15st 8lb, 5.0 units. Early yesterday morning a lunatic recently released from Durham Gaol shot his former girlfriend, and murdered her new partner, on the outskirts of Newcastle. Some 24 hours later he followed this up by shooting a policeman who was sitting in his patrol car at the roundabout marking the junction between the A1 and A69. The Blame Game has already started, with the authorities at Durham letting it be known that they had warned Northumbria Police that the man they were releasing might intend serious harm to his former partner. Surely I cannot be the only person in the country thinking of the obvious follow-up question, “Why the hell did you let him out, then?”
I spent yesterday cheerily winding up Mrs H by telling her that the man concerned, the exotically named Raoul Moat, originally came from a hamlet about 800 yards from our Northumberland house, and that he would undoubtedly be heading back there to lie low. She did not see the funny side. Not one little bit. As we queued in the slow-moving traffic to pass under the still cordoned-off roundabout on our way back to Cheshire this afternoon, it did not take a genius to see that she was even happier than usual to be putting the North East well behind her.
The amazingly unlikely true story of how a grumpy old man and lifelong bachelor won the love of a beautiful young woman and started a family – and all by writing a curmudgeonly blog about his lonely journey to the grave.
Now who would have predicted that?
No comments:
Post a Comment