I don't think this will work the way they expect

Kudos to the judge who decided to send Munir Farooqi to jail for recruiting jihadi's with a cumulative set of 4 life sentences, but there's a bit of a flaw in the reasoning that I can see here unless they decide that Munir Farooqi is going to be kept in solitary confinement for the rest of his sentence.
Telegraph.

A former Taliban fighter who ran a ''recruitment centre'' in Manchester for extremist Muslims to go to Afghanistan to kill British troops was today jailed for life. 

Pakistani-born British citizen Munir Farooqi, 54, was at the centre of a plot to radicalise and persuade vulnerable young men to ''fight, kill and die'' in a jihad in Afghanistan, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Farooqi, of Victoria Terrace, Longsight, Manchester, and two others were captured in a police sting when two undercover anti-terrorism police officers infiltrated his group.

Farooqi bragged to the officers how he had fought with the Taliban and told them they could become ''martyrs'' for the jihad cause.

He also found ''amusement'' in the sight of the flag draped coffins of fallen allied troops returning from Afghanistan, the court heard.

Today Farooqi was given four life sentences and told he must serve a minimum of nine years before he can be considered for parole.

Ok, once you get past the idiocy of giving someone 4 life sentences and then stating he must serve at least 9 years before becoming eligible for parole you can guess what's going to happen once Farooqi finally gets settled into the system. He's going to start recruiting new convert jihadi's, it's what he does and prisons have a problem with Muslm extremists.
Sunday Mercury.

Amid the forests and foliage of leafy Littleton sits the forbidding fortress of HMP Long Lartin, where some of the world’s most dangerous Islamic extremists swap stories, prayers and even plots.
New research from inside the lock-up’s specialist terror suspect unit suggests that regular inmates are being converted to radical Islam by the dangerous militants who are allowed to mix with other lags – and even lead prayers.
Fanatics inside the Worcestershire prison include Mohammed Hamid, 51, dubbed Osama Bin London, who encouraged teenagers to become suicide bombers during camping trips in the Lake District.

Among his cellmates are Adel Abdel Bary, an Egyptian linked to Al Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman Al-Zawihiri, who is fighting extradition to the US for the 1998 African embassy bombings which killed more than 200 people.
Mustapha Taleb, a disciple of hook-handed terror preacher Abu Hamza, kept a prison diary about how ordinary Muslim prisoners initially avoided extremists during his time inside Long Lartin.
“When we came here first, it was harsh, harsh treatment and harsh life,’’ he said. ‘‘Even the prisoners were like scared of us, because the system here told them that these people are very dangerous, you can’t mix with them.”
But ordinary Muslims’ initial fear of the detainees soon evaporated.
“With the brothers here, our Muslim brothers in the prison, it’s OK, it is as God wills it,” Taleb wrote. “There is some kind of harmony, connection between brothers in here, praise be to God.”
They have access to controversial Islamic texts, with terror detainee Barbar Ahmad writing in a blog from his cell that: “I understand now why prison is known as the University of Islamic Knowledge.”
They are reportedly allowed to share meals, and even lead prayers with other prisoners, raising fears that radicalisation could spread to other Muslims and even non-Muslim converts.

Why do I have the feeling that we're setting the cat amongst the pigeons here and prison is the last place we want to be sending this guy? Personally I think a parachute and just the clothing he's wearing along with a plane trip over central Afghanistan is the perfect solution for Farooqi seeing as he's so enamoured of the place, if we want to be really cruel we could always shave the beard and tattoo I love Israel  to his forehead in the local dialect.
Yes I know it would breach his human rights, but I'm having a hard job regarding jihadi's and their recruiters as actually being human at the moment, something Islam at its most extreme seems to strip away from ordinary people.
What appears to have happened looks just a bit like giving a fox the keys to the henhouse.

More about → I don't think this will work the way they expect

Setting yourself up for a fall

I accidentally deleted my blog this morning when I was tinkering with the account email settings and deleted the access account by mistake as I never really use it because I already have another gmail account along with 3 hotmail accounts and a yahoo account too. Fortunately the good people at google blogger were able to retrieve my mistake, something I suspect from the speed of response they are used too. As to why I have 5 email accounts? Well, I use them for different things, work, family, play, research (FOI requests, writing email campaigns and to politicians) I'm not alone in this, it's not paranoia as such, though there is an element of caution in it, simply good sense to compartmentalise what I do out here and keep my real name and family out of sight to all but the most determined of snoopers. I'm fairly sure minions of the state know who I am and who I'm linked too, but your average stalker/troll wont and long may it remain that way.
A bit of a rambling intro I know, but it allowed me to show you an example of what happens when you tinker around with something you shouldn't.
Express.

JUDGES and magistrates have been given the go-ahead to jail rioters after a signal from Whitehall, it appeared Yesterday.
The message was to forget normal soft sentencing and get the thugs and looters behind bars.
This was claimed as magistrate Novello Noades jailed a man for six months for hoarding property looted from a music shop.
Mr Noades, chairman of London’s Camberwell Green Magistrates Court, dismissed a request from the man’s solicitor for bail and a pre-sentence report.
Mr Noades replied: “Our directive for anyone in the rioting is a custodial sentence.”
However last night mystery over the supposedly emailed directive deepened when the Judicial Office, which represents judges, denied any instruction had been issued.

Now whilst I'm all in favour of locking away criminals, including looters and rioters, I can see a massive problem looming if this is indeed the case. I can already see the first appeals winging their way through the system if as has been claimed someone has told judges to ignore sentencing guidelines. The guidelines are there to serve a purpose and whilst judges are given a degree of latitude in enforcing those guidelines (they can choose to ignore if the circumstances warrant it) normally they follow them because when they don't an appeal due to the severity of the sentence will follow as sure as night follows day. We do complain often enough when the sentencing is too light, we rarely complain (unless we're involved) that the sentence was too harsh, but we do generally expect the judges to follow some sort of criteria when sentencing, we don't expect the state to step in capriciously and say the guidelines don't apply in this instance.
If the government thinks the sentencing guidelines aren't tough enough, it's up to the government (or the people electing them) to get them changed. What we don't want is the government stepping in and telling judges to just ignore them. That leads to the HRA and compo claims and we already shell out enough in taxes without paying some scumbag millions for banging them up without following the rules.
I want the scumbags put away for a long time, I want the sentence to fit the crime. What I don't want is the government to have the ability to tell judges to ignore the rules, because even if it's only for scumbags this time, at some future stage it might be me (or you) next.

More about → Setting yourself up for a fall

Pandering

This is what multiculturalism ends up as.
This is what diversity will get you.
This is what happens when you go soft on minorities because of the above.
This is what lowering standards to get minorities into positions of authority (aka tokenism) brings you.
This is what failure to assure excellence in our education system has brought us too.
This is the price we now have to pay for the failure of the political classes, socialists and the MSM to listen to the concerns of the ordinary people of England.
Our cities burn, minorities riot, the followers of a foreign and malignant fascistic political system dressed in the trappings of a religion have been allowed to settle in numbers in some of our cities and demand their own laws. The indigenous population have been derided by politicians as being bigoted to even question it. When they marched in protest they were called Nazi's, scum, vermin, knuckle draggers, right wing and racist, yet it was not they who rioted.
And when the dust settles, the cover up will begin, those who burned our cities and attacked our police and ordinary folk will claim victim status yet again, it's already happening on the BBC as excuse after excuse is trotted out about cuts and police brutality by so called community leaders.The usual soundbite fools like Ken Livingstone are being dragged out too to try and put a political slant on the mindless looting by trying to blame the current government for a mess of the previous governments making.
There have even been attempts by some on the left to draw parallels with violence exhibited at EDL protests in an effort to divert blame or ameliorate the situation, save only the EDL have never burnt buses, set fire to buildings, looted shops, attacked homeowners and robbed them. These were the same people who hunted desperately for any kind of link between Anders Brievik and the EDL even to the extent of inventing a few.
This is what happens when those in power and their accomplices simply don't listen to ordinary people.

More about → Pandering

An utter waste of time

Seems there's going to be a new (all expenses paid) independent commission to discuss a new UK Bill of Rights as people are not too happy with the European Court of Human Rights interfering in our system using the Human Rights Act as justification for its meddling (thanks Labour).
BBC.

An independent commission has started to seek views from the public on the need for a UK Bill of Rights.
The Commission on a UK Bill of Rights was set up by the government in March to explore a range of issues around human rights law.
It came amid a row over a 2005 European Court of Human Rights' ruling that the UK was unlawfully operating a blanket ban preventing prisoners from voting.
MPs voted overwhelmingly to defy the ruling and maintain the ban.
The free vote took place in parliament in February.
Prime Minister David Cameron famously said that the prospect of lifting the ban made him feel "physically ill".
The controversy was one of many in which the application of human rights law infuriated parts of the press and the country.

Sounds great so far, though here's the main problem, the source of all the complaints will have to remain in place and be the building block of any new Bill of Rights...

However, the Commission's terms of reference make it clear that a British Bill of Rights will build on the UK's obligations under the European Convention and ensure that the convention's rights continue to be enshrined in British law.

In other words they are wasting our time and money doing something which isn't going to work anyway.
The only way a UK bill of Rights will work is if we remove the Human Rights Actand go from earlier Bills of Rights which suit our people and not an amorphous EU whole. That's not to say I don't think people, even criminals have rights, just that some rights aren't actually a right at all. With rights there equally should come responsibilities, if you break the law, you lose certain rights including the right to roam free and commit further crimes and also the right to respect for family life and privacy along with any opportunity to vote too. A complex system of equal rights for all simply will not work if the villain has exactly the same rights as the victim. The only rights a villain should have are the right to a fair trial, the right to appeal and the right to be housed and fed securely and safely at her majesties pleasure. That's all the basic rights they need, the law abiding rest of us get the full package.
Cameron was supposed to be getting rid of the HRA, naturally enough he hasn't, he really even tried for a British Bill of Rights, he got told by Ken Clarke that such a bill would have to lie on top of EU law anyway and not supersede it. No-one in government it seems is prepared to do anything about injustices within the HRA system, no one in government it seems is willing to leave the EU, the ECHR and scrap the hideous legislation foisted upon us by the previous government such as the HRA and the abysmal Equalities Act.
Seems they'd rather ignore abuse than do something about it and then they wonder why we hold them in contempt.

More about → An utter waste of time

Not something you can afford to get wrong.

There are a whole load of reasons I'm opposed to the death penalty, ranging from not wanting the UK government whom I mistrust greatly over civil liberties to have that kind of power to the most major one in my eyes that if a mistake is made it cannot be corrected.
Still the coalition did make a rod for its own back when it announced any e-petition getting over a 100,000 signatures would have a chance to be debated in parliament and so various newspapers dusted off their pet projects and went for it so to speak. The Express are trying to force a debate on having a referendum on the EU which is bad timing as far as I can see and would have worked 2 years ago but today with the EU having amassed a gigantic fighting fund there's a possibility that they might bribe their way out of a defeat. To the Daily Mail and hanging...

MPs face being forced into a landmark vote on restoring the death penalty.
Capital punishment is expected to be the first subject debated by Parliament under an e-petitions scheme.
The initiative allows the public to help set the government agenda and means anyone can set up an internet petition on any subject. If it attracts more than 100,000 signatures, MPs must consider debating it in the Commons.
The scheme is officially launched today, but it has already backfired on the Coalition because Right-wing internet bloggers have been collecting signatures for the last few days.
The restoration of hanging for the murderers of children and policemen is by far the most popular serious issue.

Don't get me wrong here, I do believe that some people are an utter waste of oxygen like Huntley and Sutcliffe and not worth the cost of housing and feeding at our expense at her Majesties pleasure, but I also think that about most politicians too. Recent history is awash with certain crimes later having proved on appeal that the person convicted actually didn't do it, we probably would have hung the originally convicted Birmingham pub bombers for instance.
Capital punishment is not an area in which we can afford to get things wrong, there is no room for a jury to use reasonable doubt, if there is any I can see some juries unwilling to give guilty verdicts, then again perhaps not, you never can tell with ordinary people.
In the end though, it wont matter, EU and ECHR laws will not permit our MP's to bring back the death penalty. Though as an opening move to get us thrown out of the EU it does have some merit. Still, I do hope it's quashed, those who would have this power cannot be trusted with it.

More about → Not something you can afford to get wrong.

Amateur profiling

Certain groups hate profiling if only because it's often used by law enforcement agencies to target specific groups who are statistically more likely to be involved in certain activities. Bit like blacks and knife crime and Asian Muslims and terrorism. It generally makes sense, after all what's the point of going after people who generally aren't remotely involved in such activities. It does run into problems with the politically correct brigades who see it as racist, though sadly for them the stats don't lie.
You can of course play it yourself with certain lists...
Yahoo.

Details of the top 10 most wanted suspected fraudsters in Britain have been released by the crime-fighting charity Crimestoppers.
Peter Stead allegedly conned Derbyshire pub landlords out of thousands of pounds in 2009 and is accused of offering to put on a comedy night to raise money for the Lewis Mighty Fund.
Another on the most wanted list released by Crimestoppers is Nasser Ahmed who police have linked to to an alleged £156m VAT fraud in Bristol.
Timur Mehmet, 38, is wanted in connection with a £25m VAT fraud. Similarly, he absconded before trial and was sentenced in his absence to eight years.
Misba Uddin is wanted by police for fraud by false representation after he allegedly submitted fraudulent mortgage applications while working as a financial adviser.
Meanwhile Ajayi Seun, 48, charged with conspiracy to money launder, is alleged to have conned mortgage lenders and banks out of more than £12m. He has failed to answer bail.
Nicholas Slocombe, 28, is wanted in connection with reports from dozens of shops and businesses about alleged false claims of collecting for charity.
Jascent Nakawunde, a 33-year-old woman, is wanted for questioning in connection with an alleged £35,000 fraud in Cardiff between 2007 and 2008.
Mohamad Khan, from Waltham Cross in north east London, is accused of using counterfeit credit cards to buy more than £100,000 worth of goods.
Kevin Leitch, 48, from Liverpool, who is wanted by Devon and Cornwall Police after he allegedly took bookings for a holiday let in Cornwall.
Finally, an unknown woman is alleged to have falsely obtained a debit card and account details in the name of a legitimate customer from a bank in Bethnal Green, in October 2008.

Now you could be forgiven for thinking that in a list of Britain's top ten fraudsters,six out of the ten don't exactly have British names. Seems even our fraudsters have been hit by foreign immigrants taking all the jobs. Half it would seem have some connection to a certain religion of peace, though perhaps they should be excused as the guy they are supposed to take as an example was a murderer, thief, pirate philanderer with a taste for underage women and other mens wives. Only two are female, sex discrimination in fraud it would seem is rampant in the UK with women seemingly disbarred from the higher levels of scumbags.
Profiling it seems can be fun, even if the bleeding heart socialists hate the very idea as it always tends to show up their pets in the worst possible light.
Which from where I stand makes it all the more fun.

More about → Amateur profiling

Well I'm not shocked

We all know that alcohol impairs judgement and physical ability if taken in enough quantities, the problem of course being that what the state thinks is enough to impair those faculties is at odds somewhat with what those who drink thinks that affects them. No, I'm not saying that people should drive when drunk, far from it, but it's what makes you drunk that's different from person to person. When I first started out going into pubs, it was quite noticeable who could and couldn't hold their drinks, in the same way it's also very obvious who can go slightly over the legal limits for alcohol when driving and who shouldn't be allowed to drive even when stone cold sober.
BBC.

A police campaign against summer drink-driving caught a higher proportion of motorists driving under the influence compared to last year.
The June crackdown in England, Wales and Northern Ireland saw a drop in the total number of drivers stopped.
But there was an 8% rise in positive, refused or failed breath tests, said the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo).
Road safety campaigners said the results were "shocking".
In total police stopped 88,629 motorists, of whom 5,373 or 6.06% tested positive, refused or failed a breath test, compared to 5.6% last June - an 8% rise.
There was an increase in the proportion of under 25-year-olds testing positive, by 15% compared to 2010. The number of over 25-year-olds who tested positive rose by 7%.

Now I wonder just how many of those drivers were an actual danger to themselves or the public? I'm sure some were, however I'm equally sure that a lot of those others would not have been picked up unless specifically targeted as they would not have been driving in a manner likely to have caused an accident. Yes I know the police use an artificial level of 80mg of alcohol in the blood as their tipping point, it's even lower on the continent, though they don't have a problem with people having to travel miles just to find an open pub with most establishments selling some sort of alcohol, even McDonalds.
No I'm not encouraging people to drive drunk, I'm against random testing, I simply believe that police should only stop motorists if they have good reason too. Change the law if necessary to having far harsher penalties for having an accident whilst intoxicated, even charge with manslaughter instead of dangerous driving and the minimal penalties you get for that offence.
As it is, people got fined, lost licenses and possibly livelihoods all because the police decided to have a crackdown not on people driving badly, but on people just driving.
Yes we need to address the problem of drunk and incapable drivers, but no, this wasn't the way to go about it.

More about → Well I'm not shocked

It's a robberry, lets arrest the shop owner!

You cannot make this sort of stuff up at times, there was a robbery at a florist, a robber got stabbed and died the police then arrest a 72-year-old florist.
BBC.

A 72-year-old florist has been arrested after a man was stabbed to death in a robbery at a shop in Greater Manchester.

Police were called to the shop on Shrewsbury Street, Old Trafford, at 21:40 BST on Tuesday.

A 30-year-old man was taken to hospital with serious injuries and died a short time later.

Shop owner Cecil Coley was taken to hospital with minor injuries and is being held on suspicion of murder.

The dead man is believed to have been one of a number of men who tried to rob the shop.

Police said a gun was found at the scene and was being forensically examined.

Ch Supt Mark Roberts said: "Police in the area became aware of a disturbance at the florists.

"On attendance, there were a number of people in and around the shop and a number of men had fled the scene. 

He said it was not clear what the "full circumstances" were.

Clear enough apparently to arrest the shop owner though and as the shop was being robbed I reckon the guys a hero and anyone robbing the shop deserved everything they got, particularly as it appears to be a gang of them. Just last month the government confirmed that for a homeowner it is legal to stab a burglar and within the law MP Ken Clarke has confirmed reasonable force such as a knife cricket bat or baseball bat can be used in self defence of yourself and your family if confronted by a criminal at home or on the streets. The government were even looking to increase those rights to prevent things like this from happening. You'd have thought that would have applied to anyone defending their property or place of work. This doesn't seem however to have made its way down to Greater Manchester Police though.
So, here we go again, the police would much rather arrest a 72 year old florist than simply get on with the investigation into what actually happened. As for the robber, well so far all I can say is that he got what he deserved.

Captain Ranty puts a quicker version here.

More about → It's a robberry, lets arrest the shop owner!

Discrimination?

Kids congregate in groups, it's a social thing and most of the time it's quite harmless, though in some cases trouble happens, particularly when either showing off or occasionally because they know they are so well protected by the law that there's damn all anyone can do about it.
BBC.

A Kent McDonald's has been criticised for installing a device aimed at deterring groups of young people from congregating outside.
The high pitched sound from the Mosquito can usually only be heard by those under the age of 25.
The children's charity Kidscape said: "We can't have young people treated like pests or animals."

Whilst this is true, we can't have kids treated like animals, unless of course they are behaving like animals.

McDonald's said the device was fitted at its Week Street premises, Maidstone, following feedback from customers.
In 2008 the Children's Commissioner for England called for a ban on the devices, describing them as "degrading and discriminatory".

For "degrading and discriminatory" read effective and it looks like McDonald's have a reasonable reason for using the device as its customers have requested they do something about the kids congregating around the outlet.

In a statement, McDonald's said: "The device is operated by the restaurant management only as a last resort if groups fail to move on after being asked to do so by the duty manager.
"The device is fitted with a timer to switch off automatically after a set period of time."

Seems fair enough to me, it will only be used if nuisance makers won't move on and then it switches itself off automatically.

But Peter Bradley, deputy director of Kidscape, said: "We need to be careful about young people congregating and how that can be assumed to be a problem or to cause trouble. Let's not just make assumptions."

See above, it will only be used if there's a problem.

The Kent Green Party claimed the Mosquito discriminates against young people.
The party's chairman, Stuart Jeffrey, said: "If this was a device for keeping black people, women or the elderly away, McDonald's would rightly be prosecuted, so why should society tolerate discrimination against young people?"

Usual idiot response from the left (Yes the Greens aren't called watermelons for nothing) they aren't discriminating against kids, they are discriminating against troublemakers and whilst it's unfortunate that innocent kids will probably have to move on as well, at least the store is doing something to deal with a problem.
The solution is obviously simple, though it might take some kids a while to get it, don't cause problems outside McDonald's and you won't be moved on.

More about → Discrimination?

Ultimate disrespect?

I'm sure Charlie Gilmour is a bit shocked today, he got sentenced to 16 months imprisonment for disrespecting Britain's war dead at the Cenotaph and with other things taken into account rightly so.

Mail.

The son of Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour was jailed yesterday after showing the ‘ultimate disrespect’ to Britain’s war dead by swinging from the Cenotaph during the student riots.
Charlie Gilmour, 21, reeled in shock as he was handed a 16-month sentence for his ‘outrageous and deeply offensive behaviour’ during a drug-fuelled rampage that also saw him attack Prince Charles’s car.
The Cambridge University history student was ‘out of his mind’ on a cocktail of LSD, Valium and whisky when he laid siege to the royal convoy during the tuition fee protests in London on December 9 last year.

Perhaps though had he been a Muslim though, he'd have been better off, or at least got a lesser sentence...

BBC.

A Muslim extremist has been found guilty of burning poppies at a protest in west London on Armistice Day.
Emdadur Choudhury, 26, of Spitalfields, east London, was fined £50 for offences under the Public Order Act.
Choudhury, a member of Muslims Against Crusades (MAC), had denied the charge at Woolwich Crown Court.
Mohammed Haque, 30, of Bethnal Green, was cleared of the charge. Both men had been accused of burning three oversized poppies on 11 November in Kensington.
Rival protests had been taking place at the time near the Royal Albert Hall, the end point of a charity march at which serving members handed over books of condolence ahead of Remembrance Sunday.
District Judge Howard Riddle said: "The two-minute chanting, when others were observing a silence, followed by a burning of the symbol of remembrance was a calculated and deliberate insult to the dead and those who mourn or remember them."

Ok, the extremists then didn't go on to attack a royal, though they did threaten to disrupt the recent royal wedding. Still, 16 months for swinging from a cenotaph flag and £50 for burning a poppy and chanting Islamic slogans during the 2 minute silence on Remembrance Day itself.
Can anyone smell a whiff of double standards here?
I'm not excusing Gilmour, to my mind he probably should have got a higher sentence for his behaviour, but it does look extreme to what Emdadur Choudhury got.
Seems if you are a Muslim of the extremist variety you can actually get away with the "ultimate disrespect" with only a £50 fine, whilst the man who tries to stop you is charged with police assault for leaping a barrier and gets a £315 fine. Burn a Koran, you get 70 days imprisonment, post homophobic stickers in quantity around east London, £100 fine.
And they wonder why people don't respect the law anymore.

More about → Ultimate disrespect?

I can't be the only one surely?

Sometimes you have to read between the lines in a newspaper article, to what's not being said.

Telegraph.

Scotland Yard has launched an attack on those it accuses of undermining the police investigation into alleged illegal payments to police by deliberately leaking information about the inquiry. 

The statement, widely interpreted as an attack on News International, was released this afternoon.

The force has taken the rare step of explaining how detectives believe that information known by only “a small number of people” has been selectively leaked to “divert attention from elsewhere”.

The Metropolitan Police statement then goes on to detail meetings between News International and the force, saying that all parties had agreed to keep the details of the investigation confidential.

The statement was released in response to an Evening Standard article, which said that personal details about the Queen and her aides were sold by royal protection officers to journalists working on the News of the World.

Now, I'm reading this as "undermining the police cover up" if only because the leaks aren't diverting attention away from suspects, but rather opening a bigger can of worms. After all, the more information out there, the bigger the investigation becomes and the less chance that guilty parties might just slip under the radar as their names aren't in the public domain or have been pointed too via the leaks.
At the moment what appears to be a major witch hunt is going on and everyone is looking very closely for scapegoats, particularly those whose hands are dirty over the deal yet hope that by deflecting some of the blame onto others, their part in the whole shoddy business will be overlooked. More information out there, more overload there is and more blame to go around.
No-one is going to come out of this mess smelling of roses, save perhaps the victims and many of them I'm highly unsympathetic towards, Gordon Brown for one. Yet despite my disdain for the political side of the mess, the fact remains that peoples privacy and grief were intruded upon and the law was broken and appears to have been broken with the connivance of certain police officers.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes clearly applies in this case and if those found to have collaborated in the privacy breach by either bribes or turning a blind eye are caught and convicted, they should have very harsh penalties to face. That's why the more information out there the better, certain bloggers and others will not let this go and no amount of cover up will work if all the details are in the public domain.
The more we know, the less chance there is of anyone getting away with it, trying to hide the information looks suspiciously like a cover up to me.
That's what I read between the lines anyway.

More about → I can't be the only one surely?

We'll see

I blogged recently on the right of homeowners/tenants to defend themselves against those who would choose to break into their properties, seems the circumstances of the people arrested who weren't the actual thieves has hit a nerve somewhere in the government.

Express.

USING “whatever force necessary” to repel a burglar means that stabbing them or hitting them with a poker won’t be a criminal offence, Justice Minister Ken Clarke said yesterday.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Clarke said that under plans to clarify the law on self-defence “we will make it quite clear you can hit a burglar with a poker if he’s in your house and you have a perfect defence when you do so.

“If an old lady finds she’s got an 18-year-old burgling her house and she picks up a kitchen knife and sticks it in him, she has not committed a criminal offence, and we will make that clear.”

Mr Clarke has come under attack over what was seen as his soft stance on sentencing.

He accepted the defence of reasonable force already exists, but said: “Given that doubts are expressed, we are going to clarify that. What people are not entitled to do is go running down the road chasing them or shooting them in the back when they are running away or to get their friends together and go and beat them up.

“We all know what we mean when we say a person has an absolute right to defend themselves and their home with reasonable force.”

“Nobody should prosecute and nobody should ever convict anybody who takes these steps.”

 So what is reasonable force? Well the government and the laws view seems to be that you can only defend yourself if your assailant or other villain is facing you, the minute they run away it's no longer reasonable force. My idea of reasonable force is that anyone who breaks into my home or threatens me and mine should never be given an opportunity to do the like again and if that means chasing them down the road whilst shooting them in the back, then that strikes me as fairly reasonable. Suspect from the comments I got that my position isn't that unreasonable to most who read my stuff and if anything is a little mild. To me (and others) the minute you illegally enter a premises with the intention of breaking the law, then whatever rights you have, have gone out of the window and God help you if you run away, the only option you have should be surrender because running away means you might come back later so makes you fair game.

Too many of our politicians and lawmakers and enforcers don't really live in the real world where there is an ongoing problem with crime, they live in nice communities away from the reality of living with the fear of attack or robbery. Perhaps if they hadn't spent so much time disarming us (for our our own protection) and gave us more control over our lives and safety, we wouldn't be talking about this.

As it is, I really don't see anything in Ken Clarke's statement that gives me cause to rejoice, he's just stated the law as it stands and hasn't given any guarantees that people wont be arrested simply for defending themselves, until the law is changed to remove the "reasonable" force clause, then this I'm afraid is simply just soundbite policy on the hoof.

Give us the right to really defend ourselves, then perhaps I might just change my mind about what is and isn't reasonable.

More about → We'll see

My gaff my rules

People should have the right to defend themselves and their property, the law even (supposedly) allows this with a reasonable force addendum to any crime in which the perpetrator is injured. Though personally speaking the states idea of reasonable force and my idea of reasonable force don't really match as mine includes the possibility of the perpetrator never being in a position to attack/rob me or mine (or anyone else) ever again, which seems reasonable to me.
So it still irritates me to see headlines like this in the media.

BBC.

A burglar has been stabbed to death and the householder arrested on suspicion of murder after an attempted break-in at his house in Salford.

Four masked men attempted to get into a house in Ethel Avenue before midnight on Wednesday.

The stabbed man, 26, is believed to have been carried away by the other intruders as they fled, before being dumped in a street in Pendlebury.

Peter Flanagan, 57, son Neil, 29, and his son's girlfriend are being held.

The men and the 21-year-old woman are being questioned on suspicion of murder.

Police said the stabbed man was found on Hospital Road and died a short time later.

Ch Supt Kevin Mulligan, who heads Greater Manchester Police's Salford division, said the man suffered "at least one stab wound" during an altercation in the house involving at least one person from the address and four people breaking in.

He said he could not comment further on the injuries or the cause of death until a post-mortem examination had been carried out.

He also refused to comment on whether the weapon had been taken into the property by the intruder or if it belonged to the householder.

 Now to my mind, anyone breaking into someone else's house immediately puts themselves beyond the laws protection, that ought to make them fair game for any self defence that the property owner/tenant should decide to use to defend themselves and their goods. Not according to the law of the land though, as far as they are concerned if you commit a crime defending yourself then your going to be prosecuted. The law as it stands only allowing you to defend yourself physically if your opponent is facing you. Stab them in the back and it's assault and upwards and you probably spending more time inside than they do such is our crazy system, just ask Tony Martin.
No, I'm not suggesting that people be allowed to set mantraps in their gardens, but what I am saying is that felons are beyond the laws protection either coming towards you or running away during the course of the felony and you have the right to use as much force as you like as they are fair game. You do not have the right to go round to their place the following morning and shoot them though, however the rules of hot pursuit should be recognised too, their only recourse being to turn themselves in whilst trying to escape.
In the USA you shoot a burglar, you don't get arrested, but in certain states the people with the burglar are arrested and charged with the manslaughter/wounding with intent as the injuries sustained committing a crime are deemed to be the criminals responsibility. Strikes me as common sense which is probably why our legal system will persecute the victims rather than the perpetrators.
The state wants all forms of violence firmly in its hands or those outside the law, has done for a while now, after all armed people might just go after the powers that be. That in a nutshell is why people who defend themselves frequently end up being prosecuted and incarcerated themselves.

More about → My gaff my rules

Despicable

Most crimes are despicable, though some crimes seemingly go beyond that into the truly despicable, particularly those which involve robbing or using violence upon the disabled, elderly, very young or in the case here, robbing a charity.

BBC.

The Midlands Air Ambulance's headquarters have been raided by three masked men armed with a Taser.

Police said the men burst into the charity's office on the Enterprise Trading Estate, off Pedmore Road, in Brierley Hill at around 0845 BST.
An ambulance spokesman said they held 20 members of staff hostage with the Taser although it was not used on them.
No-one was injured, and the men escaped in a member of staff's car having stolen bags of money.
Midlands Air Ambulance charity director Hanna Sebright said: "I find it hard to comprehend that people would commit such a violent crime and steal money from a life-saving charity.
"Dedicated people have gone to great lengths to raise money for the charity, and it is appalling that it will be unable to be used for the purpose of keeping the air ambulances in the air.
"This despicable act could actually cost people's lives."
Police said the men are all described as black, in their 20s and wearing scarves across their faces.

 It's akin I suppose to robbing from the poor box of a church, when churches of course had a poor box. That money was raised to help an air ambulance service run so it could save lives by getting the injured to a hospital safely and a lot quicker than by road. Instead the costs of running the service will have to be raised again by the generosity of the public assuming they can, these are hard times after all and if they can't perhaps lives will be lost as these things cost for fuel and maintenance along with wages for the staff.
I know under the law all crimes are supposedly equal, that robbery is robbery and it's only the degree that is taken into account use of violence etc. But frankly these guys if caught should be looking at spending the rest of their lives chopping down trees in hard labour somewhere cold and unfriendly.
But they won't, you and I know they wont, because there is no such thing as real justice anymore, just degrees of law without any real deterrent to breaking the law.
Personally I think we should just be allowed to lynch them, but that's just my anger and vitriol at a system that fails us time and time again coming out.

More about → Despicable

Justice?

Andrew Symeou the young man arrested under the controversial European Arrest Warrant has been found not guilty.

BBC.

A student from north London who was accused of killing a Welsh roller hockey player on holiday in Greece has been cleared of manslaughter.

Andrew Symeou, 22, from Enfield, was charged with the manslaughter of Jonathan Hiles, from Cardiff, at a Zakynthos nightclub in July 2007.

Mr Hiles, who fell from a dance podium, died after he suffered a brain injury.

Mr Symeou denied being in the nightclub at the time. He has been held in Greece since his extradition in July 2009.

He was held in a Greek prison having been extradited, he was held in an overcrowded prison condemned by human rights groups for its inhumane treatment of inmates. Mr Symeou has revealed the appalling conditions in the maximum-security Korydallos jail in Athens. "I've seen people beaten half to death, I've seen blood, I've heard people being raped at night," he said, adding: "I've been verbally threatened and I've had to deal with all this. Yet the evidence given to extract him would not have passed scrutiny in a UK court.

Telegraph.

It all started on the holiday island of Zakynthos at 1.30am on 20 July 2007. In a nightclub called Rescue, a young Welshman, Jonathan Hiles, remonstrated with someone for urinating on the floor. That person then punched him and he fell, suffering fatal brain injuries. Five of Jonathan's friends, with him that night, gave initial statements to police saying the assailant was clean-shaven, with a blue shirt.

Andrew says he wasn't in Rescue when the incident happened, and had no idea it had even taken place. He had a beard at the time, and wore a yellow shirt that night. On 22 and 23 July, the victim's five friends, in separate interviews, gave new statements to the police identifying Andrew, from a group photo, as the killer.

But there was something odd. Although supposedly taken at different times on different days, all the statements used precisely the same words. The photo shown to the witnesses had Andrew circled with the word "perpetrator" written on it.

Then the police hauled in two friends Andrew had been with on the night of the killing. They, too, gave statements implicating Andrew.

But as soon as they emerged from police custody, they retracted them, saying the testimony had been dictated to, and beaten out, of them.

Georgina Clay, their holiday rep, saw the two afterwards. One had a swollen face, she said, and they were clearly terrified.

In statements to the Welsh inquest into Jonathan's death, the five original witnesses against Andrew also changed their stories. Four of them now said they hadn't seen the punch being thrown at all, only the urination. And the descriptions all gave still didn't match Andrew Symeou. These statements appear to be the only evidence against him.

They are highly unlikely to have passed the threshold for prosecution in this country.

This scandal is not so much about Andrew Symeou, though the sheer injustice of his incarceration before his trial is an utter scandal. This is about the idiocy of our politicians who allowed a law which enabled UK citizens to be snatched from this country on evidence that would not pass scrutiny in a UK court, because the UK courts are obliged to assume all other countries courts who are signatory to the "European Arrest Warrants" are by definition equally fair, and operate to equal standards as the UK. equivalent standard, when clearly the case is that they are not and do not.
So instead we had a young man dragged off to Greece and incarcerated waiting for trial for almost 2 years on clearly trumped up charges. Witnesses appear to have been abused and forced to sign confessions and such confessions being clearly at odds to the facts. His trial was a total farce with cheap court interpreters being replaced 3 times for being unable to translate accurately the proceedings to Andrew and the real perpetrator who murdered Jonathan Hiles seems to have gotten away with it as the man the Greek Police had in their sights clearly and obviously didn't do it!
This is the legacy you get for allowing integration via the EU route, important safeguards such as habeus corpus have been bypassed in the pursuit of making the various police forces lives easier. Andrew Symeou would not have even been convicted by a UK court, held in custody for any length of time and released by extradition into the hands of another countries police force on the evidence presented.
We have the EU to thank that he was.
Can we leave yet?

More about → Justice?

Crime and punishment

No not the boring novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky (well I found it boring, mental anguish and moral dilemmas about murder are not my cup of tea) No this is a rant at the Supreme Court of the UK and their (mis)use of the Human Rights Act.

Telegraph.

Thousands of sex offenders, including rapists and paedophiles, will be able to apply to be removed from the sex crimes register under human rights laws, the Government has announced. 

A Supreme Court ruling has forced the Government reluctantly to draw up new rules allowing serious sex offenders put on the register for life to have their place on the list reconsidered.

The Home Office plans were opposed by child protection campaigners and Conservative MPs, who said some offenders could never be considered completely “safe”. The new rules were drawn up because the Supreme Court ruled that automatic lifetime inclusion on the register breached the Human Rights Act.

David Cameron said the ruling was “offensive,” but ministers say they have no choice but to comply by changing the rules on the register.

The case is the latest involving the Act to set judges against political opinion. It has increased calls for reform of the Act, which is being reviewed by a Coalition committee.

Under current rules, anyone sentenced to more than 30 months in jail for a sexual offence is put on the register for life on release. Those on the register are monitored by police and visited regularly by officers. The Home Office estimates that there are about 44,000 people on the register, about 25,000 of them for life.

Now normally I'm of the opinion that once you've paid your debt to society as a criminal then other than a period of time in which an employer can ask if you have a criminal record, that's it, your life is yours to lead as you see fit barring a few areas of employment where there might be some conflict of interest such as the police or security forces. A fully rehabilitated ex con is an asset to society providing they can find work and pay their way (though that's a different story) and shouldn't be further punished once his/her time is done.
Sexual predators though are a different story, in some cases it's more in the way of a mental illness, psychological rather than sociological in that it's about the way they think rather than the effects of society upon them. Like any patient with a history of mental illness they need keeping an eye on, if necessary for the rest of their lives as many of them don't see anything wrong with what they do/did nor feel any remorse.
Simple fact is, some people do need keeping an eye on permanently and kept from contact in some employment areas or other association with their potential victims, be it women, children or in odd cases men. Even I can see the point of this, you don't put wolves into the sheep pen, because whilst you can rehabilitate a dog, a wolf remains a wolf and though there are times we probably ought too, we no longer cull wolves.
Again the courts come out with a judgement that might put ordinary people at risk, all to do with the poorly legislated Human Rights Act which placed all rights on a level playing field instead of grading them from basic to full. Criminals and sexual predators should only have restricted rights, once an ordinary criminal is released though he gets his full rights back. A sexual (or violent) predator who is still deemed to be a danger to the public though should remain on a far tighter chain as we're supposed to with mental patients and care in the community.
Truly the law is an ass!

More about → Crime and punishment

Not enough details

The BBC report that 10 men have been arrested in raids for child grooming offences. This is on top of arrests elsewhere in Rochdale (11 so far) and even today one of the men involved in the disappearance of Charlene Downes.
Yet (not so very) strangely enough the BBC are very coy about the identity of the men involved. As the two other cases were of Pakistani Muslims and not generic Asians as the BBC and the MSM like to tar anyone from the East whilst conveniently ignoring/insulting the Chinese and other oriental types who are also technically Asians.

BBC.

Ten men have been arrested in police raids in Manchester and Derbyshire as part of a major investigation into the sexual exploitation of children.

Officers have spoken to more than 30 girls in one of the largest inquiries carried out by Greater Manchester Police's Major Incident Team.
Some are victims and others are witnesses, a police spokesman said.
Girls from Stockport are said to have been given drink and drugs and taken to sex parties in Manchester and Salford.
Men, aged in their late teens to late 20s, were arrested in Cheetham Hill, Fallowfield, Levenshulme, Moss Side, Chorlton-on-Medlock and Woodhouse Park.
One man was also arrested in Buxton, Derbyshire.
Mr Sweeney said the raids built on earlier arrests in Rochdale and Bury, following a three to four month police investigation.
He added that he anticipated further arrests.

 Not one hint of who or what they are bearing in mind that the Rochdale and Bury arrests were of Pakistani Muslim males. This is the BBC at its multicultural best deliberately concealing the fact that there is a problem within a certain community and the closest they will ever come to describing it is in calling the people involved "Asian"
In fact most of the MSM are similarly coy, though the Telegraph does give a very broad hint.

Terry Sweeney, assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, said the force was now “fully prepared” to acknowledge the issue of ethnicity.
However, he emphasized that on this occasion the alleged perpetrators were a mix of Asian and white men.

Ah, there's that "Asian" again and I wonder what kind of mix, though I suspect predominantly "Asian" will be the next startling revelation. You can bet your bottom dollar that if they were all white English males we'd know about it if only to deflect the criticism of the Muslim community and its vile religion of peace which permits the attitude that all non Muslim women are easy meat and there for the taking and exploitation of.
Yet the BBC and the rest of the MSM keep down this path of flogging a dead horse with the term "Asian" which most of us now read as "Pakistani Muslim" or more often than not just Muslim despite the fact they come in all colours as it isn't a racial thing.
It would be nice to see the media be a bit more forthcoming about this problem which has been known about for years yet brushed under the carpet in the name of community cohesion. Until then we'll have to put up with the "men of no appearance" mona's being foisted upon us to try and keep us in the dark about the extent of the UK's real racial/religious crimes.

More about → Not enough details

Jailed indefinitely

Interesting term "jailed indefinitely" it really doesn't mean life, it just means we wont let you out till we're sure you aren't a risk or you manage to use the Human Rights Act to get around us.

Lancashire Telegraph.

A TEENAGER has been jailed indefinitely for raping a pensioner in her own home at knifepoint.

Farhan Ahmed, 18, sneaked into the woman’s house in Nelson to carry out a brutal two-hour attack described by senior a Lancashire detective as ‘the worst I’ve ever seen.’

And it has emerged that Ahmed had been kicked out of school and college for sexual touching.

Ahmed was was given an indefinite prison sentence for public protection, with a recommendation he serve a minimum 10-year jail term.

Burnley Crown Court heard Ahmed, then 17, prowled the streets armed with a stick looking for vulnerable women.

He sneaked into the house in the early hours through an unlocked back door, picked up a kitchen knife before confronting the victim.

The drunken youngster then forced her to carry out a series of ‘humiliating and degrading’ acts.

Det Supt Ian Critchley, head of Lancashire Police’s public protection unit, said: “This was the most despicable and callous attack that I have ever seen.

"It will have a lifelong impact on the victim.

"Ahmed continues to show no remorse, and has shown none throughout the proceedings.

Ok, it would be easy enough to go off on one about the "Religion of Peace", but in this case there are others out there who have committed other similar crimes or worse offences and will remain in jail indefinitely as the evidence against them including a confession has them "bang to rights" as the saying goes.
Normally I'm against capital punishment on the grounds that mistakes can be made, not for any moral or religious reasons, simply that if you get it wrong in that instance you can't make it right with a wad of compensation thrown in.
But, I do believe there is a case for capital punishment for the worst of crimes where the evidence and the conviction have moved the judgement of peers past the stage of reasonable doubt into the realms of no doubt whatsoever.
The ultimate deterrent for those crime that are truly abhorrent and would involve locking away (and feeding and keeping at our expense) not just murder but but any crime that would preclude ever being released back into society. These should be put before a committee and a decision made on the evidence and trauma for the victim as to whether execution is an option rather than keeping them locked up. All aspects from mental health, remorse or possibility of rehabilitation including the prospects of ever being able to live normally in society ever again should be taken into account and then a recommendation made to senior judges at an appeal panel. If the appeal fails then swift execution follows, no hanging around for years with appeal after appeal.
There are some, Sutcliffe, Huntley and Farhan Ahmed who do not deserve even the privilege of being incarcerated at Her Majesties pleasure, they have been caught bang to rights and it would be cheaper simply to rid ourselves of them.

More about → Jailed indefinitely

This is not a right

The older I get the more I despise the effects of the Human Rights Act and the way it's interpreted by judges and lawyers if only because the vast majority of people who seem to benefit from it are criminal scum who pass through the justice system. Not that I consider all asylum seekers to be scum, but they have used the HRA and the legal system to their advantage when it comes to staying here even when they have no right to do so...

Telegraph.

Tens of thousands of asylum seekers have been awarded British residency under a controversial human rights law which allow foreigners to stay because they have a partner or children in this country.

Out of 161,000 foreigners allowed to remain in Britain as part of the Government's "back door amnesty", a significant number were ruled to have a case under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the "right to family life".

It was this factor that was decisive in winning the right to stay in Britain, rather than any evidence they were genuinely fleeing persecution.

In many cases, initial Home Office delays in processing the claims will have been the factor that allowed asylum seekers who entered Britain as young single people the opportunity to start families.

The development exposes the impact of asylum failures under Labour, which triggered a long-running project to clear more than 400,000 asylum cases, dubbed "legacy cases", which had been allowed to fester since the late 1990s. The exercise was heavily criticised last week in a report by MPs on the all-party Home Affairs Committee.

There you have it, get into the UK, sometimes illegally, claim asylum, find and knock up some woman and you can stay, ok, ok probably not as crude as that in all cases, but certainly the case for some including Aso Mohammed Ibrahim who ran down Amy Houston and ran off leaving her to die whilst disqualified from driving, yet instead of being deported was allowed to stay because Ibrahim's lawyers argued that his human rights would be contravened if he were sent back to Iraq as he now has a family here.
Most would say his family can go back with him if they want.
Cameron was supposed to be getting rid of the HRA, naturally enough he hasn't, he hasn't even tried for a British Bill of Rights, he got told by Ken Clarke that such a bill would have to lie on top of EU law and not supersede it. No-one in government it seems is prepared to do anything about injustices within the HRA system, no one in government it seems is willing to leave the EU, the ECHR and scrap the hideous legislation foisted upon us by the previous government such as the HRA and the abysmal Equalities Act.
Seems they'd rather ignore abuse than do something about it and then they wonder why we hold them in contempt.

More about → This is not a right

How to win friends and influence people....not

There are a few things that get peoples blood boiling, Israel/Palestine, left/right, toilet seat up/down and of course boundary disputes. Nothing quite like setting neighbours at loggerheads than one supposedly discovering that the boundary fence may be in the wrong place or even a tree branch is over their property. Few however have the nerve of Donald Trump.

Telegraph.

Donald Trump angers neighbour after erecting new boundary fence and then billing him
Their David and Goliath dispute over a proposed £1 billion golf course has raged for several years.

But Donald Trump has infuriated one of his Scottish neighbours and longtime foes once again by erecting a fence around his house and then billing him for it.
David Milne, 46, found himself at loggerheads with the tycoon when he refused to sell his home to the Trump Organisation.
The couple are among five home owners who live on the Menie Estate in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, where Trump is in the process of building the "best golf course in the world".
They fear they could be evicted as Trump looks to secure more land.
In the latest twist to the saga, Mr Milne has disclosed that the American billionaire recently decided that the boundaries which separated their land were incorrect and instructed his team to erect a fence without any warning. 

He then sent Mr Milne an invoice of £2,820 – half of the total bill of £5,640.

The health and safety adviser said Trump's demand was "ridiculous" and that he would not pay a penny towards the fence.

He said: "I'm just ignoring the demand. There is no way I'm going to pay it.

Now I don't understand the rights and wrongs of the actual dispute itself, though I do believe that it's a long running thing and that the SNP are involved in the process somewhere. The lovely Subrosa has a better view of what's going on up there than I do.

My take is on the sheer nerve of arbitrarily deciding that the land boundaries were wrong and building a new fence on what you believe to be the new boundary and then having the nerve to charge your neighbour whom you haven't consulted half of the costs! 

Land boundary disputes usually involve a visit to the H M Land Registry in England and Wales at least and if the dispute can't be resolved amicably by mediation then go to the courts. Now Donald Trump or whoever decided that the boundaries were wrong  is well within their rights to erect new fencing along the boundary, there are a few stipulations in that the uprights all have to be on your side of the boundary and no higher than 1 metre next to a public highway or 2 metres elsewhere, but what you don't get to do is charge your neighbour for erecting your fence, even if it's a shared boundary.

I suspect this is intimidation and it doesn't exactly make Trump look too good, but from previous stuff he's got up too, I suspect he doesn't care, he has lawyers for that sort of thing.

As I said previously, I don't know the rights and wrongs of what's going on, but I know where my sympathies lie now, Donald Trump has made sure of that.

More about → How to win friends and influence people....not