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Original poster

Which news stories have stuck with you?

278 replies

PepperSteaks · 08/12/2018 18:05

When I was a little girl there was a story in the news that I vaguely remember about a little girl standing on the Christmas tree lights barefoot and dying. I can picture what I thought the girl looked like so clearly all these years later and think about it often.
Do you have any news stories that you still think about?

OP posts:
Bagadverts · 08/12/2018 22:43

So many of the ones here, mainly for me
Hillsborough, kings cross fire, Bradford city fire, herald of Free Enterprise

  • these were reinforced in my mind having to study the court cases that arose

9/11

Diana and Mother Teresa dying close together

Miners strike - we live in North East England and there was lots of coverage on local news

Happier - Berlin Wall coming down, live aid, the signing of the Good Friday agreement

areyoubeingserviced · 08/12/2018 22:44

Definitely Jamie Bulger, particularly as children were the murderers
Holly and Jessica
Stephen Lawrence

SleightOfMind · 08/12/2018 22:45

When I went back to work (new job) after having DS1, I was handed a particularly brutal family annihilation.
I’ve worked on worse things but those children’s school photo is etched on my eyelids.
DS1 is 18 now, we didn’t know too much about this type of thing in 2000 and it changed me forever.

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stressedtiredbuthappy · 08/12/2018 22:45

Cheddar yes I remember Jamie lavis, I'm afraid his parents were awful,that poor little boy was completely neglected. While not their fault, if he'd been born to a better family the monster who murdered him wouldn't have been enabled.

Regarding James bulger, I don't think people should be afraid to intervene. We all need to take a more proactive role in making sure kids around us are ok.
I say this as a mother of a 2 yo who screams"no mummy no, stop" when I brush her teeth, common sense need to pro vale

CheddarIsNotTheOnlyCheese · 08/12/2018 22:47

Elisa Lam. The woman who was filmed acting strangely in the hotel lift and was eventually found drowned in one of the rooftop water tanks. I wonder what happened to her? What could she see that the camera didn't? Why wouldn't the lift doors close when she pressed the button but closed immediately after she left the lift?

JediJim · 08/12/2018 22:48

The Daniel Handley killers were given very long sentences by David Blunkett but the European Court deemed it unlawful.. what the fuck?! I hope they rot in jail til death.

Stephen Cameron killed on the M25 by Kenneth Noye ( road rage ). I used to live near to where it happened. I had a slight connection to the case. I never knew Stephen or his girlfriend, but I knew her younger brother, before the murder happened. He went to my junior school.

HarrySnotter · 08/12/2018 22:49

James Bulger
Leonie Keating
Holly and Jessica
9/11
Lockerbie
Herald of Free Enterprise
The Marchioness
The Kings Cross Fire
Dunblane
Hillsborough
Hungerford

All horrific.

OhFlipMama · 08/12/2018 22:51

My most memorable news stories:

The Ipswich murders of prostitutes
I didn't live far away at the time and was pretty nervous out in the dark even in my own garden just knowing the murderer was 'out there'.

9/11
Same for everyone I'm sure

Dunblane
I watched the news around the dinner table at home. I remember it clearly. Awful.

Berlin Wall coming down
I was only 8, but was so mesmerised by this Ned story I remember it clearly.

Deaths of both Freddie Mercury and Princess Diana
The two times I've seen my mother shocked and utterly devastated over deaths of people we didn't personally know.

Leah Betts
As already mentioned - I swear to this day, her tragic death is the reason I never dared touch drugs (besides medical). I was 14 - a very impressionable age.

There are probably more. News stories of awful humanitarian crisis stay with me, but sadly there are too many to mention. Starving children, war torn countries - the images never truly leave.

JediJim · 08/12/2018 22:52

James Bulger case was so horrible. That’s the reason I don’t buy newspapers any more. Wasn’t until I became a parent myself that the case really hit me... many years after.

Sweepington · 08/12/2018 22:54

@LittleMachine That poor Suzanne Capshaw I think. I would check but I never want to read that story again. That poor, poor girl:

OhFlipMama · 08/12/2018 22:54

Oh poor James Bulger. The reason I never, ever let my children walk behind me when we're out - in fact I'm rather anxious about busy places like shopping centres when with them.

Penguinsetpandas · 08/12/2018 22:56

Suzie Lamplugh, Fred West, Meredith Kircher, Annecy Murders

SharonBottsPoundOfGrapes · 08/12/2018 22:56

Those poor sex workers in Ipswich. Didn't one appear on tv saying she had no choice but to work and it was her body the next to be found?

Where I used to live in Manchester has a huge student population. At least once a fortnight a female was attacked and brutally raped. It seems to have calmed down a little but students.are easy prey and are forever being mugged or just beaten up for no reason.

Stephisaur · 08/12/2018 22:57

Holly & Jessica
Madeline McCann
9/11
7/7
Grenfell Tower
The Manchester bombing
The Boxing Day tsunami

All of those deeply affected me for various reasons. I didn’t realise I was that impacted by grenfell until my husband and I happened to drive into London and one of the roads passed the tower. Seeing the burnt building was horrific and hammered home the loss of life in a way I’d never experienced before.

GingerInAJam · 08/12/2018 23:00

I only read about this earlier this year though it happened some time before,but unfortunately the man in Australia who killed his wife and young daughter with a speargun is one of the worst things I've read and I wish that I could wipe it from my memory.

twoheaped · 08/12/2018 23:01

The two British soldiers whose taxi took a wrong turn into an IRA funeral and the priest giving them their last rites.

EyeRolls · 08/12/2018 23:04

Aeroplane crashing into the sidebank on the M1. We drive that stretch every single weekend and I remember the horror of it all and watched the ground burnt to a crisp, then watch is grow again to the usual shrubbery & blend in with the rest of the road. I hated it when I could no longer see which bit it was as I felt like it should have been preserved in some way forever.

Sweepington · 08/12/2018 23:04

I used to read obsessively about Stephen Lawrence. I lived in Eltham years and years later but the bus stops and bus numbers were the same.
I was teaching at the college there once and a teenager who wasn’t student came in with a knife looking for one of our students, everyone said how easily it couldn’ve been another Stephen Lawrence.

TheWiseWomansFear · 08/12/2018 23:05

A dog being blown up because teens tied fireworks to it.

PierreBezukov · 08/12/2018 23:05

Ellie Butler. Just awful.

The murder of Jill Dando.

Grenfell Tower - just unbearable.

TheWiseWomansFear · 08/12/2018 23:06

And recently, the girl missing in Aus, presumed dead, her dad was on the front of the ES and he looked so sad - like my dad too:

PierreBezukov · 08/12/2018 23:06

Meredith Kercher.

LittleMachine · 08/12/2018 23:08

Sweepington, that name sounds familiar but a google search doesn’t throw anything up.

TheWiseWomansFear · 08/12/2018 23:08

Oh, and Madeleine McCann - we have the same birthday. I was 11 when she went missing.

HollySwift · 08/12/2018 23:10

Millie Dowler. I was her age, and I can remember the summer she was missing the Queen Mother died - there was a newsflash and I so naively hoped it was because they’d found Millie Sad