CRB Nonsense

The rise of the Criminal Records industry has been phenomenal over recent years, and very many jobs now require your record to be checked. It may do a little good, or a little harm, but no matter, it keeps the Bureau's staff in employment.
I have just posted off a CRB request for myself, enclosing the usual proofs of identity (although I refused to supply my bank details - that's a question too far for me). The charity for which I shall be doing a few voluntary tasks will be charged over £50 to check up on the background of someone who has been a JP for more than 20 years, and whose background is routinely checked by the authorities. A simple letter to my Clerk could prove that I am in good standing.
What a waste of time and money!

Fair Enough?

It was about ten past four this afternoon, at the end of a varied day's work that had seen us deal with a range of cases, resulting in a twelve months' sentence here and a conditional discharge there.
Sean Kennedy walked into the dock, a gangling young man with ginger hair. His eyes met mine, and he and I knew that we had seen each other before on more than one occasion; him in the dock and me on the bench.
I won't go into the details of the offence - Sean pleaded guilty straight off. It wasn't very serious, and it just served to confirm his long record of previous convictions. Sean has a short fuse, you see. He has next to no previous for violence, beyond the odd difference of opinion in the pub, but he tends to kick off when he becomes frustrated - as he does. He rants and raves, using lots of foul language, and eventually a PC has had enough and arrests him. He was anxious to tell us his story, and I gave him a fair chance to do so. He pleaded guilty, and accepted, when I questioned him, the elements of the offence.
He had a point, and was indignant about the police, and we could understand why he was cross, even though the officers had acted entirely correctly. Sean simply hadn't understood, because of his crossness. After he had had his five penn'orth I told him that we had listened to his story and that it did not amount to a defence, but that we would nevertheless fine him at the bottom end of the scale. He still wanted to talk about his grievance, but I stopped him there and reminded him that we had already cut him a lot of slack.
So we fined him and off he went. I don't know if he felt fairly done by, but I hope so.

Deterrence

One of the most fundamental issues in the debate about crime and punishment lies in the part played by deterrence. We can all understand deterrence: at home, at school, in my working life, I was always aware that unacceptably bad behaviour would have unpleasant consequences for me. As a simple example I am so anxious to avoid a wheelclamp that I am meticulous about where I park. It isn't worth the risk, in my view.
Unfortunately, for someone to be deterred, he needs to have the ability to make a rational assessment of the pros and cons of his actions, and that ability is missing from the majority of the people who appear in my court. Many politicians and journalists simply fail to grasp this basic fact, and that's why we see so much nonsensical law making, that plays well in the pub, but has not the least effect on offending.
Cannabis is now class B rather then class C. This has the effect of increasing the potential penalties, but does anyone, even the most rabid hanger-and-flogger, expect that this will change the behaviour of pot smokers? The penalties for importing and trading class A drugs are awesome, but the amount of the stuff on the streets shows a steady increase. The same applies to so much criminal and antisocial behaviour - adjusting penalties doesn't seem to make a lot of difference when a young man (it usually is a young man) high on drink or drugs kicks off and attacks someone or something. You could make the same point about drink-driving; the penalties are severe, and there is a minimum sentence prescribed by law that can devastate the life and career of some people - nevertheless, as I type this there are thousands of over-limit drivers wending their way home from the pub.
Not simple is it?

More Power to the Quangocrats

This is a bloody disgrace, even by the standards of the unprincipled oafs infesting Whitehall.

More Straw

From The Times, a piece that reinforces the view that so long as the present Government is in office the tabloids will rule the country.

Legal Update

Thanks to the excellent CrimeLine for this:-

Cannabis is reclassified as a class B drug with effect from 26 January 2009. Reclassification of cannabis to a Class B drug has a number of consequences in terms of maximum penalties. For possession of cannabis as a Class B drug, the maximum penalty on indictment increases from 2 to 5 years’ imprisonment. On summary conviction, in respect of which the majority of possession cases are dealt with, the maximum imprisonment penalty remains the same at 3 months, although the maximum fine that the Magistrates’ Court can impose increases from £1,000 to £2,500. For the supply and production offences for cannabis, the maximum penalties on summary conviction increase to 6 months’ imprisonment and/or a £5,000 fine (from 3 months and/or a £2,500 fine respectively). The penalties for other offences relating to cannabis are unaffected, including the maximum penalty on indictment for supplying or producing cannabis of 14 years’ imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.

That should do it, then. The menace of marijuana is as good as defeated.

Probably.

Here's a piece from The Times, describing the chaos.

Full Matthews Judgment

The Judge in the Matthews Trial has published his full sentencing remarks, and they can be found here.

Charlie

Charlie was already an old man when I met him, and he had a reputation among the neighbours for being a rather private man, and a bit prickly on occasion. We became firm friends after a while, and on a summer Sunday my wife and I would often sit in his garden with Charlie, his wife Mary, and a glass or two of of beer or whatever. Charlie had been a teacher in his time, and by he time that I met him he had been retired for about twenty years.
One day Charlie arrived at my door looking unaccustomedly worried, and asked if he might have a private word with me about a legal problem. Of course I agreed, and we retired to sit in my study. He showed me a bundle of papers that turned out to be his car insurance renewal documents, and told me that he was very worried about them. The renewal invitation contained the usual reminder that any criminal convictions or motoring incidents had to be declared. To my amazement, Charlie told me that he was worried sick about this, because he did in fact have a conviction that he had never declared to his insurers, and what should he do. Would he get into trouble?
It turned out that Charlie was a regular soldier in the Thirties, rising to the rank of Sergeant. When he was posted to a particular camp he discovered that his predecessor had a fiddle going with a civilian contractor, and Charlie allowed this to continue. He was caught, convicted in a civilian court, and served twelve months in prison. Thereafter he returned to the colours as a private, war being imminent, and soldiered through the war until 1946, when he trained as a teacher and taught handicrafts until he retired.
I reassured him about the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, and I went on to say that it was almost certain that no record remained of his conviction. Further, I said that there was not the slightest chance that his insurers or anyone else would be in the least bit bothered about a conviction from more than sixty years ago.
After he had gone, I pondered the contrast between this decent and hard working old man who had literally lost sleep over an ancient conviction for which he had long since paid the price, and the insouciant yobs who swagger into court accompanied by a list of fifty or more previous convictions, and who no doubt sleep soundly in their beds.
I can write this because Charlie and Mary have both passed away, leaving no descendants or relatives, and donating their valuable house to a charity. I still miss them on a summer Sunday.

Hail to the Chief

As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.

So said President Obama in his inauguration speech. The United States has a written Constitution, the United Kingdom does not, but our nations share many fundamental principles in their legal and political systems.
In recent years, driven by fear of terrorism and of crime this country has almost casually tossed aside many of the ancient and hard-won freedoms that our fathers enjoyed.
I sincerely hope that one day soon my country will again be led by those who understand and value our ancient liberties, and who, like President Obama, will not sacrifice our ideals for expediency.
Good luck, Mr. President.

Cynical

Here is a photograph of a convicted criminal, taken by another convicted criminal, using an illegally-held mobile phone that has somehow found its way into Pentonville Prison. The Sun has almost certainly paid a fair bit of money to the second convicted criminal (or 'lag' as the Soaraway Sun terms convicts) thus enabling him to benefit both from his original crime and his blatant breach of prison rules.

The Sun runs a section called 'Sun Justice'.

This is what it looks like.