Richard Webster's latest chapter is a model of determined, accurate, detailed journalism which only a few writers (Bob Woffinden is another) seem to bother with - the vast majority only obey the mantra "Is it a good story?" and have created this world of headline morality and social injustice.

Richard's key point is...

It is quite clear that, from the point of view of the police, the entire saga of the skull fragment and the protracted attempt to carbon date it, has been an extremely successful exercise in news management. In some respects it was even more than this; it was a great (if unintended) theatrical coup. It was certainly the discovery of this fragment, and its prompt promotion to the media by way of a press conference, which suddenly turned the Haut de la Garenne investigation from an obscure police inquiry into a global media phenomenon. This in turn has been used to justify expenditure on the investigation on a scale which is completely out of proportion to the evidence which has in fact been found.

What is most worrying is that the theatrical coup seems to have succeeded principally because the police launched it by making the untrue or misleading suggestion to the press that they had discovered the

What would we do without you JK ? Yawnnnnnnnnnn......