I’m sure most people have an image of Shropshire as a quiet idyllic, backwater, where garden fetes and cats stuck up trees dominate, writes our News Blogger David Burrows.
One look at Thursday’s Shropshire Star will show that is not the case. Garry Harding has been jailed for 25 years for brutally killing two women and another trial continues over the death of father of two from Telford.
I’m not sure what this says about the way society is heading, if anything, but murder trials do seem to be more and more common in Shropshire.
I said when I began doing these blogs I would try to give an insight into how we worked as well as looking at some of the stories of the day.
From a newsroom point of view big cases like this mean a lot of last minute planning. In the Harding case, for example, sentencing was originally scheduled for 2pm, then brought forward to 12pm - which should have been in time for the majority of our editions - before being delayed until 12.30pm.
The court then broke for lunch at 1pm before the verdict finally came in at 2.45pm - just after the front page of our final edition had been sent for printing.
A lot of last minute changes - as well as phone calls to the circulation and production departments - meant we were able to get the verdict in.
Page one of the Last edition of Thursday’s Shropshire Star may not make easy reading, but as well as informing, I think it raises some interesting issues about the society we now find ourselves in.
- David Burrows is the Shropshire Star’s National News Editor.
- You can comment on his blog below.
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