Enter Rumour, Painted All With Tongues

I have had an email from my local police today, via our Neighbourhood Watch, to say not to worry about rumours of trouble in the biggish town a few miles along the road.



It reminds me of the Southall riots, some years ago. I ran a business in the area, and quite a few of my competitors started to board up their premises. My wonderful assistant fell for it all, and rushed into my office to say that the National Front were massing on Hounslow Heath.



She was affronted when I burst out laughing, first because Hounslow Heath is now mainly under Heathrow Airport, and secondly because I asked her how three men and a dog could 'mass' anywhere.



Expect more of the same until things cool down. And carry on praying for rain. Heavy rain.

A Few Basics

All we can do while riots are still going on is to support those who are tackling the trouble on the ground, and to wish them well. The criminal justice phase will begin shortly. I am not commenting on the system but here are some of the issues:



Those arrested have to be taken to a police station and booked in in the usual manner, where the custody sergeant has to authorise their detention. That has the effect of taking one or more officers off the street, and if the cells are full, as I imagine they are, detainees have to be shipped out, requiring more resources.



Charges will be decided by the CPS, and the confusion and chaos of a riot will make it exceptionally difficult to gather evidence of the necessary quality for a conviction.



CCTV is less help than the public commonly suppose, particularly in view of the well-known Turnbull guidelines on ID evidence.



Most of the likely charges will be either-way, such as burglary, theft, robbery, affray, criminal damage (this has to be above £5000 to make the offence e/w, but setting light to a car or building will soon get you past that threshold). The CPS is likely to rely on 'joint enterprise' in many cases, which should provide plenty of work for lawyers.



The early batch of people dealt with in court were reported on by the BBC today who said that there were many guilty pleas, but that most were committed to the Crown Court for sentence.



Crown courts in London are currently under pressure to get through their work. If there are lots of not-guilty pleas the system may take a year or more to get through the cases.



And a comment from me:- These are dreadful and outrageous incidents that need to be dealt with under the law, but nobody can justify cutting corners. Cases that cause outrage must be dealt with meticulously, however slow and frustrating that may appear to be. This is Britain - we have seen this sort of thing before and we shall see it again, and the rule of law is too precious to be bent in a moment's indignation.

Good Timing

A long-serving fireman of my acquaintance who is also a JP has just worked his last-ever night shift - last night, in West London. Talk about going out on a high!

JPs and The Riot Act

The Riot Act disappeared from English law some years ago, but had remained unused for a very long time. The prescribed wording had to be read to the mob by one of a list of functionaries, often by a Justice of the Peace. How anyone was supposed to hear is hard to imagine, in the time before electronic amplifiers.



I can't remember where, but I recall reading of one incident where a Justice read the Act only to see the mob repair to his house and burn it down. Call me a coward if you like, but I think that would deter me from taking on the duty.

If Only

I am sure that I'm not the only person who would like to see heavy rain for the next three or four nights. Sadly, it isn't forecast for London.

Afraid Not

David Cameron is quoted:

He told rioters: "You will feel the full force of the law. And if you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishment."

Unfortunately, that is not how the youth justice system works. The under-18s won't be hit very hard and the under-16s are more or less bulletproof so long as their offences aren't too far up the scale.

Tottenham

I am starting to get a bad feeling about the riots that started in North London yesterday. Of course a full and impartial investigation will take place to find out what led to a man being shot by police officers, but that will take many months. The early press reports suggested that the deceased was stopped in a Trident operation and was shot dead after producing a weapon and firing it, the bullet lodging in a police officer's radio. The press ran with that story and the usual commenters made the point that a man who had fired at police had himself been shot. That would seem fair to me too, but the latest reports (all unconfirmed like everything in this post) suggest that the bullet in the radio was a police one.
There is a depressing feeling of déja vu about a police incident in which the early press reports turn out not to reflect the truth. That truth will be established in due course, but what worries me is that practically no one now accepts the first police account of these sort of incidents. That allows for rumours and hysteria, then violence. And violence is so often followed by looting, as the glittering shop windows become irresistible to local thieves, who seize their chance.
As usual, the police on the street stood up to the bricks and bottles and contained the riot as best they could. But if their managers had not tossed away their force's credibility so often in the past, the riots might not have kicked off at all.

I see that even Gadget sees the potential trouble from this.

Silly Season Update.....

Shock Poll? Shock? Really?

Quote:

Prison drug taking is so bad that even the wardens are getting stoned... on the fumes

Don't believe a word of it. Prisons awash with drugs? Course they are. Wonder how they get there? Me neither. Officers getting high? Nah.

MP has Rolex stolen in Ford prison. If he took it in then he is a prat. But then we knew that anyway.

Police have been attacked for fiddling their expenses - by MPs. Pot? Kettle?

I posted this a year ago. The Mail has dragged the poor old lady back to Saddleworth Moor yet again. How cruel.

Perfect Story For August

Here is a classic Silly Season story that almost has everything. An Irish gentleman finds himself in court charged with being drunk in charge of a horse.
The article is illustrated with a most unlikely stock photo of a posh looking carriage (just in case Mail readers cannot visualise a horse and cart) while the report refers to a 'trap' which the photo certainly isn't.
The horse was colour blind apparently, and the Irishman's account of a few pints in a few pubs rings true enough. The hapless reporter was made to ring up a vet to see if horses really are colour blind.

Just to put the tin hat on it, the defence brief was Mr. Dobbin.

Wonderful.

For The Record

Today's appeal by the Murdoch pie-flinger is all over the news.

Since it has been reported little, if at all, may I add that the appeal court consisted of His Honour Judge Pitts, together with Paul Brooks JP, and Mrs. Lobanov-Rostovsky JP.

Each of the three people on the bench had an equal vote, but the judge had, of course, the last word on the law.

JPs' presence on appeals is invisible to the lazy reporters from the press, just as so many cases in the lower court are reported as if the presiding Chairman was sitting alone.