Lions Led By Donkeys

There is a well known and outspoken police blogger who won't be too keen on this, I suspect.

Here's an old post of mine.

Just a Thought

A further group of people have been arrested in connection with the News International scandals (and I think that the plural is now justified) including Rebekah Brooks and her husband. I have no comment to make and am happy to let the law take its course, but one thought occurs to me:- if something like this had happened a few years ago to anyone but an NI insider in the days when when the Murdoch tabloid felt, with some justification, that it had special privileges, the squads of police who delivered the dawn knock on the door would very likely have had a Sun reporter and photographer in tow. Do you remember when one of Maxwell's boys was arrested? His feisty wife yelled from a window for her visitors to "Fuck off before I call the police" only to be answered with "We are the police". With any luck that kind of over-cosy potentially corrupt relationship between the press and the police will soon be a thing of the past. A friend of mine who once worked on a Fleet Street paper tells me that stories all carried a price to be paid to the copper passing on the tip off, expressed as 'a drink' ' a good drink' a well-decent drink' and a 'f*cking good drink'. The latter would be good for a couple of weeks spent somewhere sunny.

Jack of Kent commented on the shift in power here.

From The Grapevine

A bit of retiring room gossip tells me that a District Judge was recently rammed from behind by another car when he had the temerity to stop for an amber traffic light. The other driver yelled at the judge for stopping at a mere amber signal.

So far so bad, but the guilty party must have had a nasty surprise to discover that he had not only caused several thousands of pounds' worth of damage but had done it in clear breach of the Highway Code, and to a judge to boot.

Told You So

As I predicted the MP who attacked fellow Members while drunk in a Westminster bar was dealt with by the Chief Magistrate, Howard Riddle.

Someone who has met Mr. Riddle tells me that he thinks he has one of the best jobs in the judiciary, as his caseload is so interesting and varied. He may be right.

Very Useful

Barrister and author Tim Kevan has put a fascinating piece on his blog about a so-called parking fine issued by a private company. Tim's letter would make an excellent template for a response to any other private company that tries to bluff you into paying them money.

Ruined (3)

Here is another case of a lawyer who has abused the trust placed in him, and who quite rightly faces prison as well as professional ruin.

Sometimes one just cannot understand the motivation for an offence such as this. It says something about the previous post on deterrence that a man who must have understood how criminal justice works could risk so much for what was probably so relatively little.

Deterrence

The reliable core of hardline contributors to our comments are to a man (or woman) convinced of the value of, and need for, deterrence to prevent offending and reoffending. Of course deterrence can work - I would not dream of parking in a location where I might be clamped any more than I would consider shoplifting, that would have different but devastating consequences for me - but I have often pointed out that for someone to be deterred they must possess rational reasoning and thought processes. Drink and drugs, taken in sufficient quantity, will often blank out any deterrent effect, leaving the user to do things that are not just wrong, but manifestly against his own interest. Others simply do not connect actions with consequences, and these people fill our courts every day.

That brings me to Adam, a man in his early forties who could easily pass for 65. I do not know what has brought him to his present state, but his brains are truly scrambled to the extent that he cannot even remember his address. He is an unpleasant nuisance to the local community, prone to urinate and defecate in public irrespective of who might be watching. Inevitably he was given an ASBO a couple of years ago that has entirely failed to deter him; he has breached it nine times and has served numerous shortish prison sentences, sometimes reoffending on the day of his release. ASBO breach can carry up to five years at the Crown Court, and he has indeed been committed there a few times for sentence, receiving up to six months inside. And the entire process has been utterly useless in preventing him from carrying out acts that disgust innocent civilians. Many thousands of pounds have been spent on processing him through the courts and locking him up in a system that simply isn't meant to cope with the likes of him. His problem is more one for the NHS than for the prison service, but there is simply nowhere for him to go, and no money to provide any help.

In his case deterrence is simply pointless. Incapacitation, by locking him up away from the public obviously offers a short term solution, but it is an expensive and inhumane way to deal with a wreck of a man.

JP: 10/10 - C4 7/10

I have just watched Channel 4 News, that has picked up the continuing interpreter story that seems to be going from bad to worse.

The report was a fair one, and included a fascinating clip from Dragons' Den in which the founder of ALS (the new agency that is supposed to have a monopoly on court work)failed to convince the panel of potential investors that he was worth backing.

The Chairman of the Peterborough Bench, Peter Beeke, gave a good and reasoned account of the problems, and came across as the sort of commonsense chap that a Bench Chairman is supposed to be. So ten out of ten to him, but only seven out of ten to C4 News because the idiots used clips of a gavel being banged to illustrate a court.

Note to each and every editor:-

NO -REPEAT NO - COURT IN ENGLAND AND WALES USES A GAVEL - EVER!

THAT'S RIGHT - EVER!


If that's too difficult, try 'COURTS DON'T USE GAVELS' and make every journo in your outfit repeat it a hundred times.

Harrumph!

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot....

A long time ago I posted about Jason. I have stayed in touch with his probation officer, to see how things are going. I haven't heard much of him recently, until I was presented the other day with an Information in support of a Search Warrant to search the home of - guess who? - for Class A drugs.

I granted a similar warrant for a different dealer a month or so back, having heard that drugs were routinely concealed in his baby's nappy or his girlfriend's vagina on the erroneous assumption that police officers and their drug dogs would be deterred or, literally, put off the scent.

It is a truism that most drug dealers live with their mum. Jason lives with his little family in their council flat, and ekes out his benefits with dealing a bit of Class A.

I fear that it's becoming a little late to expect Jason to change. As always, I tried not to think too much about the life that lies ahead for a baby whose filled nappy provides a malodorous hiding place for diamorphine or cocaine hydrochloride.

Déjà Vu (Reprise)

I wrote this a while back, lamenting, as is my habit, successive Government promises to introduce really tough community penalties - you know,really tough. Today's Times reports that ministers plan another go at it. Forgive my weary shrug won't you? Treasury says no.

Westminster Sees The Glasgow Kiss

A Member of Parliament has been charged with Common Assault on three people in a bar in the Palace of Westminster. The case is likely to be heard at Westminster Magistrates' Court (the offences being summary-only) and it would be no surprise if the case were to come before Howard Riddle, the Chief Magistrate (Senior District Judge (MC).

I had a quick look at the guidelines for Common Assault, and they include, inter alia, the following:-

Factors indicating higher culpability: 1. Use of a weapon to frighten or harm the victim 2. Offence was planned or sustained 3. Head-butting, kicking, biting or attempted strangulation 4. Offence motivated by, or demonstrating, hostility to the victim on account of his or her sexual orientation or disability 5. Offence motivated by hostility towards a minority group, or a member or members of it 6. Abuse of a position of trust 7. Offence part of a group action
Factors indicating a more than usually serious degree of harm: 8. Injury 9. Victim is particularly vulnerable or providing a service to the public 10. Additional degradation of the victim 11. Offence committed in the presence of a child 12. Forced entry to the victim’s home 13. Offender prevented the victim from seeking or obtaining help 14. Previous violence or threats to same victim

Reports suggest that head-butting was indeed present, and it is, I imagine, arguable that point 5 might apply, since Conservatives have been a minority group for some time now. It is a little more questionable whether the MP victims were 'providing a service to the public'. You will have your own view about that. In the event of a conviction the court must consider compensation. Since the alleged assailant claimed two hundred thousand quid in expenses last year, he can probably afford to cough up. I can't see him passing the Legal Aid means test though.

Ruined (updated)

This solicitor has, like a good few others, wrecked his life in a dishonest attempt to wriggle out of a drink-drive accident. Now he has lost his career and his reputation, and faces jail time.

More than once I have seen someone deny that he was the driver in an accident ('my mate was driving and he legged it') to be confronted with the fact that the airbag has his DNA on it. Being smacked hard in the face with the bag produces ample traces of saliva snot and assorted tissue.

Updated (thanks to Roll on Friday.com)

On 21 February 2012, the Court of Appeal quashed Bridgeman's sentence. The former lawyer will be relased after serving just one month, to allow him to return home and care for his seriously ill wife. His 12 month sentence has been suspended for two years.

The Spice of Life

Every day in court is different. Sometimes it is because of the particular business that you have been allocated, be it a trial, non-CPS work such as train fare dodgers, TV licences and suchlike, or 'reports' cases in which we consider sentence on cases that have been adjourned by our colleagues. Sometimes we just face the infinite variety of human frailty, with people who range from the unlucky, to the mildly nutty, to the seriously nasty.
Today was a remand court, when we deal with first hearings of a wide selection of cases; if the offender pleads guilty we either sentence there and then, put the matter off for reports with a view to a community penalty, or send the matter of to Hizonner in the Crown Court.
Today's list got off to a slow start, but once we got going we saw a stream of offenders of every level. There was a sex offender who was sent straight upstairs for alleged offences that are too nasty to describe here, an Eastern European drunk driver, a building worker who lost his temper when drunk and broke a lot of stuff that we ordered him to pay for on top of his fine and costs. There was a fellow who kicked off in a restaurant when his meal was not up to scratch and the staff failed to take him seriously. There was a sad and barely-articulate man who clearly had mental health issues that did not excuse his shouty fit with a neighbour. There was a loser who attempted to sell something that he did not own to another loser who gave him a few hundred quid that he will never see again. All this and more kept us busy until half past five, as we handed down fines, prison sentences, curfew orders, a couple of Conditional Discharges and a driving ban or three.
The evening pint in the local was very welcome on the way home.

Money Matters

I have picked up the following figures from the Mags Association site:-

Average costs of cases in magistrates’ courts and Crown Court
Fron a recent answer given in Parliament and recorded in Hansard on 31 January 2012

2007-08 CC £1,519 MC £154
2008-09 CC £1,492 MC £169
2009-10 CC £1,488 MC £174
2010-11 CC £1,441 MC £168

*The costs relate to judicial remuneration allocated to the Crown Courts and administration and court costs incurred directly by the courts, excluding overheads and depreciation.

Informed Opinion

The Probation Officer has commented on my post last Sunday. Of course it's nice that he agrees with me, but he makes some excellent points from the viewpoint of someone who knows about offenders from years of working with them.