Don’t have nightmares over crimes (From Worcester News)

Don’t have nightmares over crimes

8:57am Tuesday 31st January 2012 in Fair Point By Alicia Kelly, @aliciakellyWN #worcsnews

ANYONE watching last week’s episode of Crimewatch could have been forgiven for wondering why they had not heard of this most dreadful hotspot of crime – Worcestershire.

The programme featured not just bad news about our county – but the worst.

There was a disturbing reconstruction of the death of Andrew Heath, a Warndon man who died after a wheelie bin was rolled up to his front door and set it alight, effectively cutting off his only escape route.

Watching the scenes were particularly shocking because it hammered home the rather chilling fact that he knew he was trapped in a burning flat in the last minutes of his life – surely everyone’s worst nightmare.

The programme also featured the death of Betty Yates, an elderly woman who was found beaten and stabbed in her own home in Bewdley (of all places).

Again, not just a horrible crime but a chilling one too as the attacker or attackers appear to have coolly locked the front door behind them with Betty’s own keys.

Finally there was mention of John Anslow, a man charged with murder who was sprung from a prison van in Redditch before apparently disappearing without trace.

Murder, arson attacks, escaped prisoners? And all – so far – unsolved.

If I lived elsewhere in the country, I would probably have considered striking a thick, black line through Worcestershire on my list of nice places to visit.

Yet those of us who do live here know that this is unusual – the equivalent of waiting an eternity for a bus and then having three come along at once.

This run of bad luck – or rather just badness – is a bit unsettling.

It’s a nasty reminder that horrible things can happen to people even when they live in pretty riverside cottages or unremarkable city flats.

It can happen on our doorsteps as well as in faraway dangerous places.

But it must be worth remembering that, in Worcestershire, serious crimes like these are few and far between.

In fact, the number of murders I can remember in my time as a journalist probably doesn’t even run to double figures and many were solved quickly. Hopefully these will soon be too.

A former presenter of Crimewatch used to sign off the programme with the words “don’t have nightmares.”

Maybe they still should.