On the night on the 10th January 1987, nearly a year into the Wapping dispute, 19 year old boy Micheal Delaney comes home from the pub with his friends. He had been celebrating his 19th birthday. On the junction where cable street meets butchers row, a TNT lorry carrying a load of newspapers from the Wapping plant was waiting at a red light. In solidarity with the picketers in Wapping, despite not being involved in the dispute himself, Micheal Delaney began to bang on the door of the lorry. As the traffic light turned green, Robert Higgins, the driver of the lorry, set off. Micheal Delaney is dragged under the wheels of the lorry as Robert Higgins drives off and leaves him behind. When the police arrive at the scene, they take Micheal to hospital and arrest all of his friends. Micheal Delaney dies in hospital during the early hours of the next morning. Robert Higgins does not stop until he reaches the Heston services on the M4.
An inquiry was soon held that labelled the death as an unlawful killing. Higgins was never called to give a testimony at the inquiry but was seen by Micheal's family during a lunch break, having drinks with an involved police inspector in a pub next door. Not long later the director of public prosecutions chose to ignore the inquiry and not begin a criminal prosecution of Higgins. The inquiry itself was later rejected in high court, something that the Delaney family only discovered through TV news.
Not long after receiving this news in 1988, Tony Cappi and Terry Ellis, of the Stereotype Archive, walked from the cable street butchers row junction to Heston services. Photographing every traffic light on their route, recording relevant data for each of the 74 lights.
The total distance of the route was recorded to be 17.498 miles.
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