Off the Rails

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A hired killer who left his beheaded victims on building sites in the King’s Cross area would have fatally undermined public confidence in the multimillion-pound project to re-invigorate the former red-light area if he had not been identified, said an official Home Office report last week.

However, the report went on to castigate the Unit bosses for failing to provide adequate security checks at its temporary headquarters, an oversight that resulted in the escape of the suspect.

The investigation had been conducted by London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit, a little-known police division created in 1940 to handle serious crimes that could be considered a threat to public order and confidence. As a secret wartime department, the PCU was allowed to develop many innovative (and questionable) investigative techniques. In the 1950s the Unit fell under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police. Later, it was absorbed into the British Military Intelligence department MI7 to handle cases involving domestic and foreign propaganda. In the last few months, the PCU has found itself increasingly mired in controversy after being placed under Home Office jurisdiction, and the principles upon which it was founded have been called into question.

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