Empty properties targeted in cannabis crackdown
A new scheme aims to cut the number of illegal cannabis farms in Stoke-on-Trent by focusing on empty properties.
The city council and Staffordshire Police said they would target privately rented homes, commercial buildings and council properties.
They have encouraged the owners of these empty buildings to report anything suspicious and have warned of big fines for owners and tenants if a cannabis farm is found.
In the last three months, 21 "significant cannabis grows" were discovered, a city council spokesperson said.
Private landlords who knowingly allow cannabis grows in their properties have been told they could face criminal charges, while council tenants will see their tenancies terminated.
The city council said it believed criminal gangs were targeting empty buildings and warned they could be a fire hazard.
A spokesperson listed telltale signs that cannabis is being grown and said their housing teams would inspect high-risk properties, particularly those standing empty.
Staffordshire Police said the signs included:
A pungent smell
High levels of condensation on windows, even in the warmer months
Constantly covered or blacked-out windows
A high number of deliveries or large items being taken in or out
A constant buzz of ventilation
Strong, constant lighting day and night
Lots of power cables
Unsociable comings and goings
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Large cannabis farm uncovered in town centre
Cannabis with street value of £2.4m discovered
Buyer checks pledge after site became cannabis farm
Three arrests over city centre cannabis farm
Staffordshire Police
Stoke on Trent City Council
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Eisner is a cocreator and project leader of Medieval Murder Maps, an interactive digital resource that collects cases of homicide and other sudden or suspicious deaths in 14th century London, Oxford and York. Launched by Cambridge in 2018, the project translates reports from coroners' rolls — records written by medieval coroners in Latin noting the details and motives of crimes, based on the deliberation of a local jury. Jurors would listen to witnesses, examine evidence and then name a suspect. In the case of Forde's murder, the coroner's roll stated that Fitzpayne and Forde had quarreled, and that she persuaded four men — her brother, two servants and a chaplain — to kill him. On that fateful evening, as the chaplain approached Forde in the street and distracted him with conversation, his accomplices struck. Fitzpayne's brother slit his throat, and the servants stabbed Forde in the belly. Only one of the assailants, a servant named Hugh Colne, was charged in the case and imprisoned at Newgate in 1342. 'I was initially fascinated by the text in the coroner's record,' Eisner told CNN in an email, describing the events as 'a dream-like scene that we can see through hundreds of years.' The report left Eisner wanting to learn more. 'One would love to know what the members of the investigative jury discussed,' he said. 'One wonders about how and why 'Ela' convinces four men to kill a priest, and what the nature of this old quarrel between her and John Forde might have been. That's what led me to examine this further.' Eisner tracked down the archbishop's letter in a 2013 dissertation by medieval historian and author Helen Matthews. The archbishop's accusation assigned severe punishments and public penance to Fitzpayne, such as donating large sums of money to the poor, abstaining from wearing gold or precious gems, and walking in her bare feet down the length of Salisbury Cathedral toward the altar, carrying a wax candle that weighed about four pounds. She was ordered to perform this so-called walk of shame every fall for seven years. Though she seemingly defied the archbishop and never performed the penance, the humiliation 'may have triggered her thirst for revenge,' the study authors wrote. The second clue that Eisner unearthed was a decade older than the letter: a 1322 investigation of Forde and Fitzpayne by a royal commission, following a complaint filed by a French Benedictine priory near the Fitzpayne castle. The report was translated and published in 1897 but had not yet been connected to Forde's murder at that point. 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One Oxford record describes 'scholars on a rampage with bows, swords, bucklers, slings and stones.' Another mentions an altercation that began as an argument in a tavern, then escalated to a mass street brawl involving blades and battle-axes. But even though medieval England was a violent period, 'this absolutely does NOT mean that people did not care about violence,' Skoda said. 'In a legal context, in a political context, and in communities more widely, people were really concerned and distressed about high levels of violence.' The Medieval Murder Maps project 'provides fascinating insights into the ways in which people carried out violence, but also into the ways in which people worried about it,' Skoda said. 'They reported, investigated and prosecuted, and really relied on law.' Fitzpayne's tangled web of adultery, extortion and assassination also reveals that despite social constraints, some women in late medieval London still had agency — especially where murder was concerned. 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