Super-Unintended

This blog by a police Superintendent is fascinating, partly for the priorities to which it addresses itself and partly for the occasionally leaden management-speak that will be familiar to anyone working on the Courts' Service. I fear that the heavy hand of the Communications/PR professionals has been at work.

Doff

The former Lord Chief Justice is interviewed by Joshua Rozenberg in the Telegraph.
I doff my (metaphorical) hat to his Lordship. He speaks sense and humanity, and has the freedom to lay the blame for today's prison shambles where it belongs.

Top Cop Slams Beaks

I can't resist having a stir of this pot, which came to the boil when the Chief Constable of Merseyside complained that judges were not always imposing the 'mandatory' five-year minimum sentence for possession of a firearm, and that this was a Bad Thing, and would fail to act as a deterrent. Gordon Brown has now added his five pennyworth.
This serves to confirm my long-held view that policemen should stick to policing and let judges stick to judging. They are very different functions and require totally different ways of thinking. Minimum sentencing does not sit easily in the English jurisdiction, for the very good reason that every case is different, and has to turn on its own facts, and that is why the so-called minimum has, as it must have, a let-out clause allowing the judge to take account of exceptional circumstances. Without this, injustices would be bound to happen. Down in the lower courts we are obliged to impose minimum sentences in some driving cases, in particular drink-drive matters. Quite right too; road safety requires that drink drivers be dealt with severely, but even here we have the discretion to find 'special reasons' not to disqualify if the circumstances are such that this would be just.
The other thing that comes to mind is the touching faith that so many people have in the power of deterrence. As I have said before, to be deterred you need to be capable of reasoned thinking, something that is beyond the mental capacity of so many of the people magistrates deal with. The impressionable young man in South London who is hanging around with blinged-up gangsters in the drug-sodden milieu in which a gun earns 'respect' will not give even a passing thought to the length of his sentence if he is caught because he does not expect to be caught. 250 years ago we used to hang people for theft, and pickpockets would work the crowd at the public executions.
Minimum sentences,'crackdowns' and the rest of it are no substitute for unglamorous day to day solid police work. The rest is just PR.

Later: Here's the Judicial Communications Office statement:-

"If, in any individual case, the police (or the CPS) believe that a mandatory minimum term has not been imposed for gun crime for reasons that are not justified, it is open to them to ask the Attorney General to consider referring the case to the court of appeal as unduly lenient.
This provides a clear mechanism for sentences to be reviewed and checked against the statutory framework, sentencing guidelines and case law.
The number of cases referred for failure to impose a mandatory minimum sentence is small."

Deliberate Distortion

This story appeared in the Daily Mail last week. As intended it attracted some comments that were universally scathing of the police action in this case. Have a look at them.
Just a minute though:- the action described in the story would certainly amount to Common Assault. If it is reported to the police they have a duty to act, and so they did. Neighbour disputes are not all trivial, and have even resulted in murder before now. Most importantly, the man with the hosepipe (described as a 'Financial Adviser') accepted a caution, thus agreeing that he had committed the alleged offence. So what are he and the Mail whinging about? He had his DNA and prints taken? So does everybody, whether they like it or not. Are we asking for special laws for Financial Advisers? Does the Mail want Common Assault redefined?

But that isn't the worst of it. When I read the report (online: I wouldn't pay for the damn thing) I rang an acqaintance to ask him to add a comment pointing out that the police had acted properly, which he did. It was not published: conclusive proof that the Mail did not want to spoil a good 'how dare they' story with the inconvenient truth.

What annoys me about this is that many people, like those whose comments were published, will have accepted the story with its suggestions of police bias and inefficiency.
This is unprofessional and dishonest journalism, and the Mail should be ashamed of itself. It doesn't do shame though, does it?

Bad Apple

This (shortly to be ex) magistrate has deservedly gone down for a gross abuse of his office.
I am pretty sure that he must have been bluffing his intended victim too - I don't think that any individual, JP or administrator, could just 'lose' a case like that. There are too many interlinking threads to allow the case to disappear. I suppose that you might get away with it if you nobble someone senior in the prosecuting authority, but it seems unlikely.

Desperately Sad

I stumbled across this on the BBC website. I have two small grandchildren, and the contrast between their lives and those who start their lives in prison is a stark one. As the Shannon Matthews case is demonstrating, children from unstable backgrounds have an awful lot to cope with, and many finish up irredeemably damaged.
The late Sir Keith Joseph made a speech many years ago about the 'Cycle of Deprivation' as he called it, and the mob fell upon him, accusing him of wanting to stop the poor having babies.

Penny-Pinching

Our court staff have historically been paid in the middle of each month, a legacy from the days when the courts' bills were paid by the local authority. Her Majesty's Courts' Service has now moved pay-day to the end of the month, leaving staff to make a month's money stretch out over six weeks. This has caused understandable irritation among the staff, and all for an infinitesimal saving in costs. Silly and unnecessary, in my opinion.



An HMCS manager pictured last week

Odd One, This

This p*ss-taking nutcase appears to have (literally) put up two fingers at the traffic laws, and not been disqualified, albeit receiving a (suspended) prison sentence. Frustratingly, the BBC report does not say what he was charged with, nor why he was at the Crown Court rather than down among the do-gooders (sorry- I'm getting a bit touchy) in the Mags' court. I say no more about this case, being ignorant of the facts, but it is a matter of record that motoring offences that reach the Crown Court often baffle judges, who see them rarely, and that is one of the reasons why two JPs sit with Hizonner on appeals. A while ago I sat with a Recorder, a learned man with a silk gown to his name, but that didn't stop him confusing Special Reasons with Exceptional Hardship on a disqualification appeal.

later:-here's the Mail's take on it, with a bit more information.

Words Fail Me

Community Justice is a Blair-era wheeze that ticks the right boxes, and will have no discernible effect on society, other than to waste millions of pounds and a great deal of everyone's time. This is Plan B; Plan A included courts 'reaching out' by sitting in church halls and suchlike. That was quietly shelved when even the dunderheads in the Home Office realised that there was no money for any security staff, and that courthouses are laid out as they are for a reason.
This nonsense will deservedly disappear in a few years, not with a bang but a whimper. If they look for volunteers from my patch, they will get a very short answer from me.

Yeah, Right

Is there anyone who doesn't react to this with a weary and cynical shrug?