Blair Blames Crime Wave on Black Culture

(NEWSER) - A gang of young British toughs armed with snakes used a python to bite a teen they pinned to a wall, reports the Guardian. The 14-year-old boy is recovering with two puncture wounds in his hand. He suffered breathing difficulties, but paramedics say that was due to panic and not to any venom from the snake, which they believe was a python, based on the boy's description and consultation with the Bristol zoo. Police are hunting for the gang. More»

Man snagged in police sting draws 10-month suspended sentence

(NEWSER) - A UK man who confessed to trying to pick up a prostitute for his teenage son has been sentenced to 10 months in prison but won't serve time, the Daily Mail reports. The 42-year-old visited Nottingham's red-light district last year on a quest to help his son, 14, lose his virginity—but the woman he tried to hire was an undercover cop. More»

Security camera confusion leads to hilarious pursuit

(NEWSER) - For 20 minutes, an undercover British police officer intrepidly tracked a suspicious person in an area recently hit with a spate of burglaries. Unfortunately, the officer was chasing himself. How? An operator watching the street via security camera alerted the plain-clothes officer of a suspicious person in the area—not realizing it was, in fact, the cop, explains the Telegraph . The camera operator began relaying the whereabouts of the "suspect" so the officer could nab him. More»

Detective creates composite photo of German suspect

(NEWSER) - It's more than a century too late to show it to witnesses, but the first photo of a prime Jack the Ripper suspect has emerged. Trevor Marriott, a British homicide detective who went on the trail of the Ripper after retiring, created the composite photo from descriptions of German merchant Carl Feigenbaum, whom he believes was behind the 1888 murders in London's East End, the BBC reports. Feigenbaum was executed in New York's Sing Sing prison in 1894 for the murder of his landlady and his own lawyer believed he was the Ripper. More»

Danilo Restivo a suspect in several similar killings

(NEWSER) - An Italian who committed a bizarre hair ritual murder has been convicted by a British court of killing a young mother of two, and may be responsible for several similar deaths. Danilo Restivo will be sent today to prison for life for killing neighbor Heather Barnett nine years ago in England. He mutilated her body and stuffed a hank of hair he hacked from her head in one of her hands, and the hair of another woman in her other hand. He's now a suspect in another murder of one of his neighbors in Bournemouth and that of a 16-year-old Italian girl, whose body was discovered just last year hidden in a church and clutching a clump of her own hair. He also faces questioning in similar murders in southern France and Spain, reports the Guardian . More»