OPINION: CSI Rochdale

“In the dime stores and bus stations, people talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations, draw conclusions on the wall. “ Bob Dylan.

The events that took place in Rochdale town centre in the early hours of Sunday morning were, by anyone’s standards, truly shocking. I viewed the aftermath of the drama with a strange mixture of fascination and revulsion and watched the news feeds on Rochdale Online and in the national radio, TV and press.

Watching the Scenes of Crime Officers in their sterile forensic garb collecting evidence throughout the day, I was struck by a curious thought. Did we really need to spend vast amounts of public money identifying possible culprits? Certainly looking around online, everyone seemed to have an opinion about who perpetrated this foul deed and why.

In fact, reading around peoples various views and opinions, it becomes possible to build up a ‘complete’ psychological profile of the perpetrator(s) even before the injured had all received their treatment!

Most people seemed to agree that they were drunken, drug-dealing benefit claimants from variously Bacup, Rochdale and Salford. They had been thrown out of the club after a drunken fight or refused entry depending which version of ‘the truth’ you preferred. They were also indigenous white locals, Asians or members of the travelling community. They were rich kids driving around in an expensive Saab or they were scrotes driving a car stolen in Manchester earlier in the day.

Of course, some of these facts may be true but certainly all of them can’t be. Thank God for the men and women in the forensic SOC suits who painstakingly gather evidence and take photographs and scientific measurements at the scene.

Jumping to conclusions in this way is not only unhelpful, it can also be dangerous. In the past people have been attacked and even killed because they have been wrongly labelled as perpetrators by the woolly-minded or downright malicious. I for one am content to let the professionals handle this one. After all, we do pay a lot on our Council Tax bill for the police service.

There have also been the usual calls to ban late night drinking. So what is going to take its place; unlicensed shebeens? Surely the example of the prohibition era in the US points out the direction that such a policy could lead us in?

I for one am content to let things run their course. If the perpetrator(s) are apprehended and convicted of acting maliciously, whether or not under the influence of drink or drugs, then I would wish to see them dealt with severely and possibly as a case of attempted murder.

Historically, crimes involving the injury of persons in which the weapon of choice has been a motor vehicle have been dealt with far more leniently than if the weapon had been a gun or a knife. This makes no logical sense.

Apart from the terrible impact that this event must have had on the victims and their families, it seems that Rochdale is in the news again for all the wrong reasons. That to me is the saddest part.