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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Olympic thugs to protect Mugabe?
