This case continues to make waves on Planet Blog and now, amongst other worthy bloggers, the mighty Devil’s Kitchen has weighed in with some killer punches.
I’ve also had some really thought-provoking comments left here after I blogged quoting Constantly Furious’ article in full.
Something I find remarkable is that none of our national newspapers seem to have picked up this story yet.
As DK says:
The police behaved like utter, utter cunts and the jurors were disgustingly craven. But the people really at fault were the stupid, corrupt, piss-poor politicos who drafted this piece-of-shit law.
As usual, it is the politicos who are destroying this country—when do we rise up and hang the fucking lot of them?
and
Under this fucking stupid law a policeman can handle a gun with impunity, but a citizen goes to prison for five years for doing so. This totally undermines the concept that the police are citizens and the citizens are the police: it undermines the Peelian Principles of good policing because it elevates the police above the level of ordinary citizen, paving the way for a police state (were we not effectively living in one anyway).
This, surely, is an issue which affects us all and not only goes to the very heart of our justice system but discredits the very concept of justice itself in a 21st century Western democracy.
The silence of the MSM is truly deafening but, one is forced to ask, is this silence intentional?
And what about our precious government and Harlot Hairball’s ‘court of public opinion’?
Isn’t this all just one more step towards a banana republic Britain?
Filed under: Bizarre, Blogs, Current affairs, Media, Meeja, cunt | Tagged: banana republic, our justice system is in in disrepute, Paul Clarke
1 Try walking around your town centre at night carrying a large club, handcuffs and wearing protective clothing and a hemlet, and see how far the Peelian Principles gets you.
2 Exactly what “piece-of-shit law” are we talking about that was so badly drafted by the “politicos”? In what way was it badly drafted?
3 The silence of the MSM is indeed deafening. Is this sinister, or do they know something that we have not been told?
Looking around some of the blogs it is becoming apparent that this issue is being used to push certain peoples’ agendas, no matter how tenuous the arguments they are forced to make to justify this.
Just because it would seem from the facts given to us that the CPS has failed to follow its own code, by which it has a duty to consider whether a prosecution is in the public interest (not it can do, like a jury can return a perverse verdict in the event that it knows that it can, but has a stated duty to), suddenly everyone and everything is useless and has to be changed.
Many of these bloggers remind me of Tony Blair.
1. Peelian Principles still remain a pretty good yardstick by which to judge modern policing – accountability, efficiency and trust. I believe we’ve come a long way wide of them over the last 10 years or so.
2. What started out as a means to make working conditions safer has gradually expanded to the stage where the Strict Liability law has been used in an ever wide-ranging manner in a way it was never intended to be used. Maybe ‘drafted’ isn’t quite the best word – possibly ‘badly-applied’?
3. “The silence of the MSM is indeed deafening. Is this sinister, or do they know something that we have not been told?”
It could be both and, until we know, what’s the difference?
I don’t see an agenda, although many Libertarian bloggers seem to be united in their opposition to the rule of law being applied with increasing severity in ways it was never intended to be applied. Anti-terrorism laws used against what are essentially civil misdemeanours, for example.
It’s enough for me to find some justification for the blogosphere’s participation in this affair that no-one but bloggers seem to be doing anything – even though it might just be a limited attempt to raise public awareness.
I don’t get the Tony Blair reference at all!
1 Agreed, but in practice the police are not indistinguishable from other citizens, and I believe that they should be allowed to wander the streets with big sticks and handcuffs, and other citizens should not. In fact I would like to see more of them doing so.
2 Strict liability is not a law, it is a legal doctrine that is applied in various laws.
Yes, drafted is completely the wrong word.
If you object to the application of Strict Liabiltiy to the offence in question, you are saying that there should be the requirement for mens rea, criminal intent, that must be proved beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution. How would you do this against a defence plea that the accused was on his way to hand a weapon in at a police station? Or are you following the line of thinking of Devil’s Kitchen:
“One of the things that I have consistently maintained is that the criminal law should be reserved solely for those who have done harm to others—not potential harm.”
Granted, this would make the establishment of criminal intent easier, given the victim lying on the floor with part of his face blown away for example, but it’s not much consolation to the victim and not a great crime prevention approach is it?
I take it you are aware that before (I believe but may be wrong) 1959, mens rea did not even have to be established for someone to be sentenced to death for taking part in a criminal act in which a victim was shot to death? He did not have to fire the fatal shot, he did not even have to know that an accomplice was carrying a firearm. That is why criminals used to search each other before a job, just to make sure. Strangely, violent crime increased after this hazard was removed, but it does show how Strict Liability existed in the past, and was actually done away with in this instance.
3 I’m not quite sure what you mean by “until we know, what’s the difference?” It was you who stated “The silence of the MSM is truly deafening but, one is forced to ask, is this silence intentional?” Yes, there is a silence, it may be intentional – it may be an intentional lack of reporting something some powers that be do not want reported, in which case they are being very efficient at muzzling the entire MSM – or it may be that the reporter working for the august organ Surrey Today hasn’t done a great job in writing a comprehensive and balanced report, and the others are not running it. Surely both possibilities should be allowed for…
You see no agenda, fine, neither do I, everywhere; and perhaps some of the claims being made are based on ignorance rather than prejudice – those awful politicos who drafted the dreadful Strict Liability Act, which was passed into law…..oh, it wasn’t was it?
Tony Blair thought there was an easy fix for most things that he thought were wrong, and had his minions scurry around re-writing, amending and introducing new legislation, usually without giving much thought to the possible consequences, and the reasons why things had evolved into the state they had.
We need to be told the full facts of this case, and we need then to know the reasons the CPS thought this prosecution to be in the public interest…and having a go at the jury, when I bet 90% of the people doing so had themselves never heard of a “perverse verdict” before all this is, is not very big.
‘I’m not quite sure what you mean by “until we know, what’s the difference?”’
In terms of what I see as a miscarriage of justice – in that a legal principle was applied should never have been brought to bear in a court of law in this instance – it makes no difference to the eventual outcome.
Amongst certain elements of a MSM that finds currency in criticising the politically correct, the increasing infringement of personal liberties and freedoms and the application of law without justice it seems odd that no national newspaper has picked up on it.
I should correct myself from last night:
It was the principle of ‘constructive malice’, which disappeared from British Law with the Homicide Act 1957, that allowed all perpetrators of an armed robbery to be held liable if one of their number killed. ‘Constructive malice’ held that any death occurring during a felony, even accidental, could be deemed murder, and all of the felons involved held responsible. The ‘mens rea’ was not the intent to commit murder but the intent to commit a felony.
Thus under constructive malice, one could be convicted of one offence (murder) if the intent to commit a different ofence (felony) could be proved.