This…
Never ever trust a copper, and never underestimate how utterly twisted and evil a woman can be, even (or especially?) to another woman.
AJ
Plod
Immunity Insanity…
I have to admit I was more surprised than I should have been when I saw this:
It was, apparently, US politician Rahm Emanuel who said “never allow a good crisis to go to waste when it’s an opportunity to do things that you had never considered, or that you didn’t think were possible.”
So we should not be surprised that police chiefs are cynically exploiting the terrorist massacre in Paris to make a grab for power that would never before have been considered possible.
I’m sure it’s entirely co-incidental that 3 days ago, the policeman who shot and killed a trivial hoodlum in suspicious circumstances was arrested. But terrorism will be the cover under which senior officers will claim to need the ability to shoot people with impunity, and you can be in little doubt that they’ll receive a sympathetic hearing from sociopathic zombie cosplayer and Home Secretary, Theresa May.
Before I continue, let me put it to you that, in the fight against terrorism and gangland crime, the police are not hampered by the awkward legal implications of going round killing people, so much as by the pernicious consequences of the MacPherson report, and its outcomes, namely political correctness, affirmative action and undue deference to “minority” communities that have carte blanche to harbour criminals and terrorists.
So I propose giving the police immunity not from charges over deaths, but from charges of racism and Islamophobia, because I put it to you that these are the far greater impediments to police ability to tackle black gang crime and Islamic terrorists. Cutting through these would have a far more profound and useful effect than giving coppers a freer reign to shoot people than they already obviously have.
I can think of a whole raft of reasons why allowing the police impunity to shoot people without fear of legal ramifications should never be allowed to happen.
The first – and this point should be blindingly obvious – is that if the police are less likely to face legal consequences, they will be more likely to shoot people in ambiguous circumstances, and are thus more likely to kill people who should not have been shot at all.
The second is that we can see from the example of America what happens when the police are widely armed and granted a degree of impunity – the consequences of this police militarisation are in direct contravention of the Peelian Principles upon which policing in Britain is founded.
The third is that, while in any body of men as large as the British police forces (circa 150,000) there are bound to be some who are intelligent, well balanced and committed to justice and integrity, there is plenty of evidence that there is a significant rump of thugs, bullies and psychologically ill-suited idiots, who you wouldn’t trust with a water pistol.
The fourth is that we already have plenty of examples of the police in the UK shooting people and, in plenty of those cases, getting it egregiously wrong and not suffering the just consequences of those actions, and just what becomes of those responsible.
Jean Charles De Menezes – outcome: promotions, medals and honours
The officer in command when innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes was shot to death at close quarters in a crowded tube train in 2005 was Cressida Dick. She was subsequently promoted to the position of Assistant Commissioner of the Met Police, and is now a big cheese in the Foreign Office. She was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for distinguished service and a CBE. If she’s not in the house of Lords by 2020 I’ll bear my arse in Burtons’ window. The full story of how the police tried to smear de Menezes after his death, in order to deflect attention from their own egregious failings is breathtaking in its bare-faced audacity.
In July 2006, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which like the IPCC operates independently of the Met, announced that it would not carry forward any charges against any individual involved in the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner in his official capacity faced criminal charges under sections 3(1) and 33(1)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 for "failing to provide for the health, safety and welfare of Jean Charles de Menezes".[52] The decision not to prosecute individuals was made on the grounds of insufficient evidence.[53] The family of Menezes appealed against the decisions of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service in the High Court.[54]
The legal representatives of the Metropolitan Police Service on behalf of the office of the Commissioner pleaded not guilty to the charges, "after the most careful consideration".[55] The trial started on 1 October 2007.[56]
On 14 December 2006, Lord Justice Richards (Richards LJ) of the High Court, sitting with Mr Justice Forbes (Forbes J) and Mr Justice Mackay (Mackay J), unanimously rejected an application for a judicial review into the decision of the office of the DPP on behalf of the CPS to rule out criminal prosecutions of the individual police officers who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes, ruling that "[I]t was a reasonable decision … on the basis that they were likely to fail".[57][58]
On 1 November 2007, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in his official capacity was found guilty of the above offences, and his office was fined £175,000, together with £385,000 of legal costs.[59] The Met published a terse release about this decision[60] and Len Duvall, Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, asked that the full report on the investigation be published.[61]
That Met Police Commissioner was ‘Sir’ Ian Blair.
Sir Ian Blair appeared on television on 24 July 2005 to accept responsibility for the error on the part of the Metropolitan Police, and to acknowledge and defend the "shoot to kill" policy, saying:
- "There is no point in shooting at someone’s chest because that is where the bomb is likely to be. There is no point in shooting anywhere else if they fall down and detonate it."[65]
The Met’s commissioner Sir Ian Blair, and his predecessor Lord Stevens, had expressed concern about the legal position of police officers who might kill suspected suicide bombers. There is no explicit legal requirement for armed officers to warn a suspect before firing, although guidelines published by the Association of Chief Police Officers say that this "should be considered". A potential suicide bomber is thought to represent a circumstance where warning the suspect may put the public at greater risk because the bomber may detonate his explosives after being warned.
Aha! So, the appeal to the need to protect us from suicide bombers.. right.. and of course those would be the only circumstances in which such a thing could be considered possible.
“Sir” Ian Blair is now, by the way, “Baron Blair of Boughton” and, like Cressida Dick, is a holder of the Queen’s Police Medal.
Stephen Waldorf – outcome: police cleared of all charges, medals and honours for the Commissioner
In 1983, Stephen Waldorf was shot & severely injured in another case of mistaken identity.
Detectives Jardine and Finch stood trial for attempted murder and attempted wounding of Waldorf, but were cleared of all charges in October 1983.
The Met Police Commissioner in 1983 was “Sir” Kenneth Newman. Another holder of the Queen’s Police Medal. I think I see a pattern emerging.
James Ashley – outcome: officer who opened fire cleared of all charges, top brass found to have been corrupt. Chief Constable forced to resign.
James Ashley was a 39-year-old British man shot dead by armed police while unarmed and naked,[1] during a raid on his Sussex flat in 1998
This is actually the first example I’ve used where the victim was a wrong’un, and one could argue that karma is a bitch, but the fact of the matter is the police were in the wrong and a man – who may or may not have had justice coming to him after due process – was summarily killed..
Harry Stanley – outcome: officers faced no charges, inquest recorded an open verdict. No resignations. Chief officer ennobled.
On 22 September 1999, he was returning home from the Alexandra Pub in South Hackney carrying, in a plastic bag, a table leg that had been repaired by his brother earlier that day. Someone had phoned the police to report "an Irishman with a gun wrapped in a bag".
As well as carrying a table leg, and not a gun, he was Scottish, not Irish. Think about this. Someone who wants you gone can just pick up the phone to the cops and make such a claim, which will be taken at face value and acted upon with deadly force and without hesitation.
The name of the high court judge who, at appeal overturned an earlier verdict of unlawful killing, might be familiar to you. He was one Mr Justice Leveson.
The Commissioner of the Met Police at the time of the shooting was “Sir” Paul Condon and you’ll be unsurprised to hear that he’s another holder of the QPM, and is now Baron Condon.
Some other incidents at random:
On 24 August 1985 John Shorthouse aged 5 was shot dead in a police raid on his home in Birmingham. PC Brian Chester, a family man and highly commended officer, was later cleared of any wrongdoing.
On 30 April 2005, Azelle Rodney, from London, was shot dead by armed officers of the Metropolitan Police. In August 2007, coroner Andrew Walker, sitting at Hornsey North London, said that a full inquest into Rodney’s death could not be held because of the large number of redactions in police officers’ statements. In July 2013 a judicial inquiry found that the Authorised Firearms Officer who fired the fatal shots had "no lawful justification" for opening fire. On 30 July 2014 the CPS announced that they had made the decision to charge the officer with murder. On 3 July 2015 the officer was cleared by a jury.
On 3 March 2012, Anthony Grainger was shot dead in Cheshire by an armed Greater Manchester Police officer whilst sitting in a stolen car. Grainger was unarmed at the time of the shooting. Chief Constable “Sir” Peter Fahy (another QPM and who was knighted 3 months after this incident) was charged under health and safety legislation over the shooting.
However, in January 2015, William Boyce QC, at Liverpool Crown Court accepted an ‘abuse of process‘ argument from the defence,[9] who had argued that evidence which needed to be disclosed in open court in order for the defendant (Fahy) to have a fair trial would not be in the public interest and it would prejudice future Greater Manchester Police operations.
The CPS had no choice but to accept the judge’s decision and drop the case against the Greater Manchester Police.
And let us not forget that those half-witted wooly suits who have been let loose with a Taser could easily graduate to a proper gun at any time.
Uh.. guys.. I think I might know why that is…
Just one week ago, the media were reporting that “Children and teenagers have a profound lack of trust in the police”.
Well, why ever could that be?
Publishing the findings of an 18-month inquiry, the committee said children and young people’s first contact with the police was vital in shaping their attitudes towards them.
‘Ingrained attitudes’
"For a significant number of children and young people, this experience is a negative one as a victim or suspected offender," the report said.
"Once a negative encounter has occurred, it takes time and hard work to change ingrained attitudes, which are often passed on from one generation to the next".
Some children and young people, the report suggested, feel humiliated when they come into contact with the police, are confused by their procedures, and do not believe they are there to protect them.
Let’s go back to that first paragraph above..
Publishing the findings of an 18-month inquiry, the committee said children and young people’s first contact with the police was vital in shaping their attitudes towards them.
It’s difficult not to keep mulling this over when you subsequently read two very salient stories on two consecutive days:
Well that’s just one isolated incident, and accidents will happ… what? err.. oh.
LOL
AJ
Police…
Sussex Police: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-29282731
Greater Manchester Police: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/police-officer-arrested-work-over-7790069
Greater Manchester Police – again and far more seriously: http://www.itv.com/news/2014-10-14/itv-news-investigation-finds-hundreds-of-child-abusers-walking-free-in-manchester-due-to-police-failings/
South Yorkshire Police: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/28/rotherham-abuse-scandal-south-yorkshire-police-tough-questions
Cambridgeshire Police are just 2 of the 100 police in this FBI list: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-139434/More-100-police-suspicion-paedophilia-crackdown.html
Wiltshire Police (23/09/2014): http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/11474771.Top_cop_probed_in_alleged_cover_up/?ref=twtrec
Merseyside Police (23/09/2014): http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/merseyside-police-officer-charged-sexual-7762271
I’m sure there are other examples from all around the UK of police either covering for child abusers, or being actual child abusers. As they turn up, I’ll update this post.
If you trust them, if you want them to have more powers – or even keep the powers they have – you’re probably protecting those who enable children’s lives to be ruined in the most heinous way possible.
Think on.
AJ
The Rough Sleep of the Righteous
This is doing the twitter-rounds today, and it’s pretty disgusting, actually. It’s not at all surprising though, because the police in the UK are, and have been for some many years now, completely out of control.
Without thought, tact, discretion, compassion or nouse.
In fact, such are the systemic problems with many laws as they stand, and the way policing is directed, managed and undertaken, that you really have to be utterly immoral to do the job. If you’re a copper, you are, de facto, a wrong un. A willing wearer of the state’s lumpen jackboot, disrupter of innocent lives in mindless pursuit of targets, all the while satisfying whatever thuggery is needed to quieten your personal inadequacies.
So, onto the main event:
Confiscating the food and shelter of homeless people.
Police swooped on the homeless, grabbing sleeping bags and food parcels donated by the public, in co-ordinated raids around the borough.
Adam Jaskowiak was one of the men targeted and said he pleaded with police to be able to keep his things but was ignored.
He was sleeping with eight other people finding shelter for the night in the former Ilford Baths in High Road, Ilford.
All of their belongings were bundled into a police car leaving the men, one in his 60s, stunned.
A police chief told the Recorder the operation was carried out to “reduce the negative impact of rough sleepers”.
But Mr Jaskowiak, 34, said: “They were just taking the sleeping bags and chucking out everything. I asked to keep it and the food, but they said ‘no’.
“I just grabbed as many of my things as possible and put them into a bag and ran.”
He was given the sleeping bag by the Salvation Army, Clements Road, Ilford, over the winter months after becoming homeless when his friend died.
Unbelievable, right? But the brave, righteous soul behind this initiative has a name. And that name is SCUM. But he prefers to call himself Chief Inspector John Fish.
Ilford Ch Insp John Fish said: “The public rely on police to reduce the negative impact of rough sleepers, this includes the need for us to assist in the removal of temporary structures, tents, and bedding from public spaces and other inappropriate locations.”
Chief Inspector Big Strong Hardman. Pic from here.
I hope you sleep real well in your warm cosy bed at night, Chief Inspector John Fish. Has your wife left you yet, or is that inevitability still in your grim lonely future?
As an aside, it’s worth bearing in mind that the way the Met Police treat the homeless is clearly a mere bagatelle compared to how they treat rape victims, in the pursuit of their twisted priorities.
AJ
Blind fury
Less than a month ago, I wrote a post explaining why I didn’t think the British police should be routinely armed. Part of my argument was that they’ve proven in the past that they cannot be trusted with Tasers, let alone actual guns.
And here’s another fine example to illustrate said case against pervasive armed police.
That’s right. They zapped a blind guy. Nice work eh?
Colin Farmer, 61, was stunned by police following reports of a man walking through Chorley with a samurai sword.
Ch Supt Stuart Williams, of Lancashire Police, said the force had "deep regrets" and had "clearly put this man through a traumatic experience".
…
Mr Farmer, who has suffered two strokes, said he thought he was being attacked by thugs.
He was walking to a pub to meet friends on Friday when the officer fired the Taser. It forced him to drop his stick and he fell to the ground, he said.
He said the experience had left him "shaking like a leaf" and scared to go outside.
The case has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Uh-huh. Job jobbed then.
AJ
Policing priorities: Not the easy targets, oh no. Never.
I see that while the police weren’t able to keep a crowd of yobbos away from the Prince of Wales, they were able to put the fear of all holy fuck into a 12 year old boy who wanted to picket his constituency MP, David ‘Heir to Blair’ Cameron, over the closure of local facilities.
Click through, and once you’ve digested the main thread of the story, steel yourself for a masterpiece of self-serving dissemblance from the Thames Valley Power Rangers.
AJ
Alcohol
The thing that I really hate (well, one of them) about this coalition government is that we seem to have something very much like Labour.
It’s like you just need to pick & choose the most unpalatable parts of both parties platforms and merge them together.
With the Tories, you may get sound economics, but you get authoritarian social policies.
With the Lib Dems, you may get (sometimes crazily) liberal social policies, but you also get the economics of Keynes.
With the coalition, we seem to have Keynesian Authoritarianism.
I mean… graduate tax student loans with higher interest rates for the most successful? And redemption penalties for those that pay off early?
And in terms of authoritarianism, it’s hard to imagine even the puritans of New Labour coming up with this latest wheeze.
The ”24/7 sobriety” programme involves people paying to be tested for alcohol twice a day after being convicted of drink-related crime, and appearing in court to face the prospect of a jail sentence if they fail.
Oh aye? Can you say AlcoBO?
It has already been implemented in the US, with the state of South Dakota reporting a 14 per cent drop in the prison population as a result, according to Deputy Mayor of London Kit Malthouse.
He said he would like to pilot the scheme in the capital in 2011, subject to government approval.
He described London as having a "disproportionate problem" with alcohol where almost twice as much alcohol-related crime is committed compared with the rest of England.
Sooo.. you’re going to try this out in London are you? Based on a scheme hailing from the country with the most twisted attitude to alcohol of any Western nation? And from a state that no-one ever goes to, and is riddled with po-faced religionists.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, I’ve been thinking about this and the list is pretty long. Because while you can bet this ruse has been conjured up to tackle a hard core few persistent drunken troublemakers, it never turns out that way, does it?
"The advantage of this is it is not just punitive but corrective," he told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.
Corrective? Do go on…
"It may be that it is used as an alternative to prison or conjunctive to prison."
Mr Malthouse said that current methods such as counselling did not work to discourage persistent offenders and that some needed a "more rigorous approach".
He added: "If you ask the police there are some people who cause trouble every Saturday night."
Ah yes, as I said.. it’s aimed at a hardcore minority.
Mr Malthouse said the American version of the scheme had a 99 per cent compliance rate and that it was "of no cost to the tax payer", because the people taking part paid a dollar per alcohol test. He described it as a ”cheaper and more cost-effective” alternative to prison.
Yes yes.. and for those who have committed serious enough crimes to warrant prison, perhaps this sanction has a place.
Sure, it’ll start that way, with such good intentions as pave the way to hell. But, sooner or later…
End up in front of the beak for a spot of drunk & disorderly? £100 fine, £40 costs and an AlcoBO. You’re ordered to be dry for 12 months.
Wanna bet it couldn’t happen? Wanna bet innocent and legitimate photographers could never possibly be harassed by the police under abusive invocations of our Anti-terrorism laws? No.. that already happens, of course.
Back to booze laws then. Ask drinkers in Crawley who have experienced the zero-tolerance approach, by the police and their plastic pals, to even genial and mild drunkenness of a Friday night.
This is the next logical step for the zealots, and you can bet the swelling ranks of hypocrites and puritans infesting this country will rub their hands together with glee, egging on the police and courts to take ever more radical action, against ever more trivial infractions.
Now to the reasons why this scheme is just as likely to be both unjust and unworkable, as it is to be implemented with relish by the drones and collaborators of the state.
It has the potential to be unjust in at least a couple of ways.
The first is that this will be implemented under the guise of preventing or punishing behaviour for which criminal sanctions already exist– Public Order Act , Offences Against The Person Act etc etc, and if these offences were properly dealt with, the need for this sweeping new power would cease to exist. So what exactly is this proposed law for? Probably to make life easier for the police, who are, obviously, never known to overstep the bounds of their authority, or to use their powers injudiciously.
The second is that, similar to the ASBO, it would criminalise an act which is, in itself, perfectly legal. I.e. drinking alcohol. To completely ban a person from consuming alcohol is a serious infringement of the rights of the individual.
Consider the eventuality I describe above, of these orders being handed out rather more freely than Kit Malthouse would care to admit.
Now, hand one of these orders to an alcoholic, say. One who holds down a job and lives a relatively untroubled life in terms of brushes with the law. What have you just done? Oh yes, you’ve said to someone addicted to a legal substance, ‘I will put you in prison each time you have a fix’. And will the alcoholic get the help and support he would need for this undertaking of sobriety? Not likely.
Next, a reason why the scheme is impractical and unworkable. They want to test people for alcohol twice a day? How?
Consider the pilot of this scheme, in London, with its highly transient population, as well as a million or more commuters who come from all over the country on a daily basis, not to mention the tourists.
Would they effectively want people to report to a police station for a breathalyser test twice a day? in London? For a year? Or perhaps they could be more sly than that and enforce blood tests and other invasive medical tests weekly or monthly, so that they could detect alcohol consumption?
Oh wait – there’s the massively expensive technology solution! Someone, somewhere must be building a breathalyser, that includes a GPS tag and cellular technology, so the recipient of the order has to self report, in real time. But how would those monitoring know who was blowing into the thing? No.. thats obviously gonna need more thought. Perhaps build DNA testing of saliva into the unit? Sounds cheap.
Sadly, the outcome of London’s pilot will be that the scheme failed because it was too localised. A projection would show how very successful the scheme would have been, if there was a national database and cross-county co-operation.
So even though the scheme will prove to be calamitously expensive, unjust and unworkable, it will be rolled out nationally on the basis of these finding.
If you look back at the last quote from Malthouse, above, it bears repeating:
it was "of no cost to the tax payer", because the people taking part paid a dollar per alcohol test.
Of no cost… no way. Not here, with the multi-million pound IT system, the gold-plated legislation, the enforcement teams, the medics, the courts, the prison places, the lawyers, the cases being defended in the the European Courts of Human Rights.
Spare us.
AJ
On not giving a flying fuck
ITV’s London Tonight – a TV programme, apparently – thinks we could give a shit what some overpaid kickyball douchebag thinks about likely cuts to police budgets.
By referral, so does the Tellygiraffe.
Could anyone who thinks Rio Ferdinand has an opinion worthy of merit, regarding anything more important than football, please report to your nearest suicide booth?
I’m not going to bother dissecting Ferdinand’s opinion. I shall simply despair that anyone thought it worthy of an airing.
AJ
Another story where everyone is an arsehole
This is our free country:
The men, all but one of them members of the far-right English Defence League, set fire to what appears to be the Muslim holy books on the anniversary of the 9/11 atrocities in the United States.
They say they carried out the “private joke” as a riposte to historical images of Muslim extremists burning American flags and effigies of western leaders.
Now, I shouldn’t need to state that I think it’s sick and absurd that people in a country such as ours can be charged with a criminal offence for burning a book, or for posting a very ludicrous and moronic video of the occasion on YouTube. Although, the latter is apparently not even the case.
Four more men were arrested and bailed on Wednesday pending further inquiries, Northumbria Police said.
“The arrests followed the burning of what are believed to have been two Korans in Gateshead on September 11,” a spokesman said.
He added that the men were not arrested for watching or distributing the video, but on suspicion of burning the Koran.
And I needn’t point out that police, in fact, provided protection in London to a group of radical Islamists who made a public show of burning a US flag, on 11th September, in front of the US embassy in London.
Now, these EDL guys are clearly pretty dim.
The clip, recorded in the back yard of a public house in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, has been broadly condemned by other YouTube users, some of whom have expressed concern that British soldiers in Afghanistan could be targeted as a direct result.
They were marshalled by a man wearing a jacket bearing the logo: “English Defence League, Gateshead Division”.
The group admit to having been drinking at The Bugle in Felling, Gateshead, ahead of a Newcastle United match.
“It wasn’t anyone’s idea as such,” said the spokesman, who agreed to speak only on condition that all six remained anonymous.
But not so dim that they couldn’t speak truth to power.
“People are sick of British soldiers being killed out in Afghanistan and then being spat at and called baby killers when they come home.”
And that’s true enough. Some of the Islamist provocation surrounding Wootton Bassett etc has been truly disgusting.
But if that bunch of nutters have the right to act in a sick, deluded and provocative way (and so far as I’m concerned, they do), then how have a handful of daft Geordies burning two copies of the Quran in their back yard ended up having their collars felt?
Double standards? Thought police?
The Islamists have won? It really does seem that way, doesn’t it?
AJ
Community Policing: Ur doin it wrong.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect.
It’s like South Yorkshire police have a sixth sense about when best to unleash their lunacy on an unsuspecting public.
Yesterday:
Police have broken their ‘psychological contract’ with the public to keep the streets clear of anti-social behaviour, the country’s most senior officer admitted yesterday.
Scotland Yard chief Sir Paul Stephenson accepted beat patrols had been neglected and officers left behind desks, in cars or left doing ‘social work’.
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner supported the call for the public to join the fight against yobs, saying they should be confident officers will back them.
I think when they say ‘yobs’, they must mean parents dropping their disabled kids off at school.
Police have been accused of being ‘heavy-handed’ after sending a riot van to hand out parking tickets at a disabled school.
Parents were stunned when the vehicle pulled up as they were helping the children in wheelchairs from the school to their cars.
Officers were accused of being ‘rude’ for dishing out on the spot penalties as they waited at Hilltop Special School in Maltby near Rotherham.
…
One of the victims Dave Phillips was handed a £30 fixed penalty when he stopped for five minutes to pick up his wheelchair bound son Matthew, aged 16.
He had driven 15 miles from his home in Retford, Nottinghamshire, and parked outside the school before being confronted by a police woman.
He said : ‘The police response has been heavy handed – and it’s the kids they are penalising not us. The police behaviour was unpleasant and completely unnecessary.
‘Nine officers and a police van created an intimidating atmosphere around the school.
I was approached by a young policewoman who told me to "move" – not "excuse me sir" — it was just a total ignorant attitude .‘I explained to the officer I was going to park here for five minutes to get my son. I said ‘He’s a wheelchair user and we have got a side loading lift’, – "not my problem" was the reply, "move it" so I said "no, I’m stopping here I’m going to put my son in."
…
South Yorkshire police said tackling ‘inconsiderate parking’ in the area was now a priority.
And they wonder why an increasing proportion of the public think that the police can go fuck themselves.
This is the same South Yorkshire Police, we should remember, who arrested and charged Paul Chambers for sending a joke tweet about an airport, which resulted in his conviction. His appeal is ongoing.
Oh and it could well be that there’s something in the police’s assertion that these parents were parking inconsiderately, but the police are supposed to treat members of the public with respect, and they fail on that count, time after time.
A disgrace to the nation, and another legacy of Labour.
AJ
Collaborators, snitches and the Stasi
I expect the forums at Pistonheads.com have been rendered in a state of apoplexy about this:
Thousands of drivers have been reported by fellow motorists after being spotted speeding, drink driving or talking on mobile phones.
Anyone reported twice in a year could face police action under the scheme, named Operation Crackdown. The culprits could receive a home visit or a warning letter.
Sussex Police is trialling the campaign and has already received 20,488 reports from the public. Warning letters have been sent to 2,695, while a further 1,047 have been sanctioned for offences such as having an out-of-date tax disc.
The scheme, under which reports are submitted anonymously online, could be rolled out nationally if it is deemed a success.
…
A newsletter promoting the scheme reads: "Are you fed up with anti-social drivers? People who still use their mobile phones while driving, not wearing seat belts or those who insist on getting right up your bumper and are really annoying and dangerous to others."
I’m sorry.. how does not wearing a seatbelt constitute anti-social or dangerous driving?
Surely they’ve seen the studies showing that when wearing seatbelts, people drive in a less risk-averse way? AKA the Peltzman effect.
No, this is not about safety or anti-social driving. It’s about the police asking members of the public to do their job for them, and in doing so, appeal to the worse-nature of the inevitable portion of society that is given to being judgemental, self-righteous, nosey and vindictive.
Dylan Sharpe of Big Brother Watch points out the most obvious flaws with the plan, and is quoted in the article.
Dylan Sharpe, of the campaign group Big Brother Watch, warned that Operation Crackdown is "based on unfounded accusations by untrained and possibly prejudiced members of the public".
He added: "This scheme is wide open to abuse, ranging from people with minor grudges against neighbours to busybody drivers who think they know what constitutes bad driving."
There is a further problem though. I drive getting on for 30,000 miles a year. On a mile for mile basis, that makes me 2-3 times more likely than the average 10k a year driver, to be reported by some embittered numpty. And yet the bar for police action is set at 2 reports over a given period, not per 10,000 miles driven. Of course it’s obvious that they can’t realistically judge it on miles driven, but the result is a creation that is manifestly unfair to those of us who drive a lot, in the course of generating revenue for the tax man to steal from us, to play for police.
But…
The main problem I have with this scheme is something of a personal one. I’m a target for this shit. I drive quickly and assertively. I have no patience for timewasters and idiots on the road.
You know what I find to be anti-social? Driving at 40mph in 50mph zone for no good reason, and causing a queue of traffic to build up.
I don’t want to be doing 40. I want to be doing 50 (probably I want to be doing more than that, but I can live with 50), and you can bet your arse that after a half mile or so, I’ll be doing everything I can to draw this fact to your fucking ignorant attention.
This means “Get the fuck out of my way” you tedious wanker.
So what do the police encourage? Well they diagnose my behaviour to be anti-social and ask the 40mph fuckwit to report me.
They will doubtless fail to accept my assertion that Mr 40mph is, in fact, the one driving anti-socially.
Similarly, the art of overtaking is a dying one in this country, and when encountered, it is frequently met with righteous indignation, flashed headlamps or a ‘wanker’ gesture.
For why? I didn’t do anything dangerous. There was a plentiful gap, and I used my car’s considerable power in order to overtake swiftly and safely, in line the police driving manual Roadcraft.
No doubt a goodly proportion of these remonstrators will be moved to go on to the local police website and tell tales about me.
What’s interesting about the phenomenon regarding objections to overtaking is that the usual source of this objection comes from one of two stereotypes. Firstly, is the obvious one. Old people, of whom there are far too many on the roads, and most of them drive like total fucking morons. Secondly, though, is young men.. teenagers to late 20s. The class of the New Labour years. Conformist metrosexual sheep.
Fuck them all.
AJ
NB: This is far from being the first time that a police force has tried to make informers out of their paymasters.
UPDATE: Manwiddicombe makes an interesting case for exceptional circumstances.
This evening at around 6pm I was proceeding in an Easterly direction along the Old Shoreham Road (A270) approaching the junction for West Hove Sainsburys. I was driving *cough* at the 40 mph speed limit when a vehicle raced past me in the outside lane.
It was definitely travelling at speeds in excess of the posted limit. A *cough* passenger in my vehicle managed to take a photo of the rear of the vehicle with a mobile telephone device. Would you like to see the photo?
Whoever it is that works for this nannying outfit deserves everything they fucking get. Speed kills? Cunt.
A story in which everyone turns out to be an arsehole
Via Ambush Predator, this has the full triad of imbecility.
MOVIE fan Martin Smith landed in court on a racism charge after he downloaded part of the soundtrack from the 1980s comedy film Rita, Sue and Bob Too! and installed it as a ringtone on his mobile.
Martin, of Holmewood, north Derbyshire, claims friends and workmates got used to hearing the voice of an Asian actor reciting the words “I can’t help being a Paki…“.
Imbecile number 1: Anti-social pillock who thinks using samples from movies as a ringtone is clever.
I thought people stopped doing that 10 years ago. Apart from Australians, of course, but what can you say about those ?
But there’s room for plenty more stupidity in Derbyshire.
But a woman from a mixed race family wasn’t amused when Martin’s Nokia went off as she queued alongside him at a village shop.
Over-hearing the clip from the movie – which chronicles the exploits of two schoolgirls growing up on a rundown estate in Bradford – the woman went home and lodged a formal complaint with the police.
Imbecile number 2: Pecksnifferous offence-seeking cretin who runs crying to the police about someone’s idiot ringtone.
One more to go.. Imbecile number 3 please.
Officers arrested the 36-year-old at home two days later and locked him in the cells at Chesterfield for four hours before charging him with contravening race relation laws.
Ah.. the police. They can’t wait for a chance to get their frilly knickers in a twist over bullshit thought-crime, can they?
Oh well, I suppose the man arrested should be thankful that the power-crazed simians didn’t kick the shit out of him.
Magistrates fined him £191 with £85 costs for using racially aggravated threatening or insulting words or behaviour.
You want a cherry on the cake? Try this:
The court was told the unnamed woman, who was from a mixed African-Mediterranean background, overheard the ringtone while she was waiting to be served at the grocery store near Smith’s home in Holmewood.
Yep – the time-wasting bint isn’t even fucking Asian.
I despair.
Calling Steve Hughes:
”I was insulted and offended.”
“So? Nothing happens.”
AJ
Ian Blair, delusional tool.
This comes via Tom Harris, who is somewhat taken aback at tacitly being branded racist by Ian Blair, formerly New labour’s Top Cop. Blair was forced out, ostensibly for being a useless, politically motivated sack of shit, by Boris Johnson in 2008.
Tom Harris’ gripe is that Blair implies that anyone in the Labour party who isn’t supporting (and funding) Diane Abbott for the leadership is racist.
How, for instance, can Labour Party members not be outraged about the lack of donations to Diane Abbott’s leadership campaign?
Never mind the myriad, perfectly legitimate, reasons for deploring Abbott’s bid, not least that she’s a hard left unilateralist and humongous racist hypocrite herself.
What caught my eye, though, was Blair’s next statement.
And how could London’s Conservative-run Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) announce recently that the Met is no longer affected by institutional racism?
Well, that sounded somewhat strange to me, because in February 2009, Jack Straw, then Justice Secretary said to the BBC:
"If you are asking me whether I believe the Met as a whole is still institutionally racist, the answer is no."
Yet in the same month, Boris Johnson, Conservative Mayor of London, and chair of the MPA, said:
“It was the anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence and we had a very nasty incident, the relic of a very nasty incident, in Belgravia, and this reminds us that racism exists, is alive and is vile and must be stamped out in the police service.”
So I hereby declare Ian Blair’s cretinously partisan piece in the New Statesman to be the epitome of lefty delusion and revisionism.
Happily, no-one whatsoever has to listen to a word the cunt says any more.
AJ
Polizei
It’s about time PCSOs were ditched.
Police were accused of being ‘heavy handed’ today after four officers were dispatched to deal with a 84-year old World War Two veteran – because he was riding his bicycle on the pavement.
Great grandfather James Gresty was chased into a bank by two police community support officers after they said he was cycling on the path outside.
The pair ordered Mr Gresty to come outside for a ticking off but when he refused they called for ‘back-up’ from two other regular officers in a nearby police van.
They promptly drove over the pedestrianised street outside the Halifax bank in Sale, Greater Manchester, to reach him and issue him with a £30 fixed penalty for an offence of cycling in a pedestrianised area.
Today widower Mr Gresty, who won several war medals during his three year service as a private with the York and Lancaster Regiment, said: ‘I was shocked at the attitude of these two officers who wanted to speak to me.
‘They were carrying on as if I had been guilty of committing a serious criminal offence.
‘They were being aggressive, rude and heavy handed, all over an in issue of whether I was cycling on the pavement.
‘I wouldn’t mind but they didn’t even get that right either. I had got off my bike before I got on the pavement. God knows why four police officers had to be involved.
‘You would have thought they would have something better to do with their time. I’m an 84-year-old man, not some teenage hoodie.
‘And it’s all rather galling that that their "back"up drove across a pedestrianised area, which I think is far more dangerous than riding a bike across it.
‘It seemed that these two PCSOs were young people who put on a uniform and thought they owned the place. Obviously the power had gone to their heads.’
Indeed.
But then, this is Greater Manchester Police we’re talking about. We should expect no less.
Massive respect to Mr Gresty for standing up to the bullying little shites. He deserves our support.
AJ
UPDATE: The comments under the Manchester Evening News’ version of the same story make for depressing reading. We’re living in an age of collaborators.
Speed guns do not work, says copper who was caught by one.
Golden.
A senior policewoman clocked speeding is challenging the charge by claiming that the speed gun used by her own force was not accurate.
If she wins, it could open the floodgates to thousands of appeals from motorists across the country who have been caught using the devices.
Superintendent Helen Chamberlain, 43, was recorded driving at 79mph on a road with a 50mph limit.
She was given a verbal warning by the officer who stopped her. But a more senior officer disagreed with the decision and asked the Crown Prosecution Service to review the case.
Supt Chamberlain, from Harworth, Nottinghamshire, who works for Nottinghamshire police’s city division, pleaded not guilty to a charge of speeding at Nottingham magistrates’ court on Wednesday.
Ian Boddy, defending, said that questions over the accuracy of the speed gun test result would form the basis of her not guilty plea.
That’ll be one to watch, although I don’t like her chances, unless she’s got Nick Freeman’s firm onboard.
Thing is, this will come down to one of two things. Either she’s trying it on, or she knows that her own police force has issued thousands of penalty notices to innocent motorists who have precious little chance of defending themselves. Either way, the stench of ‘one rule for them’ lingers in the air again.
AJ
It’s quite simple really.
This is a good thing:
First of all, “Britain’s most senior traffic policeman” is just that because he’s more or less the ONLY traffic policeman.
As a result of the tenure system introduced into police forces and the sometime abolition of traffic policing units, most police seen on the roads have no proper experience or training as traffic policemen.
Instead, speed cameras are used to detect drunk drivers, tired drivers, dangerous and careless drivers, stolen vehicles and.. oh.. no .. wait. Speed cameras can’t do any of that.
Let’s look at Chief Constable Baldylard’s rationale.
“We have invested heavily in infrastructure. There is a danger that it is dwindling away. I think a vacuum has been created and people are reacting to that inappropriately,” he told The Times. “If nothing is put in place, speeds will rise and casualties will grow.” Driving standards will deteriorate, child road safety programmes will be hit and the education of offenders will cease, Mr Giannasi said.
Okay – is that all? What? There’s something else? Oh…
The Treasury would also lose a “significant” revenue stream.
Here in the UK, we already have the safest roads in the EU, by deaths and serious injuries per passenger kilometre, and still they want to screw us more.
4x more people die as a result of hospital acquired infections than on the road.
Spend the money that matey above wants for speed cameras on hospital cleaners and I think we may see a better return on our investment.
Let’s also expose Baldy’s logical fallacy. From the Tellygiraffe, for the non-paywallers out there:
But Mr Giannasi told Today: ”The evidence is that road safety camera partnerships have achieved significant reductions in road casualties over the last decade – there are almost half the number of casualties now that there were eight years ago.”
Correlation does not imply causation.
By which I mean, here are some of the other factors that will have contributed to to reductions in casualties:
- Years of increased traffic without corresponding increase in road capacity means everyone has slowed down in the last 10 years simply because of constantly worsening congestion.
- Cars have become much safer due to EU and US rules – airbags and ABS are the norm now. Passenger safety measures built into cars are now much more stringent. Brake & tyre technologies have improved. Traction control systems have improved.
- The cost of fuel has persuaded many people (me included) to drive more sedately.
Oh and by the way, the outcome in Swindon doesn’t (yet) reflect Chief Constable Baldylard’s prediction.
So Fatty McFailcop needs to get back in his box.
AJ
Siding with the enemy
Feminists are up in arms about this:
Six street-based sex workers in Newham, east London, were named on the Metropolitan police website. Police posted their photos, full names and dates of birth.
…
In a second case, two Polish women who were selling sex from their home in Aldgate, east London, were raided by City of London police as part of Operation Monaco.
…
Police took photographs of the Polish women, who were not charged. Last Sunday, photos appeared in News of the World. The women said they were distressed by the police raid and the lack of warning that their pictures would appear in a tabloid newspaper.
And for once, I am in complete agreement with them.
Absolutely disgusting fascist policing. Yet again.
AJ
TASER TASER TA.. Oooops.. Sorry love.
Unbelievable. Actually, no. It’s quite believable.
Police have apologised after accidentally shooting a 14-year-old girl with a Taser.
Officers investigating complaints of anti-social behaviour fired the Taser after attempting to arrest a man who had become aggressive towards them.
But the Taser missed the intended target and hit schoolgirl Jodie Gallagher, who was standing nearby, sending a huge electric shock through her.
In a statement, Nottinghamshire Police said: ‘As soon as the officer realised he had missed the intended target, he cancelled the discharge.
Oh, well.. never mind then, as you were, Constable Shitbag.
AJ
Getting away with it
The outcome of the Ian Tomlinson affair should come as a surprise to no-one.
For a cogent explanation of the whole farrago, read CharonQC and Obiter J.
Of course, it’s depressing that, yet again, the police get away with treating innocent members of the public in a way that no civilian could without facing uncompromising criminal sanction.
The really interesting things about this situation are threefold.
First: The Telegraph report that the copper involved, has been subject to disciplinary investigations relating to aggressive behaviour, twice before.
Second: Channel 4 news report that the pathologist who conducted the first post-mortem, on which the CPS place such import,
appeared before the General Medical Council on Monday accused of misconduct over his failings in a total of four autopsies performed between September 2002 and August 2004.
Third: Quite apart from the fact the the IPCC recommended bringing a manslaughter charge against the copper who struck Ian Tomlinson down, there are prior manslaughter cases that have been brought and convicted, on no more causal a link than between PC Dimbleby’s baton and Ian Tomlinson’s ‘heart-attack’, which means that EVEN if the twice-contradicted initial pathology report was relied up on, PC Thuggus could still be charged, and convicted.
In light of this case, I wrote a long piece about my personal take on the relationship between the public, the police and the state. Then my laptop threw a BSOD and flushed an hour’s work down the toilet. Once I’d finished calling Bill Gates a cunt, I updated my autosave settings. For I had resolved that this must never be allowed to happen again.
I shall no doubt return to the subject, but in the meantime, Old Holborn has something.
AJ
Al Jahom's Final Word 