
published: 24 April 2013

Two police officers allowed a vulnerable man to suffocate and die in front of them without trying to help, a court has heard.

PCs Maurice Leigh and Neil Bowdery, of Kent Police, have pleaded not guilty to misconduct in public office over the death of paranoid schizophrenic Colin Holt in August 2010.

Maidstone Crown Court [was told] that police had been called to the 52-year-old’s flat in Gillingham, Kent, to bring him back to hospital as he was subject to a Mental Health Act order.

23 March 201317 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Death row mum cleared of killing son after 22 years in jail

all credits: The Mirror
published: 15 March 2013

A mum who spent 22 years on death row has had her conviction overturned. A US appeal court ruled today that Debra Jean Milke, 48, was wrongly found guilty of murdering her four-year-old son Christopher.

They say police failed to reveal that a detective who gave key evidence against her had a history of lying under oath.

German-born Milke had been given a date for her execution by lethal injection. She would have been the first woman executed in Arizona since 1930.