[West Ender]

Who remembers Terry Waite being kidnapped in Lebanon? His mother lived on our road, she was at no. 11 and I'm at 47. When he went missing the Press swooped on poor Lena, who was in her 70s, knew nothing and was just frantic about her son, and "camped out" outside her house, God alone knows why as Terry didn't live there. They had arc-lights trained on the front of her house, a big van outside her gate and reporters constantly trying to get her to talk. It was horrendous.

This sort of frenzy has gone on for years, fed by the salacious appetite of the public for any new "angle" on a story. The only way it could ever stop would be if the public stopped buying the more sensational papers and stopped commenting on TV and radio news. It's not going to happen - there's too much money to be made.