Morning - seeing as someone asked me about this...
I hope that Liam Allan and Danny Kay can have as good a Christmas as they could reasonably expect. In the case of Kay, he at least won't be spending the festive period behind bars as would have been the case had rather substantive evidence not come to light. It's now clear as a bell that neither raped anybody, the crime that Kay had been convicted of and Allan most likely would have been given the way the cards were being stacked against him at trial. To steal a line from Supreme Court Judge H Lee Sarokin, that the case was reliant on concealment rather than disclosure tells you everything you need to know regarding the safety of any conviction.
In both cases, 'disclosure' has become something of a contentious issue. Allan and Kay's accusers both had significant correspondence with those by whom they were subsequently accused of rape, the mere existence and timing of which (that's before we get onto the content) shreds any semblance of credibility that their stories might have had when viewed from a certain angle. Let's not have this wrong, these were not 'misunderstandings' or 'mistakes', these were outright malicious and knowingly false accusations against innocent men. If this can be demonstrated to a degree that might stand up in court then by all means turn the tables on their accusers and get them on trial.
Another worry for me is that 'disclosure' of evidence that would have cleared both men appears to have been deliberately kept from the Defence by the police. Fair play to Jerry Hayes, the former Tory MP and prosecuting barrister in this case, who insisted on the full disclosure of all relevant material, parts of which in his own words "blew the case out of the window". At this point Hayes advised the judge that the prosecution would not be attempting to present a case to the court and Allan's two year ordeal was over. Kay was cleared when an amicable 'morning after chat' between he and his accuser was fished from the 'deleted' archive of a social media account.
Now this has been dressed up as industrial scale 'incompetence' or 'negligence' or whatever and, to be absolutely honest with you, I'm not buying it for a second. This is politically motivated policing, a drive and determination to secure as many convictions for this type of offence as possible, with the destruction of the lives of people like Allan and Kay regarded as little more than collateral damage. Perhaps under some political pressure, the filth have abandoned any pretence at supposed neutrality (their job is to gather evidence indiscriminately, it's the CPS and court's job to make judgements) and flipped the presumption of innocence on its head.
Speaking of the politically motivated, I wonder where all the radical/militant feminists are at the moment to comment on cases like this? People who falsely 'cry rape' undermine, trivialise and disrespect genuine victims of the crime, making it a whole load more difficult for those genuine victims to come forward. Sadly, I appreciate that some will continue to believe that Kay and Allan were actually guilty and have 'got off', or that because they participated in 'laddish' casual sex that they somehow had it coming to them. On Feminista Island, sex is something that wicked men 'do' to poor, defenceless women.
That said, there are another group of people I'd rather had nothing to do with this conversation either. These self-styled 'men's rights activists' or MRAs quietly celebrate cases like this in the same way that ultra-nationalists actually celebrate some deadbeat blowing himself up, the slaying of Lee Rigby or whatever. They'd rather get the warm glow of 'being attacked' than the perceived injustice go away, and they clearly couldn't give two shits about the welfare of their 'poster boys' - rather like their femininst counterparts latching onto and appropriating real rape victims for their cause, I'd hate to see dismal MRAs using these poor lads as a cause celebre.
They've been through more than enough already.
If cases like this serve as the cue for us to drop 'Battles of the Sexes' and start dealing in straightforward right and wrong then perhaps some good can come of them. "The world is full of rapists who got away with it" is a false narrative. Equally, "the world is full of women who make malicious rape accusations" remains absolute rot. Genuine victims of rape who never see their assailant brought to justice are of course victims, as is anyone who is falsely accused (let alone convicted) of any crime against a person that they did not commit. There are no 'sides' here and seeing anyone as 'collateral damage' is toxic and dangerous.
Just stop it. Please. Holding people personally responsible for their actions would be as good a place to start as any - blaming 'men' or 'women' lets wrongdoers off the hook while dragging wholly innocent people into it.
One more from me tomorrow morning and then I'll be done until New Year's Eve. If you've got any suggestions for topics of discussion then please reply here or drop me a line on social media. Thanks for dropping by and catch you soon.
Showing posts with label Police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Police. Show all posts
Saturday, 23 December 2017
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Politics and Policing Where Do They Divide?
In the wake of the riots we are bombarded with competing claims about who controlled them. The police are sure that the successful tactics were evolved by them while the politicians say that it all got sorted when they returned from holiday. I think that the riots stopped because the weather turned bad, but there is a serious issue about who should do what in keeping us safe from crime.
The government have said that they will scrap the costly and useless police authorities and replace them with elected commissioners. Well OK, but what exactly is a commissioner? The chief of the Met Police is called the Commissioner whereas the people who run all other UK police forces are called Chief Constables. If the Metropolitan Police Authority is to be replaced by an elected commissioner they are going to have to sort out the titles.
The real issue, of course, is what part of policing should be decided by politicians and what is decided by the police chief. The standard answer is that policy is for politicians and operational matters are the responsibility of the uniformed cops. But where exactly is the line drawn between these? Many libertarians support the idea of directly elected police control in some form because they want policing priorities to be responsive to citizen concerns and they also wish t oget policing to be closer to specific community conditions. These are legitimate aspirations, but I would suggest that focussing on election of a figurehead does not address the right issue.
Britain is unlike most other countries in its insistence on having a single police service in which personnel deal with everything from dropping litter to multiple murder, parking infringement to complex fraud. This is all done through 43 different police forces, roughly relating to counties, that are far too big to provide genuine local accountability and much too small to address large scale, organised crime.
The apprehension of criminals and even the prevention of crime is a technical process which most people would agree requires skills, experience, training and a high degree of efficiency. Quite obviously these are things which require stability and are not compatible with the turnover resulting from elections or the absence of appropriate background that election candidates are likely to have. Whatever title you give them, the operational head of any level of policing cannot and must not be determined by popular election.
At present, Police Authorities do not perform any worthwhile role. They are meant to be the means by which Chief Constables, or the Met Commissioner, are accountable for the performance of themselves and their force. The reality is that the Authority is composed primarily of Councillors selected by the local authority who have no knowledge of policing and no idea how to hold the professionals to account. Serving on the Police Authority is just another little source of responsibility allowance and a diverting couple of hours from time to time.
An elected person with specific responsibility for setting policy frameworks for police and holding the Chief constables to account would have more focus and authority and might gain sufficient insight to be able to probe the effectiveness of the force if s/he held office for long enough. The problem is that this doesn't deal with the problem of getting policing organised on an appropriate scale to deal with the whole range of crime and public safety that is required. Also, in those places which have an executive mayor, particularly London, the elected Police Commissioner is going to be a competing figure to the mayor and a dilution of the executive mayor role.
A few years ago it was unquestioned that only the state could run prisons and handle prisoners. Now we have many privately owned and run gaols and prisoner transport is largely contracted out. Tiny steps have been taken to improve policing by de-criminalising some traffic management roles and introducing Police Community Support staff to deal with anti-social behaviour and petty crime. Even these micro moves have been met with implacable hostility from the Police Federation which, although they are prohibited from organising industrial action, is one of the most intransigent and powerful trade unions in the country. Apart from the rank and file union, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) is a formidable barrier to reform. ACPO is the senior officers trade union, but at the same time it gets large amount of taxpayers money so it is one of those strange hybrid organisations by which the state extends its tendrils where they shouldn't be. Financial pressures brought about change in the prison system and that will go further. The present economic constraints should be an aid to breaking the massive institutional barriers to police reform.
The way forward is to go ahead with abolition of Police Authorities. In those areas with an executive mayor policing should become part of his/her responsibility. In the rest of the country an elected police commissioner would be OK.
The real job though is to get the right sort of policing. Major crime and the contingency arrangements for large scale incidents must be coordinated nationally and internationally. All motoring offences, which does not include such things as manslaughter by use of a vehicle, should be de-criminalised. The task of enforcing the civil motoring laws needs to be contracted out to private providers. Local crime and crime prevention needs to be separated into its specialisms of theft and burglary, rape and sexual offences, fraud, etc. and delivered in the manner chosen by the communities they serve.
It is my view that the vast majority of policing and public safety would be best handled by private contractors, but there is no reason why mayors or commissioners should not keep it as a directly employed service or a mixture of public and private provision.
More Libertarian political thought at:
http://malpoet.wordpress.com/
The government have said that they will scrap the costly and useless police authorities and replace them with elected commissioners. Well OK, but what exactly is a commissioner? The chief of the Met Police is called the Commissioner whereas the people who run all other UK police forces are called Chief Constables. If the Metropolitan Police Authority is to be replaced by an elected commissioner they are going to have to sort out the titles.
The real issue, of course, is what part of policing should be decided by politicians and what is decided by the police chief. The standard answer is that policy is for politicians and operational matters are the responsibility of the uniformed cops. But where exactly is the line drawn between these? Many libertarians support the idea of directly elected police control in some form because they want policing priorities to be responsive to citizen concerns and they also wish t oget policing to be closer to specific community conditions. These are legitimate aspirations, but I would suggest that focussing on election of a figurehead does not address the right issue.
Britain is unlike most other countries in its insistence on having a single police service in which personnel deal with everything from dropping litter to multiple murder, parking infringement to complex fraud. This is all done through 43 different police forces, roughly relating to counties, that are far too big to provide genuine local accountability and much too small to address large scale, organised crime.
The apprehension of criminals and even the prevention of crime is a technical process which most people would agree requires skills, experience, training and a high degree of efficiency. Quite obviously these are things which require stability and are not compatible with the turnover resulting from elections or the absence of appropriate background that election candidates are likely to have. Whatever title you give them, the operational head of any level of policing cannot and must not be determined by popular election.
At present, Police Authorities do not perform any worthwhile role. They are meant to be the means by which Chief Constables, or the Met Commissioner, are accountable for the performance of themselves and their force. The reality is that the Authority is composed primarily of Councillors selected by the local authority who have no knowledge of policing and no idea how to hold the professionals to account. Serving on the Police Authority is just another little source of responsibility allowance and a diverting couple of hours from time to time.
An elected person with specific responsibility for setting policy frameworks for police and holding the Chief constables to account would have more focus and authority and might gain sufficient insight to be able to probe the effectiveness of the force if s/he held office for long enough. The problem is that this doesn't deal with the problem of getting policing organised on an appropriate scale to deal with the whole range of crime and public safety that is required. Also, in those places which have an executive mayor, particularly London, the elected Police Commissioner is going to be a competing figure to the mayor and a dilution of the executive mayor role.
A few years ago it was unquestioned that only the state could run prisons and handle prisoners. Now we have many privately owned and run gaols and prisoner transport is largely contracted out. Tiny steps have been taken to improve policing by de-criminalising some traffic management roles and introducing Police Community Support staff to deal with anti-social behaviour and petty crime. Even these micro moves have been met with implacable hostility from the Police Federation which, although they are prohibited from organising industrial action, is one of the most intransigent and powerful trade unions in the country. Apart from the rank and file union, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) is a formidable barrier to reform. ACPO is the senior officers trade union, but at the same time it gets large amount of taxpayers money so it is one of those strange hybrid organisations by which the state extends its tendrils where they shouldn't be. Financial pressures brought about change in the prison system and that will go further. The present economic constraints should be an aid to breaking the massive institutional barriers to police reform.
The way forward is to go ahead with abolition of Police Authorities. In those areas with an executive mayor policing should become part of his/her responsibility. In the rest of the country an elected police commissioner would be OK.
The real job though is to get the right sort of policing. Major crime and the contingency arrangements for large scale incidents must be coordinated nationally and internationally. All motoring offences, which does not include such things as manslaughter by use of a vehicle, should be de-criminalised. The task of enforcing the civil motoring laws needs to be contracted out to private providers. Local crime and crime prevention needs to be separated into its specialisms of theft and burglary, rape and sexual offences, fraud, etc. and delivered in the manner chosen by the communities they serve.
It is my view that the vast majority of policing and public safety would be best handled by private contractors, but there is no reason why mayors or commissioners should not keep it as a directly employed service or a mixture of public and private provision.
More Libertarian political thought at:
http://malpoet.wordpress.com/
Monday, 18 July 2011
Mayhem At The Met
The resignation of Paul Stephenson, the boss of the Met Police, opens up the question of police corruption in the criminal journalism affair. We already know from Rebekah Brooks and other sources that police officers were taking money for information. With Stephenson unable to hang on to his job after taking freebies and hiring a journalist under suspicion at the pleasant rate of £1,000 a day there must now be a full scale investigation into the extent of police corruption.
It is not likely to be only the News of the World handing cash to the plod. We need to uncover all of the crooked dealings and cleanse the police as well as the press.
Now John Yates has gone as well. Unsurprising after his discomfort at the Select Committee last week and his invitation to return tomorrow. Apparently the London Police Authority were about to suspend him pending an investigation. What they must ensure is that the police who were actually taking money from the press are identified, prosecuted and disciplined.
No police service is ever completely free of corruption, but chances to root out entrenched graft do not come very often. This is one of those occasions and it must be pursued all the way.
The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has said that she is asking HM Inspectorate of Police (HMIC) to investigate the possibility of corrupt relationships between police officers and the press in the light of revelations about payments for information and the sale of sensitive security data about the royal family and their friends.
The HMIC might seem a logical place to go. After all it needs to be somebody outside of the Met Police and it really ought to be done by an organisation that understands policing. The problem is that the people who work in the inspectorate are retired police officers, police who are on detachment from the own force to gain career development experience or provide some specific skill for a special job or, worst of all, people who got themselves into a bit of a mess in their police job and they have been shunted off to the Inspectorate as an easier way of handling them than any other that is available.
All the instincts of the HMIC will be to get a nice tidy report together, after a very long enquiry, that will be just about good enough to avoid criticism and boring enough to put the nasty matter to bed with as few casualties as possible. Apart from the fact that they are police who will instinctively try to look after their own, the people at the HMIC lack any motivation at all. They are, with only one or two exceptions, either at the end of their careers due to age and they are looking forward to a very comfortable retirement or their career has stalled anyway.
To get to the bottom of police/press corruption it will be necessary to set up a judicial enquiry with the power to subpoena witnesses and require them to answer questions under oath. Under our present system, it will be necessary for such an enquiry to be headed by a judge, but it is essential that the judge takes advice from people with extensive experience of policing and journalism, but without connections current to the police service or the UK media. Much though it would go against the grain, the best way of doing this would be to buy in expertise from the USA, Canada, Australia or Europe.
It is slowly dawning on many people that matters have now gone way beyond hacking of celebrity phones. Some of the rot at the heart of our society is starting to be exposed. To avoid a major constitutional crisis which threatens the stability of government at a time when our economy is on its knees, there must be serious action to root out the disease and apply a radical cure.
http://malpoet.wordpress.com/
It is not likely to be only the News of the World handing cash to the plod. We need to uncover all of the crooked dealings and cleanse the police as well as the press.
Now John Yates has gone as well. Unsurprising after his discomfort at the Select Committee last week and his invitation to return tomorrow. Apparently the London Police Authority were about to suspend him pending an investigation. What they must ensure is that the police who were actually taking money from the press are identified, prosecuted and disciplined.
No police service is ever completely free of corruption, but chances to root out entrenched graft do not come very often. This is one of those occasions and it must be pursued all the way.
The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has said that she is asking HM Inspectorate of Police (HMIC) to investigate the possibility of corrupt relationships between police officers and the press in the light of revelations about payments for information and the sale of sensitive security data about the royal family and their friends.
The HMIC might seem a logical place to go. After all it needs to be somebody outside of the Met Police and it really ought to be done by an organisation that understands policing. The problem is that the people who work in the inspectorate are retired police officers, police who are on detachment from the own force to gain career development experience or provide some specific skill for a special job or, worst of all, people who got themselves into a bit of a mess in their police job and they have been shunted off to the Inspectorate as an easier way of handling them than any other that is available.
All the instincts of the HMIC will be to get a nice tidy report together, after a very long enquiry, that will be just about good enough to avoid criticism and boring enough to put the nasty matter to bed with as few casualties as possible. Apart from the fact that they are police who will instinctively try to look after their own, the people at the HMIC lack any motivation at all. They are, with only one or two exceptions, either at the end of their careers due to age and they are looking forward to a very comfortable retirement or their career has stalled anyway.
To get to the bottom of police/press corruption it will be necessary to set up a judicial enquiry with the power to subpoena witnesses and require them to answer questions under oath. Under our present system, it will be necessary for such an enquiry to be headed by a judge, but it is essential that the judge takes advice from people with extensive experience of policing and journalism, but without connections current to the police service or the UK media. Much though it would go against the grain, the best way of doing this would be to buy in expertise from the USA, Canada, Australia or Europe.
It is slowly dawning on many people that matters have now gone way beyond hacking of celebrity phones. Some of the rot at the heart of our society is starting to be exposed. To avoid a major constitutional crisis which threatens the stability of government at a time when our economy is on its knees, there must be serious action to root out the disease and apply a radical cure.
http://malpoet.wordpress.com/
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