Manchester Victoria

Late last night, it was announced by Greater Manchester Police that a twenty-five year old man arrested in connection with the New Year’s Eve stabbings at Victoria station had been ‘sectioned’ under the Mental Health Act and that the investigation was ongoing. Within five minutes, literally, social media was full of comment – much of […]

Stress-Testing Contingencies

About a decade ago, I was pottering about as the duty inspector in south Birmingham when a full-scale police mobilisation of public order units was ordered. This involves having to get together a sergeant and seven constables on to van, all of them ‘level two trained’ in public order tactics – riot police, to you […]

Mental Health v Criminal Justice

It’s all too often a contest, of sorts – or perhaps a stand-off?! … two massive paradigms of state intervention, constituted and resourced for a certain set of separate public purposes, governed by separate laws that were (substantively) written around the same time, in the early 80s; and yet in so many important respects, they […]