(no subject)
Nov. 17th, 2003 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kirkcudbrightOkay, confession time.
I'm addicted to the Soham murder trial. I don't normally follow court cases, and, while I'm reasonably informed, I don't follow any individual news story this closely. Maybe it's just that this one is too close to comfortably ignore.
The short facts are this: two 10-year-old girls disappeared near their homes in a small town in England. Their bodies were found in a ditch on a country lane two weeks later, coincidentally on the same day a school caretaker and his girlfriend were arrested on suspicion. The evidence is largely circumstantial, but comprehensive and damning. I don't doubt that he did it, but I still want to know why he did it, how he did it, what on earth he was thinking. I hang on every detail of the case, because this is every parent's worst nightmare.
One tangential thing that struck me about this case is that some of the more important evidence is mobile phone records, and closed-circuit television records. The telephone logs were willingly (and correctly) handed over by BT, and CCTV seems to have made its way into every British town common. They truly live in a fish-bowl society, much more than we do, and the technology I'm working on helps enable that.
The other thing I noticed is the seeming prevalence of child abductions in Britain. I don't know if it's over-reported there, under-reported here, or just skewed by the fact that I get my news from the BBC. Possibly if I read cnn.com (gack), or watched CNN (double gack), I'd know more about the evil that Americans are capable of. But I don't want to. This is bad enough.
I'm addicted to the Soham murder trial. I don't normally follow court cases, and, while I'm reasonably informed, I don't follow any individual news story this closely. Maybe it's just that this one is too close to comfortably ignore.
The short facts are this: two 10-year-old girls disappeared near their homes in a small town in England. Their bodies were found in a ditch on a country lane two weeks later, coincidentally on the same day a school caretaker and his girlfriend were arrested on suspicion. The evidence is largely circumstantial, but comprehensive and damning. I don't doubt that he did it, but I still want to know why he did it, how he did it, what on earth he was thinking. I hang on every detail of the case, because this is every parent's worst nightmare.
One tangential thing that struck me about this case is that some of the more important evidence is mobile phone records, and closed-circuit television records. The telephone logs were willingly (and correctly) handed over by BT, and CCTV seems to have made its way into every British town common. They truly live in a fish-bowl society, much more than we do, and the technology I'm working on helps enable that.
The other thing I noticed is the seeming prevalence of child abductions in Britain. I don't know if it's over-reported there, under-reported here, or just skewed by the fact that I get my news from the BBC. Possibly if I read cnn.com (gack), or watched CNN (double gack), I'd know more about the evil that Americans are capable of. But I don't want to. This is bad enough.
