Story Archive

Crime Wave

Twenty anonymous crime reports to Crimestoppers in Merseyside, England, resulted in an innocent man being stopped, searched, and questioned by police. Fifteen other reports were sent to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. When investigators realized the information was false, some good old-fashioned police work helped them trace the culprit: Colin Hughes — a sergeant and sometimes acting inspector for Merseyside Police. At least some of the time, he used a police computer to send the false reports. Hughes, 35 and a 12-year veteran of the department, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice, and forgery. The judge declared Hughes “brought disgrace on yourself and tarnished the reputation of Merseyside Police,” and sentenced him to 3-1/3 years in prison. What led to Hughes? He’s dyslexic, and his reports “bore the significant hallmarks of poor spelling and grammatical errors,” the prosecutor said, such as Hughes’s habit of randomly putting capital letters in the middle of words. Investigators simply recognized his style. It was not reported what his motivation was. (RC/BBC) ...bullYing.