The long, long arm of the law

THE recent conviction of a 92-year-old man for the rape and murder of Easton widow Louisa Dunne in 1967 is, of course, welcome news.

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The former rail worker was handed a 20-year minimum sentence at Bristol Crown Court the week before last

Mr Justice Sweeting called his crime a “pitiless and cruel act by a depraved man” and told him that he would die in prison.

If you want to know his name, look it up elsewhere. Along with his prison sentence, he deserves to be forgotten, though if, as is possible, it turns out that he's guilty of other cold case crimes, he'll be in the media again.

Far better to remember the lady he killed, a kindly and well-liked neighbour whose first husband was Edwin Parker, one of the leading lights of the Labour movement in Bristol in the first half of the 20th century.