Why is what’s happening in Leicester secret?

[GrandmaMazur]

I just saw a news alert about a very serious incident that happened last night in Leicester and the area is cordoned off with a heavy police presence. But there are no details available.

I don’t remember seeing a news story like this before where nothing about the actual incident is reported. Does this happen regularly and I’ve not noticed or is this quite unusual?

I hope it’s nothing too awful.

There's no point discussing anything with anyone who refuses to believe government statistics or reputable newspapers and would rather get their information from randoms on the Internet.

It’s a funny thing. I was managing a community page in the Nottingham area after the awful crime there a few years ago. There was a real drive to know exactly what had happened, at a point when the police weren’t ready to say what had happened. Now, I understand anxiety, ‘Is it a bomb threat, are my family in the area, am I at risk?’, but so many people were not satisfied with, ‘hold on, we’ll tell you what we can, when we can!’. They were pushing and demanding to be told, claiming they had a right to know.

I was perfectly content to wait until the situation was settled enough for a statement to be made. They need to work out what’s happened before they can tell everyone else.

'Don't speculate' means 'stop being a dick about it and claiming some special knowledge because you don't know shit'.

When my brother was killed (pedestrian on a crossing, light was in his favour, driver wasn't paying attention), I had the joys of seeing all the online descriptions of a young man's brains being spread a quarter mile down the road, he was absolutely dead already as they'd seen the bits body and that it was probably some drink/drugs/gang thing with the ubiquitous comments about the ethnicity of those concerned before they had resuscitated him, taken him to a specialist unit, identified him, got his contact details from work and turned up at my mother's door at 5am and told her that her son was in hospital brain dead.

Apart from the fact he was 60+, stone cold sober, was on his way to work, was wearing his work uniform, was white, the car stopped within 10 foot of the crossing, he wasn't dragged down the pavement and there was no blood at all as his brain was turned to mush on the inside, I suppose they got the fact he was male correct.

Seriously, can people just fuck off with the secret insider knowledge and cousin's auntie's nan's hairdresser's dog's groomer's brother in law sort of shit for once?

I'm sorry this happened to you. Awful enough without the SM bollocks.

The use of prurient in this context seems quite odd when many other adjectives offer a more accurate description.

I think in the context, prurient was an entirely appropriate adjective to use.

Why?

That's spreading false information. That's not what I mean when I say speculation.

But I'm so very sorry about your brother

I think it's very naive to imagine that the ONS isn't a political operation

Eta: I am fascinated by people like your sister, who you say is the honest person you know, and how she rationalises certain decisions made by this organisation. I'm thinking specifically here of the ideological capture over the 'sex' question which basically ruined that data. What's happening in the minds of people who have been trained to prevent this happening - yet preside over it happening. Are they just thinking of their mortgage? Do they buy in? Do they lose much peace over it? I'm genuinely so so curious.

It's exactly what they mean by speculation 'it'll be drugs, gangs, you know what they're like', 'the Peaceful religion, right?', 'they all drive their cars down the road at 100mph', 'it's part of their initiation to do this', 'I was told by the police that it was....'. Speculation and false information are completely interchangeable when it comes to getting attention and furthering their racist agenda at the expense of the people actually involved in a life changing event.

I think I agree if you mean disingenuous might be a more appropriate reason for the post. That in itself is probably a very mild adjective for what I think is taking place.

You can have a look. No need to time travel. I can't be bothered to do it now but at about six o'clock this afternoon, the report was still there, same title, still giving the time of publication as 7.15 GMT. It was added to during the day as things unfolded, but the time on it still says 7.15.

If it's this one https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx20wdrwv0lo then it says

4 February 2026, 07:15 GMT
Updated 6 hours ago

There's no way to know which parts are the update and which are original.

Here is is the rolling update page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c17zkj7nwzjt?page=2

At 11:27am it says
De Montfort University incident: What we do not know
11:27
So far, Leicestershire Police has only told us about the cordon - and that this was not a triple stabbing. Here is what we are waiting to be told:

• The nature of the incident
• How many people were involved
• Whether it involved any students from the university
• How long the road closures are due to stay in place

The first time they actually say it's a stabbing is at 11:33am as a Breaking Post
11:33Breaking

Leicestershire Police has confirmed a murder investigation is under way after a man in his 20s was fatally stabbed close to the city centre.
Officers were called just after 17:00 GMT on Tuesday after a report a man had collapsed in Oxford Street, close to the junction with Bonners Lane.
The man died in hospital a short time later.
A 18-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is currently in police custody.

There are comments on Reddit from people who knew the victim who have said that the victim and attacker knew each other and they'd got into a fight about money.
Not a boat person on a rampage. Not someone shouting Allahu Akbar. Just 2 men with personal issues and an inability to resolve conflict without violence

Screw it, I can't sleep, here is the wayback machine which shows what the page looked like at 11:24.04 this morning. No mention of a stabbing, just of an incident.

The 14:54 version has the stabbing.

Edited because the wayback link looked weird. Just google Wayback Machine and enter the URL.

I work as a local newspaper reporter.

The delay here was caused partly by the Leicestershire Police press office (and most other forces) not working outside of office hours. You simply cannot get a decent response from them after 5pm. And even then, they are
keener to get ‘stories’ out on their own socials before the press do, to inflate their own analytics, and to ensure their own narrative is the prevailing one (I wish I were joking. Tax payers’ money is funding this folks!).

Also, most local news outlets (including the BBC) no longer pay out of hours reporters. Some reporters go and cover these serious events anyway, but they’re normally doing it on their own time and won’t be paid.

The press did know in the evening that there had been a fatal stabbing but reporters would not normally report that level of detail (especially where a young victim is involved) unless you’d had it confirmed off the record by the police because a) you don’t want the victim’s family to read it online first and b) if you’ve got it wrong, your reporter will be ripped to pieces on social media.

There are multiple murders every day across the country. Most are not reported in any live sense. The reason this one drew attention was because of the disruption it caused across the city.

I sincerely hope the poor family of the murdered student get justice.

You're surely not suggesting that anecdotes are a more reliable source of factual information than actual data? Absolutely ridiculous. What's the point in even discussing it if somebody provides you data to back up their claim and your response is 'Well I don't believe this nationwide study, I prefer to listen to gossip from my comparatively miniscule group of acquaintances.

In the same sentence you say "...have to look around and hear the news" then "don't rely on a print in a online paper". Which is it? What do you think the difference is?

@JaniceBattersby very illuminating, thanks.

On the one hand perhaps people shouldn’t speculate, but on the other studies have shown that when there is an incident people want reassurance . If I saw loads of police outside my house I wouldn’t turn away and calmly say, “Oh, there will be official information when appropriate.” I’d be peering from behind the curtains and combing FB in case a serial killer were on the loose.

I don’t think an observer’s right to reassurance trumps the right of the victim and their family to have correct procedure followed.

Sometimes no reassurance can be given...yet. eg. If police weren't sure if someone with a knife was still at large etc. It's quite a fine line! I worked for a police press team years and years ago, before social media was a thing. It was much easier to gather the facts etc before a deadline. Now, it must be a nightmare as everyone wants everything immediately. This must cause real problems with investigations.

Only if you live there, which let’s face it, you don’t.
having been in the middle of this type of situation waiting for someone to pick up the phone to tell me they’re safe, watching events unfold on the news, finding out innocent people had been murdered in cold blood and knowing what their friends and family are going through, nosey parker curtain twitchers turn my stomach.

@Lobbygobbler - yeah, only you in that situation.

I don’t believe for one second that if police were outside your house you wouldn’t look and wonder what was going on.

I’m sorry to hear that; someone drove a car into dd’s halls when she was in there - someone was killed.

However, I don’t doubt that nearby residents were reasonably wondering what was going on.