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Manchester Canal: Corpse Repository?

So just to be clear... If thre are more people in Manchester than in Venice then the number of canal deaths in Manchester are obviously going to be higher, because there are more people to suffer them.
But if there are more people in Venice than in Manchester then the number of canal deaths in Manchester are obviously going to be higher, because there are fewer people to spot and prevent them.

Have I got that right?

And also that more residents are unwary of water than visitors? Or is it the other way round?
 
Nope. I was just pointing out that there are so many confounding variables that just one factor such as population density is not enough. Lots of other factors, such as the opportunity to fall into canals unseen/unheard, the demographics of those involved ( e.g. students are known for drinking lots, so if there are more students, there is more opportunity for falling into a canal pissed ), being more water aware whilst being on holiday surrounded by the stuff, etc.
 
davidplankton said:
Do you mean they are at Durham or Manchester? We went a bit off topic.
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Oops, I meant Durham. I just paused to ask a question about Manchester before going off the be a hysterical parent. Sorry!

I've always had the impression that Manchester was one of the more dangerous cities in the UK, and wondered if the canal might be a convenient way of disposing of victims or witnesses or what have you. But I don't know if Manchester is actually that dangerous or if it's just a misconception we've picked up over here.
 
Ulalume said:
Oops, I meant Durham. I just paused to ask a question about Manchester before going off the be a hysterical parent. Sorry!

I've always had the impression that Manchester was one of the more dangerous cities in the UK, and wondered if the canal might be a convenient way of disposing of victims or witnesses or what have you. But I don't know if Manchester is actually that dangerous or if it's just a misconception we've picked up over here.
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I always think of Nottingham and Birmingham being more dangerous. I shall go and Google.
 
gattino said:
So just to be clear... If thre are more people in Manchester than in Venice then the number of canal deaths in Manchester are obviously going to be higher, because there are more people to suffer them.
But if there are more people in Venice than in Manchester then the number of canal deaths in Manchester are obviously going to be higher, because there are fewer people to spot and prevent them.

Have I got that right?

And also that more residents are unwary of water than visitors? Or is it the other way round?
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Even Gore Vidal fell into a canal in Venice.
 
Just as a sidebar to this thread, I find it interesting that both Man City and Man Utd football clubs have a ship in their team badges, clearly a reference to the Manchester Ship Canal.

Utd's Old Trafford ground is just a stone's throw from Salford Docks, while City's Etihad stadium is about 3 miles to the east.
 
Video:

The Pusher- Manchester's Terrifying Canal Deaths​

Is a serial killer stalking the canals of Manchester England? 84 bodies have been recovered from the canals, ponds and streams in and around Manchester.

Video editing by Filmora, and ambient music by Hoerspielwerkstatt_HEF's/freesound.org.

 
A long time ago I was involved in a small way in a vaguely similar thing were
bodies and so on were being found in culverts or sewers cant remember which
but it turned out that a culvert that ran through a cemetery had collapsed and
burials were being swept away.
 
The GMP website enables Manchester folk to track progress on crimes recorded in their locality. The story it tells is that anyone in the city reporting a crime should do so for insurance reasons alone as there will be nothing done to pursue the matter. Insufficient Evidence, No Suspect Identified is the cut-and-paste response in column after column of crimes. Many, of course, are relatively small crimes but others, such as arson, can be deadly. I fear that the GMP sees itself as being in the business of keeping people calm, rather than actively investigating anything other than the highest profile cases.

Resources will be blamed. Meanwhile the obvious message will seep through to repeat offenders that they will have to be very unlucky to get caught. When that occasionally happens, they have been creating mayhem and misery for years.

With regard to the canal deaths. The numbers seem to fluctuate at every telling, even within the above video. There is first a denial that any female canal deaths have been recorded in the same period, then it becomes fourteen!

The serial-killer hypothesis may create a frisson but the canal deaths which have been solved turn out to be muggings - hideous enough but more opportunism than sex-crimes. I do think there is a case for a much more careful analysis of the statistics than any I have so far seen but that may make for dull reading. :willy:
 
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We've had a similar spate of city water-related deaths not so far away centred around Bristol:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...s-four-months-men-dead-in-water-a7719826.html

There are regular occurrences in Bath, too.

I am sure that *some* of the deaths could be suspicious but in the main the combination of booze, and lack of respect for the danger of open, unfenced water is the main culprit.

I have read a theory that it's almost always male victims as drunk men will often go to the edge of the water to pee into it if they need to urinate whilst walking along such areas.

Apparently Amsterdam is very prone to such deaths: In 2012 it was reported by De Telegraaf that

"Over the past three years, at least 51 people have drowned in Amsterdam’s historic canals.
The paper says just one death was the result of a crime. All the rest were accidental and often involved drunken men relieving themselves over the edge and falling in. Experts are calling for more ladders and life rings to be attached to the quays, the paper said"

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2012/01/amsterdam_canals_are_dangerous/


I remember being terrified in the 1970s & early 1980s by TV 'public information films' that scared us off playing about near water, cycling without lights/bright clothing, larking about near any electricity substations or lines etc etc., They were shown in between children's TV programmes alongside adverts IIRC.

We also were made to watch similar films at primary and secondary school. I wonder if this kind of (scary warning) education still occurs? We need someone younger than 35 to comment!
 
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the north end of town where rochdale canal meets ashton canal is now fairly gentrified with new build flats aplenty, but i think used to be manchesters red light district, overrun by gay rent boys and, just off the canal, street walkers etc ... the rochdale running into town through the gay village and out by castlefield, so plenty of bars of all kinds, plenty of drinkers, very mixed clientele from scally to suits ...
 
Two of my grown up sons share a flat in Manchester and I always worry about them. Despite the fact we live near York which has a high rate of people falling in the rivers. Sons drank in town from being at college, and like all locals, knew that if you do a pub crawl in town, you start at the river and work away from it as the night progresses. I think a lot of the deaths have been students and maybe not-locals..?

What intrigue me about York is the number of times people's bodies have been found after a day or two and no-one witnessed them falling in, yet they seem to be going in at fairly predictable points... York is covered in CCTV cameras (so much so, some visiting Germans remarked to my friend it was their abiding memory of the city - they couldn't get over how many cameras there are everywhere). Yet none pointing at the bridges and usual points people go in???

I know York police aren't very bright (or they wouldn't have the country's most high profile missing person case). But how hard is it to work out where to add to their 6 million cameras, to make it at least certain if someone falls in, that they know where it happened?

Not tidal at that point, but they do occasionally turn up downriver quite some distance.
 
JamesWhitehead said:
The GMP website enables Manchester folk to track progress on crimes recorded in their locality. The story it tells is that anyone in the city reporting a crime should do so for insurance reasons alone as there will be nothing done to pursue the matter. Insufficient Evidence, No Suspect Identified is the cut-and-paste response in column after column of crimes. Many, of course, are relatively small crimes but others, such as arson, can be deadly. I fear that the GMP sees itself as being in the business of keeping people calm, rather than actively investigating anything other than the highest profile cases.

Resources will be blamed. Meanwhile the obvious message will seep through to repeat offenders that they will have to be very unlucky to get caught. When that occasionally happens, they have been creating mayhem and misery for years.
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Of course (lack of) resources will be blamed. The service is stretched almost to breaking point across the whole country. It's no secret.
 
RaM said:
Sounds like quite a death toll
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It does indeed.

If I might make a point here, serial killers are hard to catch due to there not being any known conection between the victim and the killer. Police homicide investigations are predicated upon the fact that in the majority of cases, the victim and the killer know each other, and due to the often-random selection of victims in serial murders this tool is not available.

Like it or not, the police have to wait until the killer makes a mistake that can be traced directly to him or (in a few cases) her. If there are no known mistakes, a serial killer can go on almost indefinitely until they die, are imprisoned for another crime, or until a clever psychiatrist tricks them into making a mistake, like what happened in New York City's Mad Bomber case that lasted for many years. George Metesky, later found to be the Bomber, was, in effect, 'smoked out' by a psychiatrist, who effectively tricked him into making the mistakes that caught him. Another example might be Ted Bundy, who made several mistakes that led to his capture. Gary Ridgeway, the Green Rver Killer, comes to mind as well. In Ridgeway's case, they had connected him to flecks of paint left on one of the victims which were traced to the truck (lorry) factory where he worked. Semen samples recovered from a few of the victims were matched to Ridgeway's DNA, and he was spared the death penalty on condition that he plead guilty. He is now serving over forty consecutive life sentences, meaning that the only way he will leave prison is in a box.

I happen to think that the possibility of there being a serial killer in Manchester is very real. I can't prove it of course, but I still think it's possible.
 
Not specifically about canals, but a resignation letter from a Greater Manchester Police officer, backing up what Carlos said above:

I am PC 11834 Joe Torkington. I am currently a Neighbourhood Beat Officer (NBO) based on the J Division.

I write to inform you that as of this date - Monday 28th August 2017 - I hereby give notice of my resignation from my role of Constable with Greater Manchester Police...

When I began this role in late 2009, Neighbourhood Policing still existed. I took genuine pride in walking my beat, getting to know my community and having the responsibility for tackling any problems that came my way. I had great supervision and colleagues and felt valued and happy in my work.

Unfortunately, as the years have passed, the role has been gradually eroded and marginalised, to the extent I have genuinely struggled at times to understand exactly what is expected of me. Despite remaining an NBO, I have increasingly done anything but Neighbourhood work, yet my photo remains on posters and the like, thus giving the community the impression that they have a dedicated local officer! I actually consider this in itself to be beyond misleading.

Indeed, I firmly believe it was this continuing deception to both staff and the public alike that gave birth to my now deep rooted mistrust of the Government and our entire organisation. Other factors followed further compounding my lack of faith and belief...Windsor (changes to terms and conditions); the Pay Freeze; the demolition of the terms and conditions of our pensions; the heavy cuts to frontline resources; the increasing bureaucracy despite constant promises for its reduction; the constant changes of systems, focus, direction, priorities, shift patterns, teams, geographical beats, policies, process, protocol, all without any apparent benefit to anyone other than those in the upper echelons of the promotion system.

The result of the aforementioned? Plummeting morale. I can only truly speak for myself, but I am fairly certain my views are shared by the many not the few, that the Police Service is, all clichés aside, at breaking point...

How some of my colleagues can turn up to work knowing they could be walking into a nightmare alone is beyond me. I have more than admiration for their individual and collective resilience. I would never claim to be the hardest of men, but once upon a time I could do this job well and was not afraid of confrontation. However, for the last two to three years at work, I have been in a permanent state of anxiety and stress.

Despite what the Government says, this job is all about numbers. I’m happy to turn up to any job as long as I have colleagues with me. I’m brave, but I’m not stupid. I have three kids and a glass back, I need back up. I need that reassurance and assistance and it doesn’t exist.

So Sir, it is with regret that I see no other option but to resign. I’d love to say I was riding off into the sunset, walking into a well-paid job etc., but I’m not. I’m going to be earning minimum wage and no doubt struggling financially, but hopefully I’ll be able to recover from my anxiety and depression away from what Policing has become.

I wish all my colleagues of every rank I leave behind, all the luck in the world and they will always have my upmost respect. I nod in respect to you to Sir, I know you lead us in difficult times and I imagine with many constraints and restrictions placed upon you.

To the government I have nothing good to say whatsoever, they should hang their heads in shame.

As for me...what can I say...I am more than a number.
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More here.
 
I can't bring myself to 'like' - but thanks for posting, hunck.
 
Sad to hear. Policing used to be a good career to get into.
My uncle Pete did well from it, but those days are gone (it seems).
 
I know (or knew) someone who ended up dead in a canal under mysterious circumstances. The police looked into the case but didn't seem to launch much of a murder investigation (suicide seemed very unlikely). It was known that he couldn't swim, and he was frequently intoxicated, so it seems likely he just...fell in, possibly as an unintended consequence of a drunken piss. Also he tended, despite not being homeless and having a fair bit of money stashed away, to prefer a lifestyle of drinking on park benches with other semi-vagrants, so a drunken argument is another possibility. It could be that some witness(es) thought better of coming forward.

I once fell in a river when young and intoxicated, but I didn't die. Not only that, but I managed to keep my kebab dry. It was quite a shallow river.
 
Ha! kept your kebab dry - good work!

Seems to me you'd have to try quite hard to drown in a canal unless you passed out or were totally pissed & incapable, most you can stand up in & there's no current. Maybe Manchester canals are deeper though, and locks are certainly deep.
 
Thanks, *takes a bow*

No one knows where the chap I knew 'went in', but it could have been a place where he could easily have hit his head on a piece of weir gate equipment or stone or concrete. When the weir feeding into the canal is fully open the water is deep-ish, turbulent and fast and anyone falling in would be tossed around like a cork and carried away. Further down, towards the canal proper, is a still but deep basin, so if he went in there being unable to swim...We'll never know.

But yes, most canals are very shallow.

Edit: what we thought suspicious at the time was that it had only emerged that he couldn't swim because one of his outdoor drinking pals had asked him. Now why would anyone ask such a question for no apparent reason over the Tenants Super - and then pass on the negative response to others in the er,...social circle? Hmm.

Anyway sorry, this isn't a 'people you knew who may have been murdered' thread. Back to Manchester...
 
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Yes, maybe. As far as I'm aware the case was closed, or flagged as unsolvable, years ago.
 
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