David Spreadborough

I’m sorry @CadburyUK but your chocolate is now horrid. Palm oil makes the taste and texture all wrong. Profiteering above all else has ruined the most famous product from my city. Should never have sold out to out to Craft. #chocolate #cadbury

I’m a former CID detective. I spent 21 years inside the British criminal justice system. And I’m done staying quiet. A thread. 🧵

Okay. No PR bullshit here. I just watched qualifying and I have to say that these new power units are focking shit. Lifting and coasting on straights is the opposite of what F1 is about. Whoever came up with this needs to be sacked. Immediately.

#ConsumerRightsAct #Currys #KnowYourRights A rant for @currys, who are currently breaking the law. Normally I'd let it go, but your customer service is a shitshow and your desire to wash your hands of the faulty items you sell is illegal. On 10 October 2025, I walked into your Exeter shop and bought a PCSpecialist computer. This was the birthday present for my 12-year-old. A present they'd been dropping hints about for months with the subtlety of a child who remains terrible at poker. They'd saved their own pocket money towards it. I topped it up. It was, genuinely, a lovely moment. For four months, it was perfect. Homework. Games. The full experience of being 12 in 2025. On 22 February 2026, four months and 12 days after purchase, it stopped working. No final farewell. It just… stopped. My child sat there pressing the power button with increasing desperation, and nothing happened. The machine that had cost a significant amount of adult money, and a not-insignificant amount of 12-year-old pocket money, was dead. Fine, I thought. This is what a receipt is for. I'll call Currys (the shop I bought it from, with my money, as a birthday present for my child) and they'll sort it. Your staff told me that my contract wasn't with Currys, and that I should contact the manufacturer. They also told me to go in-store with the machine to have it looked at. I went in-store. The in-store staff told me to call the number I had just called. I called again. I was given the phone number for PCSpecialist. Phone → store → same phone → manufacturer. A perfect circle of not helping. A masterpiece of redirection. If it weren't happening to me, I'd almost admire it. Now let's talk about the law, because I think someone at Currys may have forgotten it exists. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 is not a suggestion. It is extremely clear on this point: when you buy something from a retailer, your legal contract is with that retailer. Not the brand on the box. Not the manufacturer. Not some third party you've never met. The shop. The one that took your money and handed you a receipt. Within the first six months of purchase, the law presumes the fault existed at the point of sale. I don't have to prove the computer was faulty when I bought it. Currys has to prove it wasn't. The burden of proof sits entirely with them. During this window, I am legally entitled to a repair or a replacement, and if either of those fails, a full refund. We are currently inside that six-month window. I bought it on 10 October 2025. I complained on 22 February 2026. I am four and a half months in. The law is not ambiguous about what happens here. What makes this particularly spectacular is that Currys' own published policy acknowledges the six-month framework. It is written down on their website. They know the rules. They have typed them up and put them on the internet. They are simply hoping that their customers are too tired from the runaround to actually enforce them. PCSpecialist are entirely blameless in this story. They manufactured a machine. Currys sold that machine to me. My dispute is with Currys. Directing me to PCSpecialist is the retail equivalent of Tesco selling you a gone-off chicken, and when you try to return it, handing you the farmer's phone number. The farmer didn't sell you the chicken. You don't have to knock on the farmer's door. You go back to the supermarket. This is not a controversial legal position. It is just how shops work. My 12-year-old has been without their birthday present for a few days now. They have been, I have to say, considerably more gracious about this than I have. They haven't complained. They've been patient. They are, in this situation, the bigger person — which is a sentence I never expected to write about a primary school leaver, but here we are. They shouldn't have to be patient. They should just have a working computer. So this is where we are, @currys. I know my rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. But before I go down the small claims court route, and start contacting every journalist in my network on a slow news day, I am giving you the opportunity to do the right thing, in the hope that public accountability is more efficient than your customer service helpline. A child saved their pocket money for this. Sort it out.

There are politicians celebrating yesterday’s outcome, and we have not had a single Police leader say anything. If you ever wondered why Police Officers are resigning or retiring early in droves you have the answer. Will anyone step up to the plate? Anyone? #ThinBlueLine 🚨

Alright if @PFEW_HQ won’t say anything, I will. I’m appalled by today’s outcome on behalf of our colleagues who responded and the investigating Officers who worked tirelessly to put the charges and files together. I sincerely hope our injured colleague is being properly supported at this really challenging time and that an appeal is well on the way and a retrial will take place. What I would say to you all, is what you already know. We have a job to do. No one else will do it and if we give up, no matter how we’re treated then the most vulnerable will sincerely suffer. So we keep working and we keep pushing in the naive hope that this horrible mess will sort itself out and never happen again. Thank you all for what you did today and like my team, what you will do tonight to keep the public safe; take criminals off the streets and do what we joined to do. We are the #ThinBlueLine 🚨

🚨📣 FSU VICTORY! The Free Speech Union has won a landmark High Court victory against the Police Federation for unlawfully suspending police officers Richard Cooke and Rick Prior after they questioned whether the police were “institutionally racist”. The High Court ruled that the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) acted unlawfully in suspending two elected Federation Chairs — and banning one from seeking re-election — over remarks they made on GB News and on social media. The Court found that the suspensions and subsequent restrictions on their ability to stand for office were unjustified, disproportionate, and in breach of their rights to free speech. Police chiefs elected to represent the views and concerns of rank-and-file officers should be able to do so without fear of punishment from unelected officials. These two officers did just that. Mr Cooke had challenged claims on social media that the police are institutionally racist. During a GB News interview, Mr Prior highlighted a serious issue: frontline officers fear being branded racist and facing disciplinary action when engaging with ethnic minority communities— a reality many officers recognise. Officers Cooke and Prior spoke out on a matter fundamental to maintaining public trust in the police. They were silenced. General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young of Acton, said: “The Court has ruled that Mukund Krishna, CEO of the Police Federation, acted unlawfully when he suspended these two elected Chairs of Police Federation branches and banned one of them from running for re-election. I think he has no choice but to resign.” The Free Speech Union will be pursuing PFEW for costs.

This story boils my piss 2 walkers rescued by @wasdalemrt kindly put up at discount in a hotel then essentially do a runner and still haven’t paid the bill and took 2 head torches they’d been loaned, lock them up for theft🤬 A fundraiser has been set up and is already over £51K

Unbelievable story. Rescued men still owe hotel bill three weeks after being rescued from Scafell Pike, not to mention having effectively stolen equipment lent to them. They should be named and shamed and prosecuted for their unpaid bill. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/… #LakeDistict

Let's find these muppets!

Seriously taking the **** Rescued by Mountain Rescue .. Offered cheap overnight stay and food by local hotel .. Bugger off without paying their dues .. Someone must know who these clowns are and needs to educate them .. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

@metoffice what’s happened to the wind forecast on the mountains

There are words, but they're not repeatable. BBC News - Scafell Pike hikers left Wasdale rescue team to pay hotel bill - BBC News bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Let's find these muppets.. Unbelievable!

"So many more peaks to climb"... Martino Jerian, CEO and Founder of Amped Software, looks beyond features and releases to explain what Amped Software is really building.. blog.ampedsoftware.com/2025/12/18/amp…

Wind-chill! Worth noting the difference from valley - summit level and being well kitted out to deal with wet and cold conditions 🥶. Paddy @Sportiva @Petzl @lyonequipment #Salewa

First report of the season! We missed yesterday’s perfect conditions for the launch day but there is still some remaining snow up high! See today’s report here - lakedistrictweatherline.co.uk Paddy #summitsafely #beadventuresmart

Psst! Did you register for the SWGDE January 2026 Meeting? 🗓️ Final reminder: Registration for San Jose State closes NOON EST, Nov 5th! Don't miss your chance to impact digital forensics standards. Apply here: tinyurl.com/bde48t6d #DME #SWGDE #DFIR #Documents

If you don't know the person you are talking to or reading their words on the Internet as being a real person, you have a 60-70% chance it's not. "[ ] at least 30% of text on active web pages originates from AI-generated sources, with the actual proportion likely approaching 40%." arxiv.org/abs/2504.08755

This is sooo good x.com/f1trollmedia/s…