Latest news with #DCIMarkBellamy
Daily Mail
11 hours ago
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV: You have to admire the understaffed police solving this brutal gang killing
Two days into a murder investigation, DCI Mark Bellamy wasn't mincing his words: 'Looking around this room, there ain't enough staff, not for what we've got on. Far from it.' The head of Operation Columbia, the hunt for seven men suspected of the gang-related killing of a 23-year-old delivery worker, Bellamy could call on 45 detectives and forensics specialists. But the sheer speed and scale of the investigation left his team stretched thin. And this wasn't the Met, with immense reserves of manpower and equipment available if required. This was a police station in Shrewsbury, a medieval market town where even muggings are rare — though the local paper, the Shropshire Star, reports they've been having a nasty spate of bicycle thefts recently. Aurman Singh was in a DPD van delivering parcels to a quiet residential street when he was set upon by youths lying in wait. Footage from video doorbells captured the gang piling back into their two cars, some still brandishing weapons. The murder itself occured out of sight of the cameras, but statements from shocked witnesses left us in no doubt of the ferocity of the attack. Mr Singh suffered multiple stabbing and chopping wounds, including catastrophic head injuries from an axe and a golf club. Murder 24/7, a gripping six-part serial filmed by a camera crew shadowing the West Mercia Police force, followed the investigation from the moment a horrified onlooker called 999. One of the cars was found abandoned. The other was spotted an hour away in the West Midlands and, after a tense pursuit involving a helicopter and a dog unit, four suspects were arrested. All of them, like the victim, were named Singh. The police were efficient, calm and so evidently competent from the start that there was little doubt the other assailants would be tracked down. But as the backdrop to the crime was revealed, DCI Bellamy's fears about understaffing proved well-founded. Punjabi interpreters had to be called in before the men could be questioned. That gives suspects an advantage, fretted one detective: 'Sometimes they can understand some English, then they get it clarified through the interpreter. There's no rhythm to it, so you're not going in with quick questions. You're not making them think on their feet.' A possible motive began to emerge — vengeance following an outbreak of violence at a kabaddi match in Derby the previous day. Kabaddi, apparently, is a sort of touch-rugby, popular in India. The difficulties confronting this provincial police force were staggering: a bloodthirsty feud spilling over from a city 70 miles away, beginning with a game whose roots are 7,000 miles away, involving suspects who either can't or won't speak English. The documentary, which continues tonight, leaves me full of admiration for the Shrewsbury murder squad. But it's impossible to know how a town that struggles to prevent cycle thefts is supposed to cope with violence of this kind.
The Guardian
13 hours ago
- The Guardian
Murder 24/7 review – it feels so iffy watching brutal hour-by-hour death
In August 2023, delivery driver Aurman Singh was viciously attacked and killed by a group of eight men in Shrewsbury, suffering a traumatic head injury that led to his death. He had been struck with weapons including a golf club and an axe, before his mask-wearing assailants fled in two cars. One eyewitness – whose doorbell camera footage is analysed by police – says Singh's eyes were 'fixed open … it was like someone just pressed stop'. Singh's killing – dubbed 'The DPD Murder' by the programme-makers – was unusually callous and brutal, making for what lead investigator DCI Mark Bellamy describes as a 'beast of a job'. It also makes for compelling television, although you may well wonder whether you should be watching it all, in such harsh detail. As its title suggests, Murder 24/7 is wall-to-wall, hour-by-hour death, its six episodes a sobering experience, during which – in spite of the care it affords its cases – you can't help but feel voyeuristic. The first series – broadcast in 2020 – followed Essex police. This time we're embedded with West Mercia law enforcement, as they investigate cases including Singh's murder, which unfolds over two and a half episodes of this six-part series. By the end of the first, there are four men in custody, but only one – Arshdeep Singh (no relation to the deceased) – gives an account of the events leading up to Aurman's death. There is, of course, footage of their respective police questionings. But, the real selling point is that we also see DS Alex Sullivan – an interview specialist – watching remotely, working out what and when to tell the suspects. In this case, that means figuring out when to tell Arshdeep that they've got him bang to rights, as they have a video of him disposing of one of the murder weapons in a wheelie bin. The work that Bellamy and his 45-strong team do is long, painful, and clearly takes a toll (his face in particular is fixed in a permanent frown, and I am happy to learn online that he has since retired from the force). But it is also necessary; in episode two (which airs tomorrow, followed by episode three on Wednesday), a discovery by a member of the public, coupled with that relentless policing, leads to a big breakthrough in the Aurman Singh case. Still, it's wearying work: looking into Arshdeep's phone records alone leads to 141,000 pages of calls and messages (a decision is quickly made to just home in on messages from the days leading up to the attack). On the phone of another suspect, more critical evidence is found (or as one officer puts it: 'Jagdeep's in a bit of bother there, in't he?') However, while investigating murders is clearly an onerous job, I'm not sure we ever move past the surface of the investigations. Despite dedicating two-and-a-half hours to the Aurman Singh case, we don't ever get a sense of his killers' motivations; nor do we get a portrait of Aurman, the 23-year-old at the centre of it all. It's easy to call crime documentaries voyeuristic, but when you have such a strong sense of how somebody was killed – complete with 3D reconstructions of where the various murder weapons struck their skull – but no idea who they were, it's difficult to ignore. It's a criticism you can level at other cases in the series, too, such as that of an elderly man, Ivan, suspected of trying to kill himself and his son after his wife's death. We see the emotional price paid by Ivan, and by DC Tracy Ruff, who treats his case with rigour but also compassion. But we don't get a picture of the other two people involved: Ivan's wife, Maureen, or his son, Gavin. Keeping them off-camera makes sense: Maureen is dead, and Gavin is severely disabled and – we later learn – now in the care of social services. But, with that in mind, is this a story we need to bear witness to at all? Meanwhile, watching The Killer Son – about a man who killed his mother during a psychotic episode – may feel to many like gawking at a totally abject situation. The episodes that focus on a domestic abuser, Damian Homer, feel more complete. There, we hear from his former partner, Stacey Hill, and the focus shifts to the insidious nature of intimate partner violence – which ran concurrent to Stacey and Damian's happy faces on social media, and which led to the death of Stacey's mother, Wendy. But, too often, Murder 24/7 attempts to go deep only to end up somewhere shallow. We certainly see how well West Mercia police do their jobs. But, without more of the why, cases such as The Killer Son – or indeed The DPD Murder – feel like true-crime cliche. Murder 24/7 aired on BBC Two and is on iPlayer now.
