Face of man to be executed today with Acton drug

This is Clive Foster, who is set to be killed today by being injected with a drug bought from a small shop which also houses a driving school on 176 Horn Lane in Acton, round the back of Shepherd's Bush on the way to Asda. The bus routes 266 and 260 go past it.

Strange as it may seem to construct a sentence which starts so dramatically and ends in such a mundane way but that is what it means to have a small shop in our midst which is exporting a drug called sodium thiopental, which is so notorious that you can't even buy it in the US itself. Drugs from the Acton store have already been used to execute at least one person in Arizona, Jeffrey Landrigan who was executed on 26 October 2010. Mr Foster's lawyers are currently trying to earn a reprieve using arguments that Texas' exact concoction of drugs to be used is unclear and in any case hasn't been fully approved by the US authorities. A bizarre debate.

In fact it gets more surreal when you consider that the small shop, which is also home to the "ElGone" driving school, calls itself DreamPharma - the only thing the owner Mehdi Alavi seems to be dreaming about it making a profit from what is surely one of the most disgusting practices left in the civilised world.

Anyone living in Shepherd's Bush for any period of time has surely seen the "ElGone" driving school cars trundling around - ever since I heard about their owners byline in exporting death I shudder every time I see them.