Jacqui Smith’s dilemna

42 day detention plan should be dropped

It now seems that senior figures in the Metropolitan Police are not quite so eager to fully press for an extension to the current 28 day limit for suspects to be held without charge, this leaves Home Secretary Jacqui Smith facing a dilemna.

Does she press ahead with the plans to increase the limit to 42 days cobbled together with Gordon Brown, and thus provoke a major fight within the Labour Party and with the DPP and civil liberty campaigners, or does she concede in the hope that people will see this as one fight not worth taking on?

A little political expediency should ensure that the plan is dropped like a hot rivet.

With the polls as they are…….

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CCTV isn’t working!

“Big Brother” cannot save us from crime

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

Well, no surprises here then.

I’ve been beating this drum for two years at least now and my opposition is based on the same perceptions as those revealed by Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit, with a few other points to add.

CCTV cameras are all around us, there are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands in South Shields alone, on streets, in buses, on Metro trains, in the train stations, in shops and offices and public buildings, they were put there by some over officious clowns who thought that they would make us feel safer as went about our lives. They thought that the cameras would be a great deterrent against crime, something in which they have singularly failed. They are the apparatus of the Big Brother state a tool that will eventually develop into the creation of another great database, this time collating our images as our lives are recorded for the greater safety of mankind.

Criminals have no fear of CCTV cameras, we see pictures almost daily on television screens and in newspapers asking if we “recognise these faces”, the camera did no prevent the execution of the crime, the deterrent failed, it’s only use now is as a (fairly poor) investigative tool. Hence the calls now for the development and building of yet another dangerous piece in the surveillance society’s armoury, the digital image database.

It’s time for our politicians to wake up to the dangers in these calls, building bigger databases is not the answer to crime, neither is the greater proliferation of more technically proficient CCTV cameras and operations rooms filled with extremely bored personnel monitoring the screens. Criminals will only be deterred when they see more uniformed policemen and women on our streets (not in stations filling out triplicate forms), communities will begin to feel safer when individuals have the courage to pick up the telephone and tell the police that they’ve just seen Johnny daubing on a wall, or running out of the corner shop with the takings stuffed into his pockets! When society starts to favour and value the important individuals who make the whole, then we may start to see results.

Community policing is part of the answer to crime, reducing the wastage of police time is another great step forward, the role of the CPS and it’s bureaucratic straight jacket needs to be re-assessed. Once the police have some of their restrictive administrative tasks removed they will feel less encumbered and be able to integrate more effectively with their community neighbourhoods, we might even get back to the days when the policeman was seen as our friend! The greatest steps forward in the fight against crime will come when we feel sure that the telephone call to the police will be responded to quickly, and when both sides feel sure that the giving and taking of a statement and/or the identification of a suspect will lead to satisfactory results. This human intelligence is worth far more to the police and the courts than the poorly lit grainy image from a CCTV camera.

The other deterrent has to be sentencing, and again the philosophy here has to be that it values the rights, the sensitivities, and the strengths of the individuals who make up society, and more importantly when sentencing is seen to mean something to the victims of crime will we all feel that something is being achieved. The present perception is that sentencing is seen as something that favours the criminal with Labour’s policies of early release schemes and under investment in the Prison Service devaluing the efforts of the police.

Back to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville;

It’s been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There’s no fear of CCTV. Why don’t people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working.”

More training was needed for officers. Often they do not want to find CCTV images “because it’s hard work”. Sometimes the police did not bother inquiring beyond local councils to find out whether CCTV cameras monitored a particular street incident.

Sounds like a very familiar story, right on the first point, right on the second point, but utterly wrong about his proposed solution;

“We are [beginning] to collate images from across London. This has got to be balanced against any Big Brother concerns, with safeguards. The images are from thefts, robberies and more serious crimes. Possibly the [database] could be national in future.”

The right solution lies in the education of children, and the willingness of families and communities to accept responsibility for their actions and the consequences, when criminal behaviour is seen and accepted as totally wrong, repugnant, and socially destructive, then society as a whole will move towards better self policing and gain a more cooperative strategy with it’s local neighbourhood police. Greater intrusive incursions into our privacy and the collating of more personal information is unlikely to increase our cooperation with the state!

We don’t need “Big Brother” just better mums, dads, teachers, and role models, and a willingness to supply information about criminal activity without fearing being labelled “a grass”.

Related posts

• Spyblog
• Boing Boing

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Brown’s next U turn

Concessions over 42 day pre charge limit

Gordon Brown has little real concept of what is good for the country because his mind is too pre-occupied by what is good for him and his government - in a nutshell he will do anything to retain power.

Hence, the growing suspicions about possible concessions in the fifth anti-terrorism Bill since 2000, Brown and Jacqui Smith appear to have conjured up a form of legislation which they hope will placate members of the Parliamentary Labour Party and involve bail and electronic tagging after 28 days. Having headed off Labour rebels who threatened to defeat the Finance Bill over the 10p tax rate it seems incredible that Smith and Brown can somehow offer backdating of your life if we happen to detain you for longer than 28 days without a charge

Either “charge or release” says Shami Chakrabarti, and don’t put “reserve powers” into the hands of the DPP, a Chief Constable, and the Home Secretary, because if you do, any decisions they make about exceptional circumstances will soon be seen as a precedent by some judges and illegal by others, seeing as the decisions were not voted upon by Parliament. This clause is not something that is worth losing a fight over Mr. Brown, for the sake of national unity, and to improve the chances of intelligence gathering among minority communities, and improving the success rate of police recruitment in these communities, you must drop the notion altogether!

We already have a period of pre-charge detention which is longer than that in the majority of western liberal democracies, we really have no need for an extension, and the DPP has already confirmed this and many parliamentarians of all colours are deeply disturbed by the prospects of building the apparatus of a police state. Let it go!

Wise sage Simon Jenkins argues that the raft of anti-terror measures recently taken on board are having the effect of killing the British justice system, and that only a handful of judges are protecting our centuries old liberties from an executive determined to chip them away bit by bit in the poorly (but aptly) named TWAT - The War Against Terror. His article outlines some the more bizarre and ridiculous cases which have come before British courts in recent years

Every prediction that Britain’s burgeoning terrorism laws would pollute justice is vindicated by these cases. The concept of preemptive imprisonment, like that of preemptive war, should have no place in an open society. Yet it tallies with revelations last week that ministers, who claim to be in control of security, no longer regard lawyer/client relations as sacred and that prison interviews are routinely bugged by the police. Officers who object, such as the whistleblower Mark Kearney, can expect to lose their jobs. The authorities now have extraordinary powers to arrest and convict Britons on evidence that may be tainted by American interrogation techniques or by the sheer ignorance of the police and security services.

It is to this secret establishment that Smith wants to give discretionary power to incarcerate suspects without charge for an undecided number of months. It is this establishment that is still determined not to reveal the extent of its wiretap activities in court. It is this that has equipped Britain with the most extensive network of surveillance in the free world. It is this that intends to computerise the personal, occupational, medical and family records of the entire nation, on bases that everyone knows will be insecure.

It is time that we stood back and took a calm and collected look at what is perceived to be “the threat” that Brown, and Blair before him told us we needed protecting against. Whatever it is, it can be nowhere near as great as the the threat we faced in 1939 with millions of heavily armed German forces facing us across the English Channel, yet Parliament, even then, was reluctant to introduce internment (for the safety of those who were on the wrong side of the ideological fence) and certainly did not introduce laws that removed the requirement to bring a criminal charge within a reasonable time. Neither in the 1970’s and 80’s did we need such draconian liberty threatening methods to deal with the bombers from Ireland, yet their threat was there, and probably in larger measures than we have seen since 9/11 in this country.

No serious person can imagine a Britain conquered and ruled by fundamentalist Islam. It is pure fiction. Any fanatic can set off bombs, as once could the Irish. The cult of the suicide bomber enhances the menace of explosive devices and that requires more assiduous policing. But such few bombs as get through are the price we pay for a free society. Democracy is never a free lunch.

Yet Blair and Brown keep repeating the mantra that we should not allow the “threat” to destroy British values and democracy, perhaps that’s why the government is taking away the choice and doing it for them? Using legislations that destroys centuries of liberties for the sake of an ill defined “threat”.

A final word from Mr. Jenkins, with whom I am in almost complete agreement;

But none of this justifies collapsing the values of justice and fairness on which British law has long been based. The paradox, espoused by the present government and mostly unchallenged by the opposition, that defending values requires infringing them, is unjustified. That habeas corpus must be restricted, that mens rea must be suspended, that reading and talking and thinking can be crimes, all are ideas so abhorrent to British people that one might imagine them the product of an Al-Qaeda plot inside the Home Office.

This week the only conclusion I can reach is one I would never have predicted. Thank goodness for judges with the guts to save British values from the present crop of British politicians.

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Police in court over pictures

Legality of surveillance challenged.

This could be an interesting case, one could argue that if the rest of us have a right to take pictures in and from public places without breaching anyone’s privacy, then the police must surely have the same right too. So long as they understand how close they can get to causing harassment, alarm, or distress, and breaching privacy by repeated photography.

The two-day judicial review is likely to determine the legality of surveillance and whether ‘routine’ intelligence gathering is permissible under the Human Rights Act.

Police claim that routine intelligence gathering plays a key role in deterring crime. However, the case comes amid concern that Britain is heading towards a ‘police state’, with the government’s information commissioner warning that fears the UK would ’sleepwalk into a surveillance society’ have become a reality.

I noticed yesterday that a number of people were being “routinely photographed” by police “sharp shooters” as they made their way to the Sunderland vs Middlesbrough game, admittedly some of them were members of large groups but they did not appear to be doing anything illegal or acting in a disorderly fashion. However, the police were deliberately following them and making a point of repeatedly photographing them and recording them on video cameras too. Now if you or I were to do this with a camera it could easily be claimed to be harassment and an invasion of privacy - once is OK, repeating the action is not (especially at close quarters!).

Andrew Wood, from Oxford campaigns against the arms trade, and claims his human rights were infringed when he was photographed and his images were kept on a police computer despite no arrests being made, at a meeting he attended as a shareholder.

It will be interesting and instructive to see what the High Court decides, particularly as privacy is not treated as a strong point in British law when we are out in public.

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Boing Boing

The power of a link

Crikey more traffic in one day than what I see in the average week!

Thanks Bill Thompson, whoever you are.

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42 day limit slammed!

DPP can manage prosecutions within 28 days

If the DPP, Sir Kenneth MacDonald can manage “quite comfortably” , then why are Sir Ian Blair and Jacqui Smith insisting that we need to increase the period of detention without charge from 28 to 42 days?

Why do Gordon Brown and the Home Secretary wish to risk their parliamentary majority on a plan that will go a long way to destroying the concept of habeus corpus and attack civil liberties in a way which no government has done since the introduction of internment in Northern Ireland so many years ago? Even the former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith is now speaking out against the government’s plan saying it would be seen as another attack on the muslim community. We managed to get through a long period of “terror” instigated by the Irish without the necessity for such ridiculous changes to our long held traditions of fairness under the law, nor did this create an anti-Irish fervour amongst our communities. There are great dangers in increasing detention without charge to 42 days, it will alienated sections of our communities and make the job of police and intelligence agencies more difficult, it is grossly illiberal and if used would virtually undermine the presumption of innocence. If a person is to be arrested and held, then they need to be charged and to know the extent of the accusations against them in order to produce a defence. The removal of this right will create a tool far too powerful to be left to the trust of future governments or police forces in the UK.

Sir Kenneth MacDonald has revealed that over the past three years only three suspects had been held for longer than 14 days without charge (but less than the 28 day limit), and that none had been held for longer than 14 days in the past nine months.

Our MP in South Shields, David Miliband will not be one of those opposing the government’s aim of increasing the powers of the police and the overbearing hand of the state, he has a track record of “blind faith” and never voting against the government. Therfore I call upon our neighbouring MP for Jarrow, Stephen Hepburn, to stand up for the civil liberies of the small man, to speak out for the British legal system and our rights to know the accusations and charges to be laid against us. I urge him to join fellow members of the Labour Party in the House of Commons who are prepared to restrict the amount of power that the executive wishes to take for itself.

The opinions that are now being formed can be summed up as “it ain’t broken, so don’t try to fix it!”

Here’s a hypothetical scenario (which isn’t all that far fetched)

You are a young man living in South Shields, of the Islamic faith, and have recently started in a good steady job in a Newcastle office, and you have a healthy interest in current affairs, are net “savvy” but happen to come across a website that is being monitored by security services. You also look at a few message boards and forums that promote understanding of the Quoran and one morning at about 04:00 armed police surround your house and take you away “to help them with their enquiries”. Forensic teams take away your pc, related hardware and all of your digital storage devices, your house is searched down to the most minute levels, floorboards are lifted and the plaster is stripped away from the walls, when they are finished your home is no longer inhabitable.

They don’t find what they are looking for yet all the while you are held in Frankland prison for up to 42 days without a charge being put against you. Your legal representative has little chance of building any sort of defence yet, and eventually you are released without charge with an apology.

Where will you now live, will your employer have kept your job open for you, will your family be angry at your treatment?

Remember, a future government may cede even more powers to the police and the current “dangers of the day” may not have anything to do with terror or misconceived notions about religious faith, the dangers would be able to be visited upon anyone! This government of Gordon Brown’s is about to create the conditions that we must all be afraid of.

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Racist?

Downs Syndrome boy charged

I’m finding it incredibly difficult to prevent the steam from escaping my ears after reading this howler about an eighteen year old boy who has Downs Syndrome, with a mental age of five, being charged with a racially motivated assault and a breach of the peace. How the hell did it take 7 1/2 months for the ridiculous charge to be dropped?

Heads ought to roll in Strathclyde Police and the Scottish Procurator Fiscal’s office for this gross insensitivity.

This is yet another illustration of how some in this once free and fair country of ours find it so easy to throw about wild and unfounded allegations of racism and somehow hope that in the fullness of time they will be quietly forgotten about, I’m glad that Fiona Bauld and her legal representative persisted in keeping up the pressure to ensure the correct outcome, it’s no fun being on the receiving end of a scurrilous racist charge no matter who you are, or whatever age you are.

On March 31st. I made a post suggesting that Max Mosley the head of the FIA should quit his position over a private matter which will affect his public standing, it was accompanied by a satirical picture and drew a response from a certain Big Al asking if my father was at this Nazi rally and suggesting that I have racist leanings (without any attempt to justify or produce evidence to back it up). On April 1st. I made a post regarding the Fitna film by Dutch MP Geert Wilders involving a temporary censorship by British company Live Leak, again a Big Al jumped in accusing me of being racist and having anti muslim sentiments, he also asked if I am a member of the BNP. Once again these accusations are totally without foundation or evidence of any kind to support them.

I know exactly the IP address of Big Al (who foolishly tried to hide behind an insecure http proxy server) and immediately emailed the person who I believe posted those ridiculous, scurrilous, and libellous comments, a vehement denial by telephone followed soon after. I have given Big Al another opportunity to confirm the IP address since than with a request that the comments be withdrawn and an apology offered, so far Big Al has failed to respond.

Big Al in his telephone conversation also stated quite clearly and emphatically that he does not comment on this blog, nor others, and certainly does not comment under a variety of pseudonyms.

Tomorrow, unless an apology and a request to withdraw the remarks is made overnight, I will post the voicemail message that Big Al voluntarily left on my phone, I will also publish the evidence that I have with regard to the use of a variety of pseudonyms used by Big Al on another web blog, and link them firmly to the same IP address used to post the comments on this site.

I will also name Big Al using evidence of previous comments posted on this website using the same IP address.

I firmly believe that it is in the public interest to name Big Al, his “electronic fingerprints” are all over the libellous comments left here and other comments left under different names at another place. They are wholly at odds with, and totally inconsistent with, his clear statement made to me by telephone and with a public position that he has made on many occasions.

Unless Big Al takes steps NOW to rectify these dreadful comments, then I’m afraid I will have to tell the world who I believe has been responsible and support it with solid evidence. There is no such thing as anonymity for those who think they can throw about grossly unfounded, untrue, malicious, and hurtful remarks on the internet. Not only has he maligned me, he has also involved my 77 year old Jarrow born father who grew up in England during the Second World War (his father was a serving soldier in the defence of the King and country.)

Like Fiona Bauld, I do not intend to let this matter of a racist charge rest.

Stay tuned.

Related Posts

• A word to “Big Al”
• The response to the “Big Al” comments

Update

Negotiations between two parties are currently under way with the hope of reaching an amicable solution to this impasse. Therefore, to ease and facilitate this process, no further comment on this topic will be made as we attempt to reach a mutually satisfying outcome.
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“Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal”

Nick Erikson - senior BNP leader

This via Labour Home

Nick Erikson is hoping to be elected to the London Assembly representing the British National Party and he is the author of the Sir John Bull blog (I won’t link to it, if you want to find it, I’m sure you know how to search). Andrew Gilligan writes in the London Evening Standard on some the “enlightening” thoughts of Mr. Erikson particularly his views towards women:

“I’ve never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime … Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal.

“To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched.

“The demonisation of rape is all part of the feminazi desire to obtain power and mastery over men. Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors.”

Hang on a minute mister, I go along with the current myth legal and moral stance on rape, does that make me a moron or a traitor?

“Give her a slap!, Some women are like gongs - they need to be struck regularly.”

Yeah and some blokes really need a good fisting, just to see how offended, violated, and dirty they feel, or perhaps they need to be struck once or twice, just to see if it knocks any sense into them. Perhaps in Erikson’s case a double bolt of lightning might be the appropriate weapon of choice to strike him with.

Now I’m not suggesting that all members of the BNP are tarred with the same brush (some may be a lot worse), but we should be thankful to Gilligan for digging into Erikson’s blog to find these little nuggets that reveal the mindset of the electoral candidate. As we approach the local elections here in South Tyneside we should be mindful of the characteristics of the candidates who offer themselves for our approval, and be mindful of the material that they publish in print and on the internet, information can be your powerful tool to expose the shortcomings of some wannabe councillors. We will find out by tomorrow afternoon if the BNP are to launch another attempt at snatching votes around here.

I trust that the Conservatives and other parties will be campaigning hard enough to ensure that they gain a bigger percentage of the vote than the BNP in South Tyneside, we are a tolerant type of people here, but not that tolerant!

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Hard Labour over terrorism Bill

The voices of reason are getting louder

I would really hate to see the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith back herself into a corner with her plans for a 42 day detention limit without charge. The philosophical, legal, and libertarian arguments may not appeal much to the people of South Shields, but Labour’s plans could have devastating effect upon our liberties and freedoms under the law as we have come to accept it over centuries of movements.

To be detained by the police can be an unpleasant enough experience, and to be held without charge is even worse, the current limit is 28 days but there are provisions to extend this with the agreement of a judge. It is every man’s right to know what he/she is accused of so that a defence can be prepared, and even in the most complex of investigations it is possible to bring some charge so that legal representation can be arranged, even if additional charges are brought later.

Voices of reason are beginning to be heard, it is up to the Home Secretary to listen to them.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Kenneth MacDonald QC, is telling Jacqui Smith that 28 days is quite sufficient:

“We have had major, major cases that have occurred within the currency of that time limit, since it was legislated for, and haven’t encountered any difficulties in charging those we have wanted to charge and that’s why we have not requested any extension.”

He intimated that it is nearly always possible to find sufficient evidence of reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed and that the evidence would lead to a successful prosecution adding that judges hearing applications for an extension of detention without charge would be very mindful of the consequences against liberty. If it isn’t broken, then why try to fix it?

However, I do support the proposition to allow post charge questioning, which could add to the evidential weight in a case or result in further charges.

Rebel Labour MPs are also taking a stand against the Bill suggesting that the government may need to rely on the support of Dr. Ian Paisley’s DUP to push the measure through, although the softly softly approach of one to one talks with backbenchers is countered by a strong campaign from Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, who appears to have the upper hand. Oddly the two major opposition parties, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems don’t appear to ready for an all out fight for liberty, scared that voters may see them as being soft on terrorism. This should not be the case, they should argue strongly for the status quo and respect for the rights of individuals against the weight of the state, especially if those employed in prosecuting are adamant that the job can be done without any changes in the current rules.

Colin Firth, Vivienne Westwood and John le Carré have joined Desmond Tutu and A C Grayling in protesting against the Government’s proposals to detain terrorist suspects, without trial, for up to 42 days. In an open letter to Gordon Brown, they warn that the plan could “damage intelligence-gathering and policing” by alienating Muslims.

There is this danger that a section of our community will see the provisions of the Counter Terrorism Bill being aimed precisely at them, thus making the police job of evidence gathering that little harder in communities where perhaps they already have difficulties in forging relationships. This is not a situation that is tenable or encompassing.

We must always remember that one of the principle aims of terror is to frighten us into changing our way of life, cowing us into making changes. Yet this (apparently) was a mantra that Tony Blair, the last PM was not prepared to accept, somehow someone in this government has decided that they are quite determined to change our British way of life by altering one of the inalienable rights in law that free men have enjoyed for centuries.

Such a radical change in law creates a very dangerous tool for any future government and a propaganda weapon for those opposed to our values!

Maxine Carr gets boob job on the NHS

Tax Payers Alliance disgusted

Let’s be honest, this story was just waiting for the red tops to get a hold of it, it featured in The Daily Mirror this morning and in the Tax Payers Alliance blog site .

Matthew Elliott said;

“This is disgusting. Why should hard working families foot the bill for this woman’s plastic surgery?

“Taxpayers’ money is meant to be spent on people who need and deserve help, not on criminals who never spared a thought for wider society when they committed their crimes.”

Curly says:

“If she won the big one on a lottery rollover and funded the “treatment” herself, it still would not improve her one little bit!”

Really, it makes me depressed thinking if someone is specifically paid to dream up new ways of wasting tax payers cash, I’d be happier if her doctor took the £3000 out of his own remunerations and gave it to Soham school to spend on something useful - it might go towards boosting the criminal’s self esteem and confidence!

Confidence? - Yeah, she seemed to have plenty of it when she lied for Huntley!