Hi,
“Police will not confirm what tram driver has been arrested on suspicion of”
To my taste, an overkill even for a headline.
But they continue: “The British Transport Police would not confirm what the tram driver has been arrested on suspicion of.”
Plain wording like, “Police will not confirm on suspicion of what the tram driver has been arrested” doesn’t rate anymore?
I’m afraid that your version of the wording doesn’t seem to be an improvement on the original, Eugene!
There are so many clearer ways of explaining that statement (see the following) that the mind can only boggle at their reasoning for writing that way. Perhaps they were under pressure to meet a deadline we don’t know about.
The British Transport Police would not confirm the offence that the tram driver has been arrested for.
The British Transport Police would not confirm what offence they have charged the tram driver with.
The British Transport Police have not said what charges have been brought against the arrested tram driver.
Surely -
Police will not confirm what the tram driver has been arrested for. The above seem equally long-winded.
Thank you for your input.
I was just trying to retain the original ‘set of words’, with the idea of ‘streamlining’ the sentence and making it more readable.
Of course, you could change the wording. Still there’s difference between ‘arrested for sth’ and ‘arrested on suspicion of sth’ , isn’t it?
Following Bev’s examples, I’d also go with: “The British Transport Police would not confirm a charge the tram driver has been arrested on.”
But again, the idea was to do with the words available.
To me, the word ‘suspicion’ matters. Otherwise, as law would demand’, the police are required to reveal the nature of the offence the person is charged with. Therefore, why not consider the following sentence?
Police will not confirm the suspected offence/charge the tram driver has been arrested on.