No poop Mr Holmes

Yet another report has found that victims of crime are let down by the Criminal Justice System, the Criminal Justice System that is heavily balanced in favour of criminals.

This report focusses on the third point of the justice triangle, the CPS.

It is well known that the CPS take a similar approach to the police, in that whilst the police concentrate their resources and efforts on easy prey who have 'committed' non-existent crimes to gain easy detections, the CPS charge as the lowest possible level to gain easy convictions.

I think I have been pretty clear with my opinions of the modern police ethos, but when you hear about such depressing charging decisions from the CPS, it becomes slightly more understandable why the police operate as they do.

Maybe I should change the name of the blog to Hero Police, Tough Judges, & Utterly Spineless Despicable Prosecutors...

/sarcasm

A genuine well done and doff of my hat to the police who have acted promptly and arrested the perpetrators of a dispicable bleach attack.

I admit I thought this was going to be yet another of the many serious crimes ignored by the police, but on this occasion the police have done what they are paid to do and what every law-abiding member of the public wants them to do: arrest criminals.

So good work by the police, now it's over to our learned betters at Leeds Magistrates' Court.

I give 3-1 on that both of them will walk out of the court (well they would, if they weren't appearing by video link). They might have some impressive sounding 'community orders' or other such nonsense, but 3-1 on that they will be out on the street ready to attack again.

Appalling, disgraceful, even unbelievable - but not unexpected.

This is such a tragic story of how all three emergency services refused to climb down a 15ft bank and rescue a man from 18in of water, that I'm not going to write anything more about it; lest I belittle the seriousness of it.

When is this kind of shit going to end?

It's not good to be back

Just back from a brilliant holiday, no internet or telly (through choice, not because I was on holiday in Cornwall or anything), or other such distractions. One of the first stories I read when I got back was this horrifying case with an absolutely staggering 'sentence'.

So much for an eye for an eye, with our judges living in some bizarre different world, we now have community service for an eye.

I really don't know what more to say, I would not wish this kind of thing on anyone; so I will not go as far as to say that I hope the attacker who walked free from the court does the same to the judge.

At least the CofE are embracing non-religious ideas

Off-topic, but I couldn't help notice the madness spreading.

Can't fault them, the Church of England have taken a very public-sector approach to their problems;

When everything is going to shit, you need more managers!

We often hear the police complaining (quite rightly so) that there are ever fewer police on the beat, but ever more senior managers in ever more ludicrusly invented roles. The same thing is constantly reported from those in the NHS; never enough medical practicioners, but plenty of managers, managing... erm, well not managing an awful lot really.

I remember when I was in the RAF, after one particularly large round of cutbacks, they got rid of a lot of us flightline monkeys (the guys who actually service the jets and get them off the ground), and created a load of nice cushy Wing Commander posts - great! That'll do the trick!

I've not quite seen so much of this since I've had proper jobs, so I'm sure the private sector's nowhere near as bad for this kind of caper as those organisations funded by the taxpayer.

It will be interesting to see if the church start hiring consultants on £1000 a day.

(Don't even get me started on consultants...)

Now then

Three cheers to the brave officers who effected this arrest, as the kind of character "threatening to cause criminal damage" could be quite a nasty piece of work.

Except when it's a father trying to have a 'protest picnic' with other parents after the council effectively tried to burst their kids' football.

I am not commenting on the council's rules and demands, that's a different issue, what I am commenting on, as the name of the blog implies is the actions of the police.

You often hear that the police aren't interested in clocking up easy arrests for nonsense crime, they want to help the community, blah blah blah, that it's just a myth that they'll always take the easiest 'detection' available etc, yet the simple fact remains that a sworn officer, granted the power of arrest, thought it was a good idea to arrest this man.

Nice work boys...

Prison doesn't work?

There's a few things that don't quite make sense about this story, especially to a mere pleb like me. Maybe my gracious betters in the judiciary could explain it...

Craig Chilman, one of Peterborough's most prolific house burglars has been allowed to walk free from court after a judge decided prison was doing little to prevent his offending.

Now I don't claim to be a legal expert, but I'm pretty sure that when he was in prison he was not burgling houses. However the judge said:

"He has a substantial record as a domestic burglar, and he shows every indication of continuing in that way (if he is sent straight to prison). The only legitimate alternative is a suspended sentence."

WTF? The judge feels that the guy is extremely likely to break in to more people's houses and yet he thinks it the best thing to do is let him walk straight out of his court, back on to the streets, and possibly in to your home?

Then of course we have the special world of Home Office maths;

In 2002 he was jailed for three years, he was given a four-year prison sentence in 2004 and then he was again locked up for three years in 2007.

Erm, hmmm, erm, hang on...

Individually, 2002 + 3 = 2005, 2004 + 4 = 2008, 2007 + 3 = 2010!.

Or even better 3 + 4 + 3 = 10, starting in 2002, yet it's only 2009 by my calendar.

Gotta love automatic early release!

Now m'learned friends will immediately jump up and down screaming "oh the guidelines, we're bound by the guidelines!" as to why they continually let this type of scum continue their careers, but as stated in this story, under the guidelines anyone convicted of three house burglaries should get no less than three years inside. So it seems that judges only follow guidelines if it means they can send nasty, recidivist, prolific criminals back out to make our lives a misery.

When this man reoffends, will the judge be held to account for the fact that his actions directly led to an innocent person's house being burgled? Nope!

I'm going to repeat this quote again, because it is so breathtakingly unbelievable, and perfectly illustrates how the judiciary fail to grasp that the entire premise of the CJS is to protect innocent members of the public from criminals.

a judge decided prison was doing little to prevent his offending.

If my house is ever burgled by a man (or woman) who is in prison, I will give them my car as well.

You can almost understand why the police don't bother any more...