Latest news with #Crimewatch
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
City's Crimewatch site doomed by complaints
A Meadville Police Department website that had succeeded in its mission to enhance community engagement and help combat crime will be discontinued, the department announced Tuesday. Participation in Crimewatch comes to an end on Sunday, about 20 months after it was launched, and the end comes largely due to objections to the police blotter-style accounts of the department's arrests. The negative feedback persisted even after a deliberate shift in tone when concerns were aired during a Meadville City Council meeting in March, according to Chief Michael Stefanucci. Where the posts had sometimes taken a tongue-in-cheek approach to arrests and charges being reported, after that point there 'was less humor in them and just factual information,' he said. 'We still continued to get complaints of — 'We don't want our business or our nonprofit's name in there because that makes us look bad,' or 'Hey, I know that guy, he's a good guy, you shouldn't have put his name in there,' 'Hey, that person has mental health (issues), you shouldn't have put them in there,'' Stefanucci added. 'It just seems to be nonstop. Everybody has a reason not to want somebody in there or their business in there.' Like Stefanucci, City Manager Maryann Menanno pointed to 'relatively consistent complaints' in explaining the decision to end the city's subscription to the Crimewatch website. 'The cost of the subscription at this point isn't outweighing the amount of complaints we've had about it,' she said. Launched in October 2023, the Crimewatch site at cost the city $2,500 annually. It currently has 2,209 subscribers and has attracted nearly 51,000 page views this year. The city could continue to maintain the website without posting blotter entry accounts of police activity, but doing so wouldn't be worth the cost, according to Stefanucci, since it was the blotter entries that were responsible for the web traffic. 'If we're not posting the stories and the arrests, nobody's interested,' he said. 'When we started posting arrests that were made, misdemeanor and above only, we were picking up subscribers and page views — it was times ten. The numbers picked up insanely.' Finding the right balance between accounts that are both useful and unobjectionable would require more staff time than is feasible, according to Menanno. In addition to the arrest descriptions, the website offers visitors a chance to submit anonymous tips, register the location of their security cameras, pay parking fees, find other resources and more. Stefanucci said hundreds of tips had been received through the site and many had contributed to arrests. Most recently, Crimewatch tips had helped lead police to the arrest of four youths accused of assaulting another boy in an afterschool incident in Shadybrook Park. Other useful tips ranged from parents reporting where their underage children had been sold vaping products to numerous tips on the locations of people who had arrest warrants outstanding. One recent tip about a person with an outstanding warrant not only included the person's current location but also a picture of the person at that location, Stefanucci said. Another tip recently contributed to locating the whereabouts of a missing juvenile. Residents can still submit tips, the chief noted, but will have to call in to the department's dispatch desk at (814) 724-6100. Menanno acknowledged the appeal of increased anonymity through online tips, but said potential tipsters could still withhold their names or even mask their phone numbers if they called the department. Concerns about the Crimewatch site first became public in March when city resident John Hartnett addressed City Council after seeing a social media post that commented positively on the 'sense of funny' evident in the site's recent posts. While Hartnett commended the city for its effort at transparency, he questioned whether the seemingly cavalier attitude toward crime was fitting for a government site, especially since the people being identified on the site had not yet been convicted of the charges that were being reported. 'The statements seem kind of prejudicial, kind of stigmatizing,' Hartnett told council at the time. 'These narratives aren't becoming, I think, of something published by the city.' One account posted in late February, eight days before Hartnett addressed council, reported on a woman charged with misdemeanor counts of open lewdness and indecent exposure and a summary count of disorderly conduct. 'No happy meal for you,' the post began. 'With the recent nice weather we have had it seems to draw people out of the woodwork.' The post went on to describe how the woman allegedly opened her shirt to expose her sports bra to staff members behind the counter at Wendy's. 'As she left the restaurant,' the post continued, 'she pulled her shirt off and pulled down her pants to expose her buttocks and genitals to paying customers who probably did not have that on their 'things to see list' for the day.' Hartnett was happy to hear Tuesday that the site would be discontinued. Only a few days ago, he said, he had followed up on his address to council by meeting with Stefanucci and introducing him to a person who had been featured on the website. 'The article was not very nice,' Hartnett said. 'There's extenuating circumstances to every one of these stories, and we really need to humanize our neighbors that get involved in the criminal justice system rather than stigmatize them.'
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Yahoo
‘Beast of Birkenhead' moniker came after murder that shocked community
Peter Sullivan was dubbed the 'Beast of Birkenhead' after the murder of Diane Sindall sent shockwaves through a community. Mr Sullivan, who spent 38 years in prison, was jailed in 1987 for killing the 21-year-old. Miss Sindall, a florist who was working part-time as a barmaid while she saved up for her wedding, was raped and brutally murdered as she walked along Borough Road in Birkenhead, Wirral, in the early hours of August 2 1986. Mr Sullivan was convicted of her murder the following year and bite marks found on her body, used as part of the case against him, led to him being called the 'Beast of Birkenhead', the 'Wolfman' and the 'Mersey Ripper'. Speaking outside court after his conviction was quashed, Mr Sullivan's sister Kim Smith said: 'Peter was called so many different names and that all needs to be squashed now because Peter was never anything of what he was being called in the first place.' The murder became a 'catalyst for action' for women, who set up Wirral Rape Crisis Counselling Service in its aftermath, which still operates today as Rape and Sexual Abuse Support (RASA) Merseyside. According to the service, it was after Miss Sindall's death that it was decided 'enough was enough'. The charity said: 'With local women angry at the nature of Diane's death and how easily it could have been prevented, a change in attitude and the very first 'Reclaim the Night' march in Liverpool presented the perfect opportunity to strike. Police said Miss Sindall suffered extensive injuries in the attack, with her cause of death established as a cerebral haemorrhage following multiple blows. The high-profile crime was featured on Crimewatch in the weeks after her murder. On Tuesday, Merseyside Police found itself again appealing for help to find the man who killed her. Detective Chief Superintendent Karen Jaundrill said: 'Diane's murder sent shockwaves through Birkenhead when it happened and I would appeal to anyone who lived in the area at the time, and has any information which could help us with our inquiries, to come forward.'
BBC News
13-05-2025
- BBC News
Who is Peter Sullivan and why was he jailed?
Peter Sullivan has been in jail for 37 years in what is believed to be the biggest miscarriage of justice in British murder of 21-year-old Diane Sindall in Birkenhead in 1986 sparked the biggest manhunt Merseyside had ever seen. But Sullivan, now 68, and his defence team have long insisted the police got the wrong man. The BBC's archives from the mid 1980s and court documents help piece together what happened before Sullivan was jailed for life for a crime someone else committed. Who was Diane Sindall? Ms Sindall was well-known in her hometown of Seacombe in Wirral. Her family ran a well-known floristry business, and she could often be seen driving her blue van around, delivering flowers. In 1986 Ms Sindall was trying to save money to get married the following year, so worked behind the bar at the Wellington pub in Bebington, five miles south of Seacombe. She was working at the Wellington on 1 August 1986, the last night she was seen alive. What happened on the night she was murdered? Ms Sindall set off from the Wellington to drive home at about 23:45 BST. She left her van in the middle of Birkenhead after it ran out of petrol, and started walking along the busy and well-lit main route of Borough sequence of events that led to Ms Sindall's death was reconstructed by the BBC's Crimewatch a few weeks later.A taxi driver told Crimewatch that he saw a man and a woman arguing at about 00:10 on Borough Road."The fellow put his hand out towards the girl. They appeared to know each other but they were definitely arguing", he reported hearing screams between 00:30 and 02:00 - the time when Ms Sindall is thought to have encountered the man who attacked half-naked body was found in an alleyway off Borough Road by a dog walker the next had a fractured skull, facial lacerations and bruising, mutilated breasts and lacerated genitals, according to court documents seen by the was thought Ms Sindall had remained alive for some time after the attack, but she died from a brain haemorrhage thought to have been caused by multiple blows to the head.A pathologist who examined Ms Sindall's body later said in court her injuries were "the very worst" he had ever seen on a body "outside of a road traffic accident". How did the police try to catch the killer? Merseyside Police spoke to 3,000 people as part of its attack caused shock, revulsion and anxiety, especially among women and girls."Girls were afraid to be on the streets alone", said former Liverpool Echo journalist John Thompson, who covered the case at the time."Fathers, boyfriends, brothers and husbands would pick women up from work and tell them not to leave the premises until they were right outside the door," he said."There was real terror," he added, because Ms Sindall's murder was "different - it was horrific"."[There was] someone was on the streets of Merseyside who was a real danger to women, who needed to be caught".The attack led to area's first Reclaim the Night march across the River Mersey. The movement had been set up in Leeds in 1977, during Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe's killing spree, as response to police advise that women should stay indoors. "It was the sheer normality of it that was so scary, because any of us could have just run out of petrol and been walking along the road", said Josephine Wood from RASA Merseyside, a charity that supports victims of rape and sexual assault founded in the aftermath of Miss Sindall's one point, detectives were said to be considering interviewing every man in for weeks they appeared to have no leads, and no clue about how Ms Sindall had ended up in the alleyway, because nobody saw the attack take place. Why was Peter Sullivan jailed? The day after Ms Sindall's murder some of her clothes were found burning in a small fire on nearby Bidston Hill, and a passing couple told police they saw a man, running out of bushes, whom they recognised as "Pete".But they failed to pick him out of an identity witnesses to the fire contacted the police after the Crimewatch reconstruction, and their descriptions of the man they saw prompted the police to go back to was arrested for murder on 23 September after he gave officers a number of "completely different" accounts of his next day, court documents show Sullivan broke down in tears under questioning and "confessed" to the withdrew the apparent confession later that day, but reinstated it soon had not been given access to legal advice by that point. It had been withheld on the grounds that it would have caused a "hindrance to the enquiry".When he was given access to a solicitor on 25 September, he retracted his confessions and told police he had made them trial in 1987 was told about his apparent confessions, as well as claims from dental experts that bite marks on Ms Sindall's body could be matched to Mr Sullivan's the night Sullivan was jailed for life for murder, BBC North West Tonight reported how he stood silently in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court, while his mother broke down and screamed, and his sister fainted and had to be Sullivan was sentenced, Det Supt Tom Baxter told the BBC Sullivan "wasn't an excitable person", adding "he seemed to be a quiet sort of fellow - but what is the type of person that commit these murders?"Mr Sullivan was then condemned to be known for the rest of his life by the names he had been given by some of the tabloid newspapers - "the Beast of Birkenhead" and "the Mersey Ripper". What about the real killer? Ms Sindall's killer has not been unsuccessful appeal hearing in 2019 heard various criticisms of the police investigation and the 1987 year it was announced new forensic testing of a semen sample from the scene had revealed a DNA profile which did not match Mr Sullivan - but officers have not been able to identify the person it does February, Merseyside Police said it had reopened its investigation into Ms Sindall's murder, and had sent letters to people identified in 1986 asking them to voluntarily submit DNA samples so they could be "eliminated" from their Dr Harry Wood said his assessment of Sullivan had highlighted his "limited intellectual capacity" and "suggestibility", which he said should have led to concerns about his answers in interviews and his apparent also said that in the present day Mr Sullivan would have been accompanied by a solicitor in his interviews and probably an "appropriate adult" who would have the task of safeguarding the interests of a vulnerable dentist Prof Iain Pretty also criticised the claims made in the trial which linked bite marks to Mr Sullivan's is now renewed concern on Merseyside that a murderer has remained at large and unpunished for close to 40 years. In Birkenhead, fresh flowers and small notes are still left at a small black granite memorial to her close to the scene of the attack on Borough states Ms Sindall was murdered "because she was a woman". Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Yahoo
Woman shot in overnight incident in Harrisburg; police investigating
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — Police are investigating after a woman was shot in Harrisburg early Saturday morning. According to Harrisburg Police, officers were called to the area of North 2nd and Pine Streets for a report of shots fired with an individual struck. There, an adult woman had a gunshot wound and was taken to an area hospital for treatment. Download the abc27 News+ app on your Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick, and Apple TV devices Anyone with information is asked to call Harrisburg Police at 717-558-6900 or submit a tip via Crimewatch. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Metro
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
BBC presenter, 40, announces pregnancy after ‘emotional' fertility struggle
A BBC presenter announced her pregnancy live on air after admitting she had gone through an 'emotional' struggle with infertility. Michelle Ackerley, 40, has presented shows such as Crimewatch, The One Show and Watchdog. Currently, she is presenting on BBC One's Morning Live show and was seen today alongside co-host Gethin Jones, 47. After being introduced by Jones, he told viewers at home that she had 'some news'. Ackerley responded: 'I have actually, yes. I know I still can't quite believe it myself, really, very, very happy. 'It's just come out slowly but surely. I am four months pregnant.' To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The news caused guests on the show to smile and clap as they gave their congratulations. Ackerley went on to explain how she had been 'waking up in the middle of the night at 3am' and she would nudge her husband to say this is 'what we've got to get used to, no sleep'. Last year, the presenter married Ben Ryan, who is a performance director at Premier League football team Brentford. Ryan formerly coached the England Rugby 7's team as well as Fiji, which he helped win a gold medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Writing on Instagram, Ackerley said: '[I] can't believe it's nearly been a year since getting married.' She also added that she is 'nervous' but is cautiously excited. In a full post she said: 'I wanted to share though as my journey with endometriosis and infertility is something I finally felt confident to start speaking about more openly last year – realising how many other women were going through similar experiences. 'Feeling part of a community – especially when it comes to women's health – can really make a difference. 'Even at the very start of this year, I was gearing up for yet another endo[metriosis] procedure and trying to come to terms with the mental and physical impact they can have. It has been quite the emotional rollercoaster. The news of falling pregnant really came as a massive surprise to both of us. We still can't quite believe it.' Endometriosisis a debilitating chronic condition that causes painful or heavy periods. More Trending It often affects the ovaries, fallopian tubes and the tissue lining the pelvis. Most times, tissue that is similar to the inner lining of the uterus grows outside of it. It is said that the condition can decrease a person's quality of life due to severe pain, fatigue, depression, anxiety and infertility, according to the World Health Organisation. View More » For more information about endometriosis, visit the WHO here. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: This is what happens to your body when you have babies in quick succession MORE: TV star dubbed 'everyone's childhood crush in the 80s' becomes a granny MORE: How to watch 'one of the most important movies' in David Attenborough's career
