Bylines Are Just The Tonic

A sad story caught my eye the other day in the Scottish Daily Mail. It was the ongoing saga of the final resting place of missing Bathgate teenager Vicky Hamilton, with her father deciding where Vicky will be buried despite strong objections from his estranged children. While the topic was tragic it was the byline on the story which made me chuckle. Are journos the only people on the planet who check out bylines? I think so - Joe Punter doesn't give a toss who has penned each story but we like to know what our mates and rivals have been up to, whose done the best job and who's been caught short.
Anyway, this byline was none other than Alan Crow, heid bummer at the Scottish Daily Mail. And anyone who knows Big Al will testify that he is the main contender for the title of the Biggest Byline Thief in the history of Scottish journalism. I've lost count of the times when I've done the graft, took the knocks, risked a do-ing, called in favours, issued barely concealed threats, coerced, cajoled, growled, sweet talked, schmoozed and flirted my way to standing up a story, filed to copy and got up early the next morning to grab the paper off the shelves and enjoy the glory. Only to read "Exclusive by Alan Crow". He'd added a comma or a few words to my finely honed prose and inserted his name at the top of the story.
One of the most outrageous cases of byline thievery I suffered, and which merited a full blown investigation by the polis, was the case of Safeway Poisoner, Paul Agutter. This was the university professor who in 1994 tried to knock off his wife Alexandra and make way for his foxy mistress, Carole Bonsall, by serving up a tea-time G&T laced with atropine. Agutter tried to conceal his mixology skills by placing contaminated bottles of tonic on the shelves of a Safeway supermarket in the hope that if successful, his wife's death would be put down to some random poisoner. Anyway, he got a 12 year stretch for his troubles and that's where the byline scandal erupted.
He was dubbed up in Edinburgh's Saughton Prison and I virtually did cartwheels around the Daily Record office when a long term prisoner contact of mine called to say he was in a cell only a couple of doors down from Agutter.
The recidivist contact of mine naturally befriended Agutter and in an act of genuine friendliness, and to help him settle in to prison life, he offered to take care of posting some letters from the jail to his mistress.
By some strange twist of fate these letters ended up at 90a George Street, Edinburgh, the Daily Record's office in the Capital. The saucy details contained in those letters (well the detail we could print in a family paper) and accounts of how this mad boffin was faring in the pokey, made pages 1, 2 and 3. And when I picked up the paper the next day, yes, that's right.
Put it this way. If I could have got my hands on some of Agutter's special brand of gin and tonic, big Crow would not now be warming his executive chair at the Scottish Daily Mail.
So I guess the question is: Who really wrote the article on Vicky's burial, 'cos we sure as hell know it wasn't Alan?