31 August 2002

In Manchester, a friend at university there tells me, a new word has entered smart parlance among the young. The word is ‘raped’. The expression is moderately strong, and casual. It is a way of saying that one has in some way been done over, done for, or done in. ‘I was completely raped,’ a

The very name of Soham induces a strange mixture of disgust, boredom and pity. I return to it with reluctance. But we have to consider the conduct of the media, and in particular the criticisms made about the press by the Cambridgeshire coroner, David Morris, and by the Cambridgeshire police. I’m certainly not going to