How covering shocking court case inspired Editor’s new novel

Behind Local News
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read

Newsquest journalist Michael Purton has written a crime novel inspired by cases he covered as a reporter. Michael, the editor of the Worcester News and associated weekly titles, explains how real life filtered into his fictional tale, Flickering Lights.

I started my career as a trainee reporter with News Shopper, a Newsquest weekly title which covers south east London, in 2008 and quickly found myself covering murder cases and other serious crimes at the Old Bailey.

One trial over a killing which saw a drug dealer executed in an alleyway has always stuck with me. He was shot point blank in the head and a group of young men, some just teenagers, were charged with murder on the grounds of joint enterprise. Only one of them pulled the trigger but they were all there at the time.

The reason this trial has always lingered in my memory is that the defendants clearly believed that killing this man was justified, that he deserved his fate. In the world in which they’d grown up, shooting a rival dealer was fair play. Murdering someone over something as petty as drug dealing on their territory was justified.

In Flickering Lights, the central character, Ezra, is a 17-year-old boy who has been raised with a similar principle: that some people deserve to die — paedophiles, domestic abusers, etc — to prevent them causing more pain to others, and so killing them is justifiable, moral even.

But Ezra’s life has been driven by grief and anger and so he focuses on the negatives in people instead of the positives: the reasons why they deserve to die rather than the reasons they deserve to live.

Worcester News editor Michael Purton

It’s only when he finds love that he’s able to see the good in people and, ultimately, that there’s more to life than the narrow world in which he’s been raised — and so he tries to break free.

I’ve covered lots of court cases, both as reporter and later as a news editor and editor, in which it was clear that the defendant’s life could have been so different if they’d just been able to step out of the narrow confines of their world and see a bigger picture.

That idea, of people being driven by motives that are so important to them but would seem abhorrent or ridiculous to others, is one of the themes of Flickering Lights.

Flickering Lights, published by Ink Hills, is available now in paperback and e-book. See https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flickering-Lights-Michael-purton/dp/172471760X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1533553318&sr=8-1&keywords=michael%20purton%20flickering%20lights

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Behind Local News UK

The stories behind the stories, from the regional press in the UK

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