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The best student writing ... Autumn 2018

The www.KettleMag.co.uk
best student writing online and in print... KettleMag 1
 How to report
on a murder
investigation
Andy Robinson
When I got into work on a day back
in July, I was honestly hoping for a
bit of a quiet day. It was my first day
back on the digital team at Kent Live
after spending a month working
solely on print stories for our
newspapers. Don’t get me wrong, I
wasn’t slacking while writing about
a planning application for a church
to be turned into a block of flats, but
it doesn’t quite match the intensity
of a breaking news story.
On our website, we use live blogs to
cover all breaking news stories, so
when I found out an air ambulance
had landed at a nearby Tunbridge
Wells school that morning, I
promptly set one up. I knew
very little detail. Then someone
messaged our Facebook inbox
asking why a road was closed off. I
realised that if a helicopter was to
attend an incident there, the only
place it could possibly land would
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be at the school.
Putting two and two together, I
sent over an email to Kent Police
asking about what was going on in
the road and why an air ambulance
had landed. Police confirmed they
were there but gave me very little
detail as to why, which caught my
curiosity.
Another message had come
through, this time with a picture.
It showed rows of houses behind
a road block, multiple police cars,
and even a police van. This was
big - especially for Tunbridge
Wells. I got the all-clear to go down
there myself, which was when I
realised the true extent of what
had happened. The police cordon
stretched a good 100 metres and
incorporated at least 20 houses,
with police officers trawling the
area back and forth.
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I started taking videos and pictures name, address and picture of the

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of the scene, and sent them all back victim. Finally, some regulars
to my colleague to write a story. I confirmed this was the man who
still didn’t know what was going had been stabbed to death and they
on and neither did anyone I spoke were devastated by the news.
to. Residents outside the cordon
were too far away to know what We had the ID, so we could run
happened apart from apparently the “named locally” story before
hearing shouting. anyone else did. I was absolutely
knackered, but I was told not to
I was sending all my news from leave the scene until all possibilities
the scene back to the office via our were exhausted, so I went round all
WhatsApp group chat, and it was the houses again asking for tributes
here I received the all-important to the victim. I was constantly told
message. “ANDY, IT’S A MURDER he was a man “who liked to keep
INVESTIGATION!”. himself to himself”
The penny had We already had the but I managed to
dropped. This was murder accused’s age get three people to
massive. Nothing and a quick Facebook talk. Someone even
like this happens in search of the name told me the name
what the nationals of the man who
call a “leafy Kent
brought up a match. I had been arrested
town”. So I worked went back to the road on suspicion of the
out the house the next morning to find murder.
number and used an ID - this time for the
a database to see suspect - and I got it, so We already had the
who lived there. murder accused’s
we could run his picture age, and a quick
We knew someone when he was charged. Facebook search of
had died but the name brought
who? This was the hardest part. I up a match. I went back to the road
searched the name that popped up the next morning to find an ID - this
in the database on Facebook and time for the suspect - and I got it,
managed to find someone with a so we could run his picture when he
matching name and age from the was charged. While our competitors
area. Was this him? By this point, I and the nationals were all at the
had already knocked on quite a few scene, I got everything first and
doors, but no one seemed to know owned the story as it evolved from
anything about what happened, a mere air ambulance landing to
and it was actually our stories one of the biggest stories of the year
which were supplying them with in our area.
information.

I went down to a pub with a potential

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