March 31, 2026
“I have lived with the case for more than three decades. I have since written hundreds of thousands of words on a variety of subjects, but I don’t suppose more than a day or two has ever passed when I have not thought about it.”
March 24, 2026
“Although he has complained bitterly about the CCRC, it represents Bamber’s only hope of freedom. He continues to claim his sister, Sheila shot the family and then herself. In his version, he was not there at the scene and played no part in what happened. He only called the police, he said, (thought notably not himself using 999), because his father called him from the farm, to say his sister had “gone berserk with a gun”. The only evidence that call happened is the testimony of Bamber himself.”
March 17, 2026
“I do not know if Lucy Letby is (a) innocent or (b) the victim of a miscarriage of justice, but I do believe it will not be as easy to overturn her convictions as a lot of pro-Letby Twitter/X posters and others seem to think. The hurdles are high and many. Not least, the fact of her convictions. A jury heard all the evidence and reached its verdicts. Convictions can of course be quashed, but that is not meant to be – and indeed, is not – an easy process.”
On the cover of The Sunday Times Magazine…
The Sleep Of Reason – The James Bulger Case by David James Smith:
Faber Finds edition with new preface, available September 15th, 2011.
Young Mandela the movie – in development.
From The Guardian
Read the article
In the Diary column of The Independent, April 13th, 2011
More on my previously unsubstantiated claim that the writer-director Peter Kosminsky, creator of The Promise, is working on a drama about Nelson Mandela. I’ve now learnt that the project is a feature film, in development with Film 4, about the young Mandela. Kosminsky is currently at work on the script and, given the complaints about the anti-Jewish bias of The Promise, it is unlikely to be a standard bland portrait of the former South African president.
Nelson Mandela was circumcised as a 16-year-old boy alongside a flowing river in the Eastern Cape. The ceremony was similar to those of other Bantu peoples. An elder moved through the line making ring-like cuts, and foreskins fell away. The boys could not so much as blink; it was a rite of passage that took you beyond pain. read full review
Jon Venables: What Went Wrong
BBC 1, 10.35
Thursday, April 21st, 2011
