#east of england

[tony-shelley-diarist]

I still like to travel a little, but nothing like I used too. These days it’s mostly in the UK, and these images from London and the east of England, are typical of what I do today. Quick fire snapping, not necessarily in focus, it doesn’t matter, I’m still looking and learning at the age of 71.

[kvetch19]

[thecrimecrypt]

Crimes That Shook Britain (East England)

Joanna Dennehy Joanna Dennehy grew up in a loving home. But, at 16, she left, got into drink and drugs and lived in a violent fantasy world.  In March 2013, she launched a two-week killing spree, murdering men ‘for fun’. She lured Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, to her Peterborough flat with suggestive texts, stabbed him and dumped his body. 

Ten days on, she stabbed housemate, John Chapman, 56. Next, she killed her landlord Kevin Lee, 48. He was found in a ditch in a sequined dress. Days later, she stabbed two men at random. Both survived. When arrested, Dennehy laughed, danced around the police station, and was later diagnosed with psychopathic antisocial personality disorder. 

Dennehy, 31, pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, and two of attempted murder. She received a whole-life sentence.  

Suffolk Strangler  Late in 2006, sex workers began disappearing - Tania Nicol, Gemma Adams, Annell Alderton, Annette Nicholls and Paula Clennell - after being picked up from the Ipswich red-light district. 

Their naked bodies were found in remote locations.  Police tracked the murders back to Steve Wright. He’d drop his partner at work, then trawl the red-light district for small, slight prostitutes. After having sex with them, he’d kill them, dump their bodies, then go home, get changed, and go to work. 

Convicted of the five murders, he got a whole-life sentence. His repeated appeals have been unsuccessful. 

Tony Martin  In August 1999, Fred Barras, 16, and Brendon Fearon, 28, broke into Tony Martin’s Norfolk property. 

Martin had trouble with burglars before. Arming himself with an unlicensed pump-action shotgun, he fired at the intruders as they fled.  Both had leg wounds, but Barras was shot in the back and died. 

Martin was tried for murder but claimed self-defense. He was convicted, jailed for life. The case provoked debate over rights to defend property.  On appeal, Martin’s defense claimed he was suffering paranoia, particularly regarding burglars, when he killed Barras. 

Martin’s conviction was reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and he was released after three years. 

Soham Murders The photo made headlines worldwide in August 2002.  Smiling best friends, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both 10, in matching Man Utd football shirts. 

Shortly after the photo was taken, the schoolgirls had left a family barbecue to buy sweets and vanished.  Their bodies were found nearly two weeks later in a ditch near RAF Lakenheath, 12 miles from their homes in Soham. 

School caretaker Ian Huntley, who’d given several TV interviews during the search, was arrested.  He’d lured the girls into his house as they walked by and murdered them, before disposing of their bodies. 

He was jailed for life.  His girlfriend - the girls’ teaching assistant Maxine Carr - was jailed for perverting the course of justice after initially giving Huntley a false alibi. She was released in 2004. 

Murder of Emma Ward Emma Ward’s family contacted police in May 2010, concerned for her safety. Her husband Nicky Ward claimed that weeks earlier she’d left him a note saying she was leaving him for another man - but there was no trace of the note. 

Detectives found rubbish bags in the garden containing Emma’s passports, birth certificate and driving license. Ward was arrested.  Forensics found bloodstains in the bedroom, on the landing, on a picture frame and pillowcase. Traces of Emma’s blood were in the bathroom, and on an electric saw. 

Ward was charged with murdering his wife in the bedroom of their Norfolk home because she was about to leave him, and dismembering her body in the bath with a chainsaw.  Her remains have never been found, but Ward was convicted, jailed for life. 

Jeremy Bamber At 3:30am on 7 August 1985, Jeremy Bamber called the police claiming his father had phoned, said his sister Sheila had ‘gone beserk’ with his rifle.  At his adoptive parents’ house in Malden, police found Bamber’s parents Neville and June, plus Sheila and her twins Nicholas and Daniel, 6, shot dead, the gun by Sheila’s side. Murder-suicide? 

But Bamber’s girlfriend told police he’d confessed plans to hire a hitman to kill the family.  And a blood-flecked silencer was found at the house.  Bamber was convicted of killing his family to inherit their fortune. He received a whole-life sentence, but still protests his innocence. 

[rowanleaves]

[galina]

An unassuming, almost missable entrance to The Rookery, a historic east London hotel, just a brass name plate and a small buzzer

[wgm-beautiful-world]

Herstmonceux Castle - ENGLAND

[wolfsteax]

old town halloween

[huariqueje]

Summer at Great Dixter - Francis Hamel ,  2023.

British , b. 1963 -

Oil on linen , 18. x 14 in. 46 x 35.5 cm.

[cycles-seasons]

[allthingseurope]

East Witton, England (by Mike.Dales)

[tony-shelley-diarist]

Diptych using the Tintype app on my iPhone 12, the view from our front window, through net curtains.

[kvetch19]

[peacefulandcozy]

Instagram credit: aquietdiary

[rowanleaves]

[vox-anglosphere]

Like York Minster, Lincoln Cathedral also has a Great East Window