• The main story on page 1 concerns a detective in the Serious Crimes Squad who had helped arrest a well-known criminal on 16 charges of burglary, theft and handling stolen goods. In court, the man on trial sought to discredit the detective by claiming that a safe containing stolen property could be found at the officer’s home. It was a bizarre claim but it turned out to be true and after a four-week trial the man was acquitted on all charges.

At the time of publication there was another trial taking place in which the same detective was a prosecution witness. Someone connected with that case left copies of the Free Press lying around the court building -- presumably in an attempt to influence the jury. The judge was furious and reported it to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Merseyside police then began investigating the Free Press for possible contempt of court (details here).

• The "Oil Sheikhs of Liverpool" saga continues with the story of a petrol station in Wavertree on a half-mile stretch of road which already had five of them. It began when night club owner Harry Waterman bought a jam factory there. He wasn't interested in making jam but the factory happened to have a single petrol pump for filling its vans. On that basis, Waterman got permission for a new petrol station by claiming he was merely extending the one belonging to the jam factory (page 12).

• Liverpool's Chief Inspector of Schools, Tom Clarke, is an outspoken opponent of "pornography" in school books. Children must be protected from it, he says, "whether the smut be in Shakespeare or Chaucer". Mr Clarke's own interest in sex took him one Friday lunchtime to Gatsby's club in the city centre where two female strippers were performing. He got a ring-side seat and one of the women invited him to remove her bra -- and Mr Clarke obliged.

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