It was over a decade ago that someone new came into my life – a stalker. At first I didn’t know that that was what he was, but I soon became uncomfortable when I saw him following me about on campus, staring at me in the refectory, and turning up at my lectures, even though he was not enrolled on the course that I taught.
I’ve never needed to be convinced that miscarriages of justice happen in Scotland.
THERE’S a riddle that has perplexed philosophers since the time of the Greeks: what comes first, the chicken or the egg? As a criminologist, recent events in Moscow, Idaho, have made me think about something similar – what comes first, an interest in criminology, or the desire to kill?
The face and the voice of the 78-year-old man being filmed on a mobile phone on a flight from Nepal to France were eerily familiar. However, it was his quiet, resolute statement that he had “a lot of people to sue – including the state of Nepal” which was for me even more recognisable.
In early December Humberside Police published the mugshot of 36 year-old Robert Rimmer, who is wanted for various drugs-related offences in Yorkshire. People were warned not to approach Rimmer, who is bearded, tattooed and muscle-bound, but simply to report their sightings to the police, as he had previously been sentenced in 2013 to 5½ years in prison for repeatedly stabbing a man, in what the trial judge described as “an eruption of extreme violence”.
IT'S been hard to avoid discussing nurses over the last few weeks – quite apart from the fact that our daughter, who like many "twentysomethings" is still living at home, always wants to talk about her work as a nurse when she finishes her shift as a way of unwinding.
