mmm Whilst we're on the subject of the sentence////
Following the finding of guilt after the trial - no mean feat in itself given that the evidence was scrutinized by "12 (wo)men good and true" and he was actually convicted. A Pre-Sentence Report would have been requested with an indication by the Judge about the proposed sentence (considering a lenghty custodial sent.) This report would have been written by a Porbation Officer
based on a number of headings including an Offence Analasys, Offender Analasys and Previous Convictions (ooh yes and impact on victim i.e. death) and the Judge, although not obliged to, would have followed the recomendation of the author. It could have been what they call a Specific Sent. Report (i.e. clink) or an all options report including community options. In considering the sentennce the Judge would have considred also, the effect on public opinion, the liklyhood of appeal (against conviction or sentence)...They don't just make up sentences any more.
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"They don't just make up sentences any more"
No that's true.
Where I live (N Staffs) you have to commit the same offence several times before any effective sentence is passed. So for hooliganism - breaking windows, creating mayhem - the message is " do it and you will get away with it until you do it 10 times and are caught"
Then after 6 months it comes to court and you may be jailed for various offences, concurrent sentences, time off for good behaviour etc.. and the Government wonder why their policy on crime is not working. I am no hanger or flogger but...
Some of us believ we have rights AND RESPONSIBILITIES. It's about time the criminal justice system (tautolgy?) started looking at the latter.
I keep a cricket bat to hit any burglars with. I have to wear glasses so if I hit them I will not be wearing them and will be certain they are weilding a knife so it's self defence.
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Two quickies on sentencing before I get the tub ready for a run to Margate on Monday (motoring connection)
In the old days (for you young uns before passing the death sentence the Judge used to reach for an put on his head a black cap). Chummy, found guilty of murder, was asked by the Judge as he reached for the black cap, if he wished to to say anything before sentence was pased. "Yes M'Lord", Chummy croaked, "Can I have three cases of riding a bike without lights taken into consideration"
Seriously, having seen and taken part in the Cautioning system
which is now a total farce IMHO why do we bother. More of a deterent would be to hit them hard at the first offence (and hang the expense)?
Toads excluded otherwise his life story would not have been such good reading.
DVD
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70,000 in prison the reformists bleat. More than any other country in Europe. Ignoring the rather obvious reasons such as we have more crime than anyone else.
I see no need to build any more prisons which ar probably costing us up towards £1000.00 per prisoner to be held in conditions equal to a 3* hotel.
We should simply tender out the job to other states such as Russia who would probably charge £10 per convict...
They have vast areas of undeveloped land such as Siberia and could learn these leeches what work means.
I would also be certain that they would send them back rehabilitated and far less likely to carry on with their criminal activities.
Prison in my experience has simply become an industry supporting many thousands of ancilliary employees in areas of education, phsyciatry, welfare, probation, administration,religion,physical education and every other hangers on you could think of.
They will fight to the bitter end to sustain this cash rich outflow using rehabilitation as their weapon.
And none of it works....
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Alvin
Good idea! The company I work(ed) will be shut down and moved to the Czech republic at the end of Novmeber because it is cheaper to make the machines out there. So if the Eastern block is happy to take all our industry they may as well have our social scumbag overflow as well.
I have recently purchased a Cr250 Xrosser and am frightened to death of taking it out of the garage for fear of someone following me home and waiting a day or two before relieving me of it. It is chained to a huge bench with a car parked upto it in an alarmed garage with another car parked in front of the garage but I don't think that would stop a determined thief. Am I becoming paranoid?
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"Seriously, having seen and taken part in the Cautioning system
which is now a total farce IMHO why do we bother. More of a deterent would be to hit them hard at the first offence (and hang the expense)?"
DVD I can't let that go unchallanged, are you talking about the Youth Justice System of Cautioning or the adult system.......?
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Over time things have evolved to the degree that the populace at large have agreed to cede their individual rights to enact ‘justice’ for perceived wrongs to the State in the belief that this system would bring greater/fairer justice to all therefore making vigilantism unnecessary.
It is absolutely implicit in this contract that said State must comply with the implied terms of this contract or anarchy will result.
Perhaps the term ‘taking the law into his own hands’ spoken so sneeringly at times by the legal profession should be amended to read “should be applauded for taking BACK the law into his own hands seeing how the legal and judiciary system has failed him totally.
Rita
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Exactly right Rita....
The judiciary talk down to us if we were 15th century peasants who don't know any better, and should be content and grateful for their wisdom.
The legal profession....another industry designed to make money out of crime and it's victims.
alvin
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I can't let that go unchallanged either !
I don't sneer at people that "take the law into their own hands".
I do, however, sneer at people who use violence in any situation and certainly at people who try to veneer their violent tendancies with excuses that they are doing it for the benefit of others. I also sneer at people who have opted out of the judicial system in refusing to "get involved" in appropriate ways. These people look to the Police and Courts etc to solve crime and punish criminals but actually contribute nothing to Crime Reduction - either actively or passively. I have lost count of situations both minor and serious where the Great British Public refuse to make statements etc etc as they have actually abdicated their civil responsibilities. We hear a great deal in this Country about Civil/Human rights, but with rights go responsibilities.
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Pugugly –
No personal insult was intended but I think it is fairly obvious that many people think that some, if not all, lawyers are odious and that by their actions they bring the law into disrepute.
A lawyer for the defence obviously has to present his client’s case to the best of his ability whether that client be guilty or no. The more acquittals he gets (cases won) the better his reputation. Consequently he can command higher fees. No one objects to any practitioner of any discipline receiving the rate for the job. But it is the perception by many of the public that legal fees at times are so astronomical as to be obscene; and none more so when much of it is paid out of the public purse.
I think what grieves people most is that justice seems to be lost on the high altar of ‘the law’. Winning the legal arguments seems to be the end game above all else even if it means that the debate appears to pervert the original intention of getting at the truth of the matter and thus justice being done and appropriate punishment being meted out.
As to Civic Responsibilities, people will not put themselves forward as witnesses if they feel that they or their families are at risk of physical retribution. If the State i.e. the police/ judicial system cannot guarantee prospective witnesses their safety then they will not volunteer. Fear and human nature prevails in a circumstance like this. In the case I illustrate below, when Identity Parades were being organized one young female witness refused to attend because she was too frightened.
And as to the incompetence of that other arm of the system The Criminal Prosecution Authority my contempt is almost unbounded. Of course, I am prejudiced because of the one criminal case that affected my family and which was very nearly lost due to their bungling. If you will bear with me I will try and relate the story condensing it as much as possible. Some hopes!
Are your sitting comfortably? Then let us begin –
Some years ago my sister who was past the first, nay even the second, flush of youth, was manager of a shop as she had been for many years. My sister is 5 foot two and shrinking. One day she happened to be on her own in the shop when two people entered, one male and one female - age late teens, early twenties. She was approached from behind by the male, attacked, thrown to the floor, dragged up again, continuously screamed at “where is the money, we want the money”. Then she was forced into the small back room where tea was made and stock stored. A bread knife was picked up and she was threatened with having her fingers cut off if she didn’t hand over her rings. As it happened she wasn’t wearing any but her watch was snatched off her wrist and her handbag rifled. A gun was then produced, held to her head and she was told to get the money out of the till. While all this was going on she could see that the female was stuffing baby clothes (nursery shop) into black bin liners. She was then manhandled to the main shop and made to open the till and hand over money. Because she was so terrified she couldn’t speak or breath properly which made the male think that she was having a heart attack. They then left.
During all this drama she had been frantically trying to press the personal alarm that she was wearing. Eventually she succeeded which brought the security people into play and they contacted the police. On arrival they proved to be excellent and very professional. As I have said previously this incident was some years ago.
Months later the police thought they had the two people involved and who they also suspected of being the perpetrators in other local shop robberies. Some eighteen months or so later the case was sent for trial. Obviously all the evidence had been perused by the CPS.
I, (Sister A), another sister (B) and the sister (C) in question arrived at the court on the appointed day. We milled around in the foyer of the building waiting for instructions as to where we had to go. We sisters A and B eventually repaired to the Public Gallery. Alongside us were the relatives of the accused.
Then the legal debate started pre trial. The question was should each defendant be charged individually or together. Was there a nexus between sister C’s case and the others where a gun had been produced in one robbery and a different weapon in another? As the arguments continued I realised with amazement that the defendants in my sister’s case would be charged only with the theft of a purse and its contents of £12.50.
I belted back downstairs and grabbed hold of my sister and impressed upon her the urgency of bringing to the court’s attention the incidents of the gun and the knife, the stolen merchandise worth £2000 and the £600 out of the till. I told her that the charge sounded as if the defendants had been going on a Sunday School picnic on the money donated by my sister.
The judge in this case was a wily old bird. He ruled that the defendants would be tried together. The nexus was that each case had elements of violence and that all cases would be therefore be held together.
My sister turned up trumps. She brought up all the above- mentioned points, gun etc. much to the astonishment of all in court including the judge who at that particular point was making notes. You have never seen a man’s head raised to quickly in your life.
The male got sent down for seven years, the female for a lesser period. As far as my sister was concerned justice in this case was done although due to the incompetence of the CPS it was so nearly wasn’t.
If the sentence had been the usual admonishment and a queer handshake I would have been very bitter. My sister was so traumatised that she was left with a stutter that lasted three years; and this for a woman who could motor-mouth for England was penance indeed. What was almost as bad was the fact that it took her two years to volunteer the humiliating (to her) fact that she had been so terrified that she had wet herself. This last fact is said just to bring home how demeaning these experiences can be.
Just for the fun of it I would add that this was the second time she had been attacked in the shop. On the first occasion no one was charged. The leg injuries that she sustained in this incident merited a fairly large sum from the Criminal Injuries Board.
In the above case I think that we were lucky having an unreconstructed non-PC judge who applied the law so that justice was perceived to have been done; and the excellent policing that brought the miscreants to book.
The downside was the apparently spurious points of law (not all listed above) brought by the lawyers for the defendants (each had their own – legal aid, what else) which made one uneasy that the case would ever go to trial; plus the monumental incompetence of the CPS which totally ignored crucial evidence contained in my sister’s statement as to the seriousness of the crime left one enraged.
On sober reflection I think that along with others I feel that it is not so much ‘the law’ that is wrong but the practice and implementation of it. It does not surprise me that the thinking by some people is ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’.
Well, that Reet’s rant for the week. Told you I couldn’t précis.
The moli. (motoring link is that I had to drive from Kent to London (Sarf) to attent the trial).
Ciau, baby
Rita
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Rita, looking at that long post, I reckon you are really Bogush, and I claim my £5 :o)
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P.U.
Rather than go off a motoring subject, meet me at the Wig & Pen opposite CCCJ on 31st November 2002 and my tales will make your hair (any left) stand on end about juveniles and cautioning.
Plus, as I understand, possession of spliff on the street - pocket book street caution. Third time, arrest, then at the nick guess what - written caution. ??????????
DVD
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The reason I was challenging you on this (specifically Youth Cautions) was the rather remarkable work being done by Police Officers working on the local Youth Offending Team. They work with these kids, instead of ignoring them like they used to an actively lead them away from offending. The stats are quite impressive from a 35% re-offending rate now down to 12%. The tread is on-subject as a lot of these are involved in motoring offences which impacts on all of us. Oh yes and when they do re-offend they automatically go to Court. I see enough of these on a day to day basis to know what goes on. Some you will never prevent from re-offending but others can be - it is worth it.I feel you are being disingenuous to your former colleagues. There has been a major culture change in the last three years or so.
30/11/02 ??
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Sorry PU I plead Guilty to being very cynical in my old age.
Before I retired it was one of my duties to have errant juveniles
paraded before me to have cautions administered, in many cases for some serious crime having been authorised by a multi agency Juvenile Panel.
The gist was to point out the errors of their ways and the consequences of continuing and the obligations of citizenship. One could see the words going in one ear and out the other.
Guess what, within a couple of months they were back for another caution. I drew the line at one with a fifth appearance but was ordered to do so by my superiors. That little towrag should have gone to Court.
I considered the concept of cautioning lost its effectiveness once second and third times became the norm. What my daughter tells me there still is a resistance to prosecute. IMHO we have allowed the soft option to prevail and despite all the promises made for this, things are no better in fact worse. Its time we made people accountable and yes I would consider the return of the birch.
DVD
Apologies for going off motoring subject but PU did ask.
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"I have lost count of situations both minor and serious where the Great British Public refuse to make statements etc etc as they have actually abdicated their civil responsibilities. We hear a great deal in this Country about Civil/Human rights, but with rights go responsibilities"
Hmm I disagree to some extent. A recent survey found that in many courts those waiting to give evidence were often waiting in places where they would encounter the accused. And when they do give evidence, often the result is a caution. Since many of the cases were for assault or hooliganism - and the witnes often ended up being threatened either in or outside court - can you blame people.
Justice has to be seen to be done. We have problems with a known set of juveniles who create mayhem, smash windows etc.
1. the police don't want to get involved.
2. when they are caught they are cautioned.
3. repaet of 2
4. repeat of 3
and so on for 12 months.
Is the system protecting the citizen from the problem people? Is it ?
No it just does not work. I'm all for preventing re-offending but there are lots of persistent offenders that the legal system is not tackling.
You can see what will eventually happen. People distrust politicians. They lie and do not deliver. Then politicians will stand on a ticket and actually do something. They will get elected.
I dislike the BNP I hate their policies and all they stand for but they are standing on this very basis. In Stoke (near me) they did very well in local elections for the Mayor. Heaven help us but that could be the way politics goes if the shambles callled justice continues as it is:-(
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I know of several places in the country where it would take either a very brave or foolish person to give evidence against offenders with the consequences they would face afterwards.
Statistics on reoffending mean very little. In my experience counselling groups among offenders is little short of a joke.
I have seen them at first hand and is often as much benefit to the staff as it takes them away from more unpleasant tasks and gives the offenders tea and free smokes and no work.
Fear of the consequences is a much more powerful incentive than anyone lecturing us and in my lifetime this has been taken away and replaced with supposedly more enlightened methods.
Unfortunately this doesn't work.
Experts I fear the most. Only the other day a discussion by three criminologists on Radio 4 were saying that child abduction/murder is only at the same number as in the 1950s.
That's not as I recall it.
Another was saying that a tide of public revulsion ended capital punishment for killers.
Not as I recall.
A return to capital punishment, birching, and PD sentencing could not be supported by the liberal reformists but will ultimately be the only way back to a lawful society.
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Sorry, I transposed the stats. Original stats were 35% not 65%.
DVD, I don't think this is off-topic - it is a fundamental issue relating to motoring issues. Motor-crime affects us all, if only from fear of crime and increased insurance premiums.
I agree that the Court system leaves witnesses cynical as to the
judicial mechanism, this needs a major overhaul.One issue I agree with Blunkett is Defence Solicitors stalling Youth cases so that they run out of time and the offenders walk free. I also despise CPS solicitors who fail to prepare adequately for their cases and forget paperwork and blame everyone, that is apart form themselves we are paying these people for goodness sake.
Captial Crime was scrapped because of Human Rights legitlation (treaties signed in 1951) that this Country led on in the 50s - but didn't adopt until 2000; possibly this was a hidden political agenda at the time and may have been dressed up as a public opinion issue. I disagree, fundamentally, with Capital Punishment. I also disagree with putting young people in prison but accept that it must be done at times, Prisons damage people far more than any penal value, they come out better skilled in the criminal arts and far more brutalized than when they went in.
These kids are proven to be socially excluded on a numbe rof fronts - far better to give them the life skills (or try to at least) than lock them up for a couple of months and then keep doing so until the end of never.
I disagree with birching as well and I am not a libral.
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I disagree with birching as well and I am not a libral.
Surely your arguments against prison are de facto arguments *for* birching.
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
www.private-eye.co.uk/innews
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Its a confusing concept isn't it - Motoring related sites needing motoring related discussion.
Please try, it will make me so happy. Alternatively when I check later I shall writelock this thread.
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What was the car that Basil birched?
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It was a BMC 1100.
He had warned it before and once again it had misbehaved.
"I'm going to give you a b***** good thrashing" were his words and it worked.
My brother had a new one of these in the early sixties and on his way to a race meeting in France the gearbox gave up.
The problem was Harold Wilson had recently imposed restrictions on sterling leaving the country. I think the limit was £200.00.
We had to get either a gearbox or illegally get money out to him which took some arranging in those days.
alvin
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"Experts I fear the most. Only the other day a discussion by three criminologists on Radio 4 were saying that child abduction/murder is only at the same number as in the 1950s.
That's not as I recall it."
It happens to be true, though. There have been around 4 murders of children by strangers every year this century. The only exception was Dunblane year. The perception of certain offences is far out of kilter with the truth, thanks to our glorious tabloids.
However, without any doubt, thefts of and from cars are higher than they have been in the past, though with the advent of better car security, thefts of cars will no doubt decline. That's perhaps why bike thefts are at such a level, as they are a damn sight easier to steal than a modern car.
So, the solution lies in two areas, (1) improve security on all vehicles, (2) Use the rule of law to punish the swine who do this by ensuring that firstly they get caught and secondly they get a jail sentence every time. I've never known anyone steal a car while they were in Strangeways.
V
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