Health and safety spell danger

Have you noticed that whenever there is an armed siege these days the police quickly seal off the area, surround the site with at least 20 marksmen, send for the trained negotiators and, um …wait until the victim is good and dead before they venture in to have a peek at what’s going on?

I expect that’s probably a gross oversimplification ‘ and one which will have police commanders up and down the country in an apoplexy of rage. But it has the ring of truth about it, doesn’t it?

I have been haunted by the case of Lorraine Whiting. She was the woman who bled to death while on the phone to an emergency operator. Her estranged husband had shot her in the legs. He had always promised to maim her if she left him. After shooting her, he shot himself. Lorraine Whiting then spent more than an hour on the phone pleading for someone to come and take her to hospital.