Crimestoppers UK and learnt about the Crimestoppers scheme, he saw it as a good opportunity to get the community involved in crime-fighting. Other areas around the UK also learned of Crimestoppers and took it up around this time but there was no national, co-ordinated approach. In 1985, PC Keith Blakelock was murdered during the riots at the Broadwater Farm Estate in London and the police appealed for information, stating that people knew who had been responsible but were frightened of coming forward. Michael Ashcroft (now Lord Ashcroft, KCMG and Chairman of the Trustees of Crimestoppers), a businessman, offered to provide the police
1985: The Year of the Spy the help of his wife Mary, who drove home from the desert with a dummy decoy in the passenger seat of the car, and played a recording of Howard's voice on a phone line she knew the FBI was tapping. Howard defected to Russia where the Soviets granted him asylum, an apartment, and a new identity. Howard died on July 12, 2002, at the age of 50, according to former KGB chief Vladimir A. Kryuchkov and State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher. 1985: The Year of the Spy The American media referred to 1985 as the Year of the Spy