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Two days into a murder investigation, DCI Mark Bellamy wasn’t mincing his words: ‘Looking around this room, there ain’t enough staff, not for what we’ve got on. Far from it.’
The head of Operation Columbia, the hunt for seven men suspected of the gang-related killing of a 23-year-old delivery worker, Bellamy could call on 45 detectives and forensics specialists.
But the sheer speed and scale of the investigation left his team stretched thin. And this wasn’t the Met, with immense reserves of manpower and equipment available if required.
This was a police station in Shrewsbury, a medieval market town where even muggings are rare — though the local paper, the Shropshire Star, reports they’ve been having a nasty spate of bicycle thefts recently.
Aurman Singh was in a DPD van delivering parcels to a quiet residential street when he was set upon by youths lying in wait.Â
Footage from video doorbells captured the gang piling back into their two cars, some still brandishing weapons. The murder itself occured out of sight of the cameras, but statements from shocked witnesses left us in no doubt of the ferocity of the attack.
Mr Singh suffered multiple stabbing and chopping wounds, including catastrophic head injuries from an axe and a golf club.Â
Murder 24/7, a gripping six-part serial filmed by a camera crew shadowing the West Mercia Police force, followed the investigation from the moment a horrified onlooker called 999.
Two days into a murder investigation, DCI Mark Bellamy wasn’t mincing his words: ‘Looking around this room, there ain’t enough staff, not for what we’ve got on. Far from it.’
The police were efficient, calm and so evidently competent from the start that there was little doubt the other assailants would be tracked down
Aurman Singh was in a DPD van delivering parcels to a quiet residential street when he was set upon by youths lying in wait
One of the cars was found abandoned. The other was spotted an hour away in the West Midlands and, after a tense pursuit involving a helicopter and a dog unit, four suspects were arrested. All of them, like the victim, were named Singh.
The police were efficient, calm and so evidently competent from the start that there was little doubt the other assailants would be tracked down. But as the backdrop to the crime was revealed, DCI Bellamy’s fears about understaffing proved well-founded.
Punjabi interpreters had to be called in before the men could be questioned. That gives suspects an advantage, fretted one detective: ‘Sometimes they can understand some English, then they get it clarified through the interpreter. There’s no rhythm to it, so you’re not going in with quick questions. You’re not making them think on their feet.’
A possible motive began to emerge — vengeance following an outbreak of violence at a kabaddi match in Derby the previous day. Kabaddi, apparently, is a sort of touch-rugby, popular in India.
The difficulties confronting this provincial police force were staggering: a bloodthirsty feud spilling over from a city 70 miles away, beginning with a game whose roots are 7,000 miles away, involving suspects who either can’t or won’t speak English.
The documentary, which continues tonight, leaves me full of admiration for the Shrewsbury murder squad. But it’s impossible to know how a town that struggles to prevent cycle thefts is supposed to cope with violence of this kind.
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