TheOpinionSite.org

Police invitations to ‘victims’ encouraging false allegations

Raymond Peytors - theopinionsite.org — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:52:23 +0000

Police statements encourage false claims of sexual abuse

Police officers making statements related to sex abuse cases have been told to always include a reference to “brave victims” and to always invite other “victims” to come forward with more allegations, safe in the knowledge that they will be assumed to be telling the truth, even though they may well have other motives.

The result is that police are being inundated with allegations from the distant past as well as more recent accusations, many of which may be completely unfounded.

In another populist move, police now routinely speak of “victims” rather than “accusers” or “complainants” after criticism from campaign groups that people were being discouraged from reporting genuine cases of abuse for fear that they would not be believed.

The reality is however that whatever one may feel, nobody is entitled to be referred to as a “victim” unless and until it has been proven that they have in fact been abused; until then, they are merely an “accuser” or “complainant”.

As TheOpinionSite.org has previously pointed out, the law dictates that those who have successfully convinced a court that they have been abused will most likely receive significant compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority or have the option to sue the (often very wealthy) alleged perpetrator.

However, the compensation, rather than being paid to those providing appropriate medical, psychological or counselling services, is instead paid straight into the bank account of the person receiving it.

Senior barristers have recently pointed out that because in abuse cases hard evidence is not required for a conviction, merely a “pattern of events that is similar in a number of cases”, the number of allegations to police has increased dramatically as individuals become aware of the potential to receive compensation payments whilst remaining completely anonymous, protected and safe from criticism.

At present, there is no anonymity for those accused but there is life-long anonymity for accusers.

Further concern is now being expressed over the manner in which police forces are exploiting the currently highly emotive state of public opinion in order to repair the damage done to police reputations in the wake of the Jimmy Savile affair.

Every police statement following a successful prosecution, every statement regarding an arrest must now include an invitation for more accusers to come forward with any allegation relating to abuse.

The recent arrest of the Deputy Speaker, Nigel Evans is a case in point.

Not only did police apparently tip off the press that they were going to arrest Mr Evans in order that the proceedings could be captured on film for public consumption but they also made a statement that included an invitation for others to come forward with any claims of abuse they may have.

The police statements in such cases now always include the words (or similar):

“We take all allegations of a sexual nature extremely seriously and understand how difficult it can be for victims to have the confidence to come forward.

“We would encourage anyone who has experienced sexual abuse, no matter how long ago, or who has information about it, to have the confidence to report it to us knowing that we will take it seriously, deal with it sensitively and investigate it thoroughly.”

These very same words can be heard up and down the country now every time there is an allegation, investigation or court statement regarding sexual abuse, be it current or “historic”.

The police are not alone in using this new tactic either. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is just as guilty of encouraging false accusations by the endless repetition of:

“We have carefully considered the evidence and believe that there is sufficient evidence for a successful prosecution and that that it is in the public interest to prosecute.”

The fact is that there is often little, if any evidence to consider in the first place other than the word of the accuser.

The CPS are also going out of their way to garner popular support in these cases.

After the conviction of Stuart Hall, Nazir Afzal, chief crown prosecutor for north-west England and who clearly enjoys being on television, described Mr Hall as an ‘opportunistic predator’, saying he established a pattern of behaviour that was ‘unlawful’ and for which no innocent explanation could be offered.

TheOpinionSite.org believes that it inappropriate for a senior prosecutor to express a personal opinion as part of a public statement, especially before sentencing of the defendant has taken place and where the sentence could well be affected by such a statement – even if it is not meant to be so affected.

The CPS prosecutor also appeared to be disingenuous in his claim that the alleged victims “…did not know each other”.

It later came to light that in fact most of the 13 alleged victims apparently did know each other and that in some cases, their parents were friends of Mr Hall.

Only two girls were seemingly not actually known to each other and, in our opinion, the prosecutor was either mistaken – in which case he should have corrected his statement – or was simply being dishonest in order to attract favourable publicity.

Others have expressed surprise that Mr Hall admitted’ the offences having previously denied them.

Actually, there is nothing remotely surprising about this given that the CPS dropped a charge of rape in return for his admissions of guilt to the lesser offences.

The applicable law of the time (which must be applied in sentencing) provides for a maximum sentence of two years for Indecent Assault; the offence of Rape on the other hand does – and always has done – carry a maximum sentence of life Imprisonment.

Which option would any sensible person under immense pressure choose when knowing that a jury would find them guilty in any case, regardless of the lack of any hard evidence? Admit the indecent assaults with its two year sentence or be tried for rape and risk life imprisonment?

This ‘unofficial plea-bargaining’ is applied by the CPS in cases every day and is allowed to continue because it is ‘politically expedient’; from the point of view of the authorities and the campaigning groups that support them, it is better to have everyone accused of a sexual offence convicted for something rather than a lack of real evidence causing the case to fall apart.

According to the Prosecutor’s Code of Practice, the CPS, in order to bring a case to prosecution, have to apply two main tests:

Prosecutors must be satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction against each suspect on each charge. They must consider what the defence case may be, and how it is likely to affect the prospects of conviction.
In every case where there is sufficient evidence to justify a prosecution, prosecutors must go on to consider whether a prosecution is required in the public interest.

In terms of “the public interest”, the following questions must be asked:

How serious is the offence committed?
What is the level of culpability of the suspect?
What are the circumstances of and the harm caused to the victim?
Was the suspect under the age of 18 at the time of the offence?
What is the impact on the community?
Is prosecution a proportionate response?
Do sources of information require protecting?

In reality, any likelihood of a “successful conviction” comes not from “real” evidence but from the fact that there is now not a jury in the land that will not convict the defendant in a case of alleged sexual abuse, particularly if the alleged victim was a child at the time of the alleged offence.

In cases of sexual abuse allegedly involving children, senior barristers and even some judges now privately admit that it has become impossible to mount an effective defence in such cases. Juries today convict on emotion rather than fact because there is no evidence other that the word of the accuser.

The police and CPS said in the case of Jimmy Savile that “…where so many people who do not know each other all say the same thing, it must be true.”

In fact, if one reads the report into Savile presented by the police and the NSPCC, it is nothing more than a list of accusations; there is no proof or evidence present at all.

In any event, this absurd statement by the police misses the point entirely.

Any reasonable person can see that, given the amount of information that was in the public domain (especially the tabloids), anyone with an agenda could have simply copied any of the well-publicised statements and gone to the police claiming to be a ‘victim’; no doubt with their bank account number in hand.

This practice of using ‘patterns of behaviour’ as supposed proof of wrongdoing is known as ‘Similar Fact Evidence’, a nasty piece of Law dreamt up in the 1980s in order to convict people of serious sexual offences where no real evidence otherwise exists.

‘Similar Fact Evidence’ is in reality probably more responsible for innocent people being sent to jail for alleged sexual offences than anything else.

That innocent people are often sent to jail is not disputed. The government itself has previously stated in Parliament it estimates up to 10,000 of those in jail – about 11% – are probably innocent.

TheOpinionSite.org believes that both policemen and CPS officers should stop trying to ingratiate themselves with the public by expressing open invitations to people to come forward on the basis that they will automatically be believed.

Anonymity should also be given to the accused at least until they are charged and possibly even until they have been convicted.

The Director of Public prosecutions, Keir Starmer recently said he wanted more prosecutions for sexual abuse and wanted the police and CPS to concentrate on testing the suspect, not the honesty of the alleged victim.

By making this statement, he has knowingly and willingly opened the door to an endless stream of greedy, often vindictive individuals seeking a chance to make easy money or who for personal reasons wish to destroy the lives of others.

Starmer has also devalued the claims of genuine victims of abuse and guaranteed even more miscarriages of justice, all in the cause of self-aggrandisement and populist policies.

He has at a stroke destroyed any possibility of a fair trial in sex abuse cases and obliterated any chance of someone accused of a sexual offence against a child ever being presumed innocent until proven guilty – despite such a presumption of innocence being required by law.

The police and CPS are equally to blame.

They both say that they need to encourage other witnesses or “victims” to come forward in order to build a case against the accused and it seems that police officers in particular will now do anything in order to achieve this goal, even if by doing so they destroy innocent lives, ruin reputations, rip families apart and in some cases, cost individuals their life.

TheOpinionSite.org would suggest that instead of ‘touting for business’, police stop taking the easy route and get down to some hard work by trying to find some real evidence instead of just relying on the alleged victim’s word and that of their friends – which may be true but, in a rapidly growing number of cases, is proving to be false, vindictive, driven by greed and wholly manufactured for personal gain or gratification.

If the police disagree with us, they are always most welcome to comment below.

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(The CPS Code for Crown Prosecutors can be found HERE)

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Police fail to apprehend anti-paedophile vigilantes

Raymond Peytors - theopinionsite.org — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:35:55 +0000

Police fail to apprehend anti-paedophile vigilantes

British police are failing to arrest and investigate a so called ‘anti-paedophile’ vigilante group, despite one group spokesman admitting on BBC Radio that his organisation is knowingly acting “outside of the law”.

The group – whose name we will not publish as we do not believe it deserves publicity on TheOpinionSite.org – admits trapping potential online abusers by posing as teenagers. The suspected offender is then encouraged to meet in person, held against their will and ‘questioned’ by the group who, according to its spokesman, is merely seeking an ‘explanation’ for the individual’s behaviour.

The group proudly claims that its actions so far have has caused 5 “sex offenders” to be arrested – though nothing against the individuals has been proven and none have been charged.

The vigilantes also use a quote from Genghis Khan:

“Had you not created great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”

One might be tempted to comment that this is not the ‘mission statement’ one would expect from an organisation that proclaims that it is “not our intention to hurt anyone”.

Rather interestingly, the group’s Facebook page also has a link to other child protection websites as well as a link to the neo-Nazi English Defence League.

It would seem that the police – always anxious not to offend the Sun and Daily Mail reading public – are prepared to do nothing rather than face claims that the police are not doing their job properly.

The fact is however that as the number of people on the Sex Offender Register continues to increase by anything up to 10% year on year, largely due to the ever-increasing number of ‘historic’ abuse allegations being prosecuted, the number of alleged sex offenders in Britain becomes more and more unmanageable.

Police are finding it almost impossible to monitor offenders in the way in which the government and the public would like; mainly due to a lack of resources as money becomes more and more scarce under the government’s austerity regime.

The police do not wish to admit this as to do so may give those subject to the Sex Offender Notification Requirements more confidence in challenging their own treatment by the police and probation services.

When asked, the police were slow to come forward with any meaningful explanation as to why they were not taking action against vigilantes who, by their own admission, are acting outside of the Law.

For example, a spokesman for Leicestershire Police said:

“While we always encourage members of the public to contact us with any information they have about a crime, officers would advise against taking this kind of action. Investigations and inquiries into potential sex offenders are extremely sensitive and detailed and have to be conducted in a way which ensures that prosecution of an offender isn’t affected.

“Consideration also has to be given to any threats and harm to anyone involved in the investigation, plus family and friends of potential offenders.”

When the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) were asked, their spokesman said:

“We would discourage people from using the internet to do this. It is a stupid idea. There are real dangers that vigilantism will drive people underground and that is exactly what we don’t want. We need to know where sex offenders are.”

If these views are truly those of the police in general, TheOpinionSite.org must ask why the police are not doing something to prevent the actions of these potentially criminal groups who are, apparently, making the job of the police so much more difficult.

Furthermore, as senior prosecution lawyers have suggested, any action by vigilantes – and the manner in which they obtain their ‘evidence’ – may actually damage any chance of real paedophiles being prosecuted.

It is also highly likely that those vigilantes involved have themselves in fact committed serious offences, possible including False Imprisonment and Kidnapping.

There are also other, more sinister aspects to this type of behaviour.

For example, the spokesman for the vigilante group in question, interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Victoria Derbyshire programme and who claims to come from “the protection industry” (a doorman perhaps?), admitted that his ‘work’ had taken over “most” of his life.

This suggests that he enjoys the feeling of power and gratification that his activities give him.

The growth of anti-paedophile vigilante groups is not however the only matter for concern.

There is also the growing phenomena of “RansomWare” by which innocent individuals receive emails saying that they have been ‘detected’ as having viewed child pornography but, for a fee, their details will be removed from the website’s database.

The natural distrust of the police together with the fear and inevitable personal damage of being accused or investigated – even if completely innocent – together with the personal destruction and suspicion that such measures bring, causes most people to pay up.

If they do not, they receive another email threatening to ‘reveal’ their name to the police unless $500 is paid.

Government have not offered a comment on this form of intimidation and extortion when asked to do so, other than to say it was a matter for the police.

Of equal consideration is that policing in the UK is ‘by consent’.

In other words, the people accept the power of the police (even after the collapse of the associated moral authority caused by recent, well-publicised police dishonesty) provided it is fair and balanced and truly ‘in the public interest’ (as opposed to simply being “of interest to the public”).

Whilst certain populist-leaning sections of the British public and media may believe that vigilantes setting out to hunt down would be paedophiles who allegedly use the Internet to ‘groom’ potential victims is a good thing, the fact that these groups admit operating outside of the Law is not.

Furthermore, their activities would not even be contemplated if it were not for the flawed legislation that creates – but does not define – the very British offence (for no other EU country has such an offence) of ‘grooming’.

If the police know therefore that these vigilantes have admitted flaunting the Law – and the police are indeed well aware as police officers are reportedly involved in the culmination of the ‘sting’ operation – and yet do not take steps to arrest and investigate such groups, they are failing the public as much as they would be were they to ignore allegations of child abuse made through proper channels and in the proper way.

If paedophiles are fair game for vigilantes, who next? Gays, Muslims, Gypsies, Immigrants, Blacks?

Nor should one ever forget the manner in which anti-Jewish vigilante groups were permitted to prosper during Hitler’s rise to power whilst the Rule of Law was quietly destroyed

TheOpinionSite.org believes that it is up to the police to take the necessary action against these self-styled ‘have a go’ pseudo-policemen. Not to do so leaves the way wide open for anyone that has a dislike of any particular social group to take whatever action they consider appropriate.

CEOP, the online protection department of the police, says that catching online-paedophiles is best left to them. However, it would say that at this time as CEOP is about to become absorbed into the newly formed National Crime Agency and is expected to lose most of its money – and its influence.

It is also worth noting that the usually very noisy NSPCC, as well as other protection charities and campaigners – including the self-styled “Dr” Sara Payne of the Sun newspaper – have had nothing to say about the vigilante groups that get such a kick out of playing policemen for their own, egotistical reasons.

TheOpinionSite.org is therefore of the view that the police should come down as hard and as frequently on these ‘anti-paedophile’ vigilantes as they would on any suspected sex offender.

Not to do so will leave the police open to accusations of bias and self-serving indolence.

More importantly however, it may also mean that individuals who truly are a danger to children using the Internet may not in fact be prosecuted; the supposed ‘evidence’ apparently gathered by these vigilantes having been made hopelessly inadmissible in court by those who profess to be protecting children but are in fact feeding their own, over-inflated egos whilst breaking the Law themselves.

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Government blackmails unemployed into making hopeless job applications

Raymond Peytors - theopinionsite.org — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:14:50 +0000

The government has now been reduced to blackmailing Job Seekers

Unemployed people are being threatened and blackmailed into making entirely hopeless job applications. Those claiming Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) are now being forced to apply for at least three jobs per week, even if they are barred from working in such positions or do not have the necessary skills.

Ex-offenders with serious criminal records but who are seeking to live safely in the community are being threatened with the withdrawal of their Job Seekers Allowance if they do not apply for at least three jobs every week, despite Job Centre Plus (JCP) knowing that those with convictions for sexual or violent offences are often barred from applying for certain jobs and in any case are unlikely to be taken on by unsympathetic employers.

Indeed, research by Loughborough University has shown most released sex-offenders will not even be granted an interview, employers being terrified of the backlash and potential damage to their business that could arise should knowledge of their employment of a sex offender end up in the public domain.

TheOpinionSite.org has spoken to some of those attending a local Job Centre Plus office (JCP) and many report that staff are now openly more hostile and arrogant, one member of staff telling a job seeker, “I pay my taxes. Why shouldn’t you?”

The manager of the JCP declined to comment on the alleged remark.

The Conservative led coalition has taken a clear decision to play to the middle class voters whose support they have lost. This involves the very public policy of bullying people back into work by forcing them to apply for often wholly unsuitable jobs – whilst at the same time refusing to acknowledge the fact that there are those who are also expected to apply but because of their age or criminal record have no hope of success.

The government’s discredited Work Programme, originally intended to help those with the most difficult background to find employment, has also given up on the most difficult cases; particularly those who have been out of work for 5 years or more.

With regards to the lack of help for the 30,000 sex offenders now living in the community, most of whom are unemployed and unemployable, both the WP and JCP are refusing to comment or to even acknowledge that a problem exists.

We contacted the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith for his views on the threats being made against unemployed people and the lack of support for those with serious convictions.

Duncan Smith would not comment but a spokesman told us that under the new benefits regime, claimants will be expected to spend 35 hours looking for work each week. The new ‘Job Search’ form that is being issued requires claimants to detail:

What steps they have taken to find work over the current two week period

Which jobs have been applied for

Whether there was anything that prevented the claimant for looking for work

What steps were taken to find employment in the previous two week period

Any courses the claimant may have attended (signed by the course provider with an assessment)

If the JSA member of staff believes that the claimant has not made sufficient effort to find a job, the claimant will be referred to an ‘advisor’. If the advisor supports the view of the original assessing member of staff, the claimant will likely have their benefit stopped.

The DWP spokesman also told TheOpinionSite.org that the problems encountered by those with serious criminal convictions were not the responsibility of the DWP but of employers:

“It is ultimately a matter for employers as to who they do or do not employ. The government cannot force employers to take on those with criminal records.”

However, when we asked whether it was right to force people into applying for jobs that they had no hope of ever obtaining, the spokesman refused to comment further.

The Regional Manager of one Work Programme provider suggested that those who were experiencing serious problems such as those outlined above, “…should seriously consider whether they should go self-employed.”

In other words, the Work Programme has given up on the most difficult cases, primarily because under the government’s “payment by results” system, the Work Programme provider won’t make any money out of difficult to place clients.

It is not only those with criminal records who are falling foul of the new requirements either; many long-term unemployed and those who are 60 or over are also being penalised, threatened and – as one job seeker put it – ‘blackmailed’ into making entirely hopeless and unsuitable job applications.

60 year old men in particular are unlikely to find work, especially if they have been unemployed for a number of years.

Employers are wary of taking on someone who has been outside of the “work ethic” for even a year or two, let alone those unemployed for more than five years.

TheOpinionSite.org believes that with the government steadfastly refusing to even acknowledge that there is a serious problem for many with criminal convictions or who are simply too old for an employer to consider, the new requirements and regime of the DWP being forced upon disadvantaged job seekers is unfair, unjust and possibly even discriminatory.

Whilst most people would agree that if someone has the opportunity and the ability to work they should do so, there are nevertheless many thousands of individuals whose past criminal history (or even their age) makes them particularly disliked by employers.

Those with serious criminal offences in their history and who are subject to Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) will most likely never be offered a job again – thanks to government restrictions on them together with this country’s obsession with so called ‘public protection’.

If Iain Duncan Smith and his team do not even have the courage to accept that there is a problem, the prospect of thousands of our of work ex-offenders losing their JSA and turning back to crime is a very real probability.

In particular, if sex offenders lose their JSA because they are being forced to reveal highly sensitive information about themselves that could be accessed by vigilante groups and others, they may become destabilised and feel insecure in the community and may therefore reoffend; something that the government seems to have either overlooked or chooses to ignore.

Indeed, in the view of TheOpinionSite.org, the above illustrates the real problem; a problem that we have seen time and again with this government and its miserable predecessor:

When a truly difficult problem arises – often as a result of the government’s own populist policies – ministers do not want to acknowledge that the problem exists, let alone try to solve it.

To do so would necessarily undermine other populist policies – such as those relating to ‘public protection’ and ‘equality’ – which have been put in place not because they are wholly necessary but because they play to the voters and to the tabloids.

If however Cameron, Clegg and Duncan Smith ignore the current bullying tactics being used by those who are supposed to be helping the unemployed to find work, not only will there be more out of work individuals but there will also be more people wandering the streets with nothing to lose by taking direct action against the government and the revenge-driven society that has taken the decision to throw them onto the scrap heap.

When people who are homeless and penniless start breaking middle class windows and setting fire to middle class homes and businesses, the Conservatives will have only themselves to blame – whilst as usual the ineffective Liberals look on helplessly and the Labour party try to make political capital out of the misfortune of others.

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Unrest grows as Council Tax Benefit cut hits 2.4m poorest

Raymond Peytors - theopinionsite.org — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:38:20 +0000

More riots in 2013?

As David Cameron and his Tory colleagues head off to the sun for Easter, two million of Britain’s poorest citizens are today wondering how they are going to pay out an extra £14 per month to their local councils when there is no possibility of earning the extra money needed.

The measures are causing increasing unrest across the country, leading to the prospect of further riots, disturbances and more brutal police reaction.

In cutting Council Tax Benefit, Cameron is deliberately hurting the poorest of the poor in order to pander to his increasingly disillusioned Conservative back-benchers. The prime minister, like most of his cabinet, is a multi-millionaire. He cares not for anyone who does not fall into his social bracket, though he cynically says he does.

We should recall that the Tories’ forebears built the wealth of Britain not on ingenuity or business acumen but on slavery. The great country houses of Britain are testament to the suffering and exploitation endured by thousands of slaves as they were traded and worked to death like badly cared for animals.

Today, with slavery abolished in Britain and prisoners no longer being sent to foreign parts (though many prisoners and citizens would be pleased to take such an option), the Conservative party, reeling from the effects of being forced to be civilised to its ever diminishing pool of supporters, is looking for someone to take the blame for all the ills of the country.

Unfortunately for the least well off in our communities, they are the collective scapegoat.

One well qualified but 60 year old man who has been out of work for 6 years told us, ”Perhaps my local council would like to tell me who I’m not going to pay in order that I can pay the council. Either way I end up in court so who cares? I don’t because they can’t have what I genuinely haven’t got.”

Ian Duncan Smith and his Department of Work & Pensions have decided that in an ideal Britain, there should be no benefits payable to the poor at all. However, more “middle class” voters are now becoming “poor people” so some benefits, IDS has decided, will reluctantly have to be paid after all.

TheOpinionSite.org should point out that cutting welfare for the poorest is not an original idea from Mr Duncan Smith; he is merely following the American’s “Workfare” scheme which has itself been a monumental failure and, whilst not increasing employment, has managed to add 30% to the United State’s prison population in just 3 years.

As in Britain, certain types of offenders are black-listed by employers and will probably never work again after leaving prison, even though many are extremely well qualified.

The introduction of the ‘Council Tax Support Scheme” is a not very clever way of cutting the central government grant to local councils by 20% whilst, according to one government spokesman, “…providing an incentive for councils to get people back into work.” – though the minister stopped short of suggesting how councils should or indeed could actually achieve that aim.

With the coldest and longest winter for 50 years and the associated high energy bills that go with it, rampant inflation of food prices, pay cuts all round for ordinary people and more children being born than the country can ever cope with or afford, one must accept that “…difficult decisions have to be made…” – or so the politicians tell us.

It must indeed then have been excruciatingly difficult for David Cameron and his cabinet to award the wealthiest members of British society – including themselves – a £50,000 tax cut this year. I am sure the rest of us are all very happy for him and his leech-like colleagues.

So what of the rest of us and in particular, the poorest in society?

TheOpinionSite.org contacted three local councils to ask what they were going to do when their poorest citizens could not pay the extra £140 a month that was now being demanded.

We even explained that someone on Job Seeker’s Allowance at the full rate of £71 per week, by the time they had paid for their electricity, gas and exorbitant water bills would at best have about £18 per week left to spend on food, clothes and other household essentials.

The councils all told us that pensioners and the disabled were protected from having to pay anything at all. Well, good for them.

However, nobody we contacted wanted to talk about those who were not pensioners or disabled persons and the three authorities all said that although there was a ‘hardship’ fund for ‘exceptional cases’ (whatever they are) , most people would still have to pay their £14 per month.

If they did not, we were told, then the authorities would use their “normal reclamation procedures” through the local magistrates court.

All three local authority spokesmen told us, “Don’t blame us; blame the government.”

One other interesting thing that was common to all three authorities which were contacted by TheOpinionSite.org was that council tax had increased by 3.4% to cover the cost of police and the new police & crime commissioners; despite the fact that all three areas had less police officers and were pooling resources with adjacent forces.

It would seem therefore that despite the “difficult decisions” so often quoted today, chief constables still get everything they ask for; not surprising really when one considers that in order to extort any amount of money they desire, the police only have to mention “public protection”; two words which in Britain are akin to a money machine for anyone involved in that particular industry.

With teachers having decided to strike and unions planning coordinated action, lawful or otherwise, the government should be bracing itself for a difficult time.

As TheOpinionSite.org has pointed out previously, it is no secret that police forces across the country have been stockpiling ‘rubber bullets’, are in the process of arming all officers with supposedly ‘non-lethal’ taser guns and the Metropolitan Police has even made arrangements to use water canon on the streets of London if necessary.

The idiot government spokesman quoted above who suggest that local councils now have an “incentive to get people back into work”, just like his boss Duncan Smith fails to realise that there is no real work.

Most advertised vacant positions are either part-time (carefully calculated to leave someone just £8 a better off than when they were on benefits), commission-only or worse, unpaid “internships”; another disgusting idea from America which requires people to work for nothing but hope.

Those jobs that do not fall into the above are usually inaccessible to the people who most need work, often because of ageism or a criminal record.

The number of full-time jobs in Britain has fallen by nearly 30% over the last year, employers finding it cheaper to split the posts into part-time positions instead; something the government loves as it increases the total of people supposedly ‘in work’.

When the politicians return from their Easter jollies, they can expect a great deal of nasty stuff to be thrown at them.

They have only themselves to blame, especially the Conservative MPs who are driving these right wing policies whilst labouring under the misapprehension that this is a Tory government, which it isn’t; it’s a coalition and thank God that it is or the Victorian work-houses would have been reopened by now.

Having exploited prisoners, sex offenders, immigrants and Muslims, with no one else left to exploit, the government is now turning on the ‘respectable, hard-working’ people that are so beloved by Tory zealots.

Unfortunately for the Conservatives, many of these core Conservative voters are now themselves being hit by the very same welfare cuts that were designed to beat the poor into submission.

The ‘Poll Tax’ destroyed Margaret Thatcher. The reduction in Council Tax Benefit and other welfare cuts may very well destroy Cameron; if the Home Secretary, Theresa May doesn’t get him first that is.

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Press forces Cameron into dangerous gamble over Leveson reforms

Raymond Peytors - theopinionsite.org — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 11:11:06 +0000

The tabloids – too much influence and misinformation

David Cameron has been forced by newspaper bosses into a potentially disastrous vote over press reform. Should Mr Cameron lose the vote, scheduled for Monday, his authority would be severely weakened and leave the door wide open to those such as Home Secretary Teresa May who wish to replace him as Conservative party leader

In fact, TheOpinionSite.org believes it is quite possible that the prime minister may very well lose the vote over whether or not the implementation of Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations for press reform should have statutory backing rather than be without the strength of the law as Mr Cameron believes they should.

The Liberal Democrats and Labour party, who believe in some statutory foundation for the reforms, may well be joined by some Tory rebels who disagree with Cameron.

All three parties now see a Royal Charter as the way forward but Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg want it written into Law whereas Cameron does not.

The prime minister has managed to get himself into the most terrible mess already this week by upsetting the nanny-like health lobbies after scrapping minimum pricing on alcohol. Theresa May and the Education Secretary, Michael Gove rightly pointed out that the poorest would yet again be the hardest hit and in any case, the measure was unlikely to solve the problem of binge-drinking.

Now, Cameron’s Crime and Courts Bill has been hijacked to include an amendment on press reform which clearly has nothing to do with either crime or the courts.

If the amendment to include statutory backing for Leveson is lost, the government runs the risk of a massive backlash from those affected by phone hacking and intrusion into their lives by the tabloid press.

If Clegg and Miliband win the vote, the prime minister will appear weak and will also be the target of hatred from Britain’s newspapers who believe that they should be able to do whatever they want to anyone at any time.

So why is the prime minister playing such a dangerous game at such a critical time, just a few days before what is likely to be another disastrous and damaging Budget?

Very simply, he has been leant on; heavily. Editors and newspaper proprietors, who have regular meetings with the prime minister in any case, have been lining up to supposedly ‘defend the free press’ from what they see as draconian reform that will severely limit their activities – and their profits.

Reform that would protect ordinary people from being exploited by the tabloids and from having their privacy needlessly invaded. Reform that would also suck the life-blood from papers such as the Sun and the Daily Mail, both of which frequently publish unproven and unfounded statements as being fact.

The ‘paedo-bashers’, xenophobes and ‘little Englanders’ who regard the Sun and Mail as in house journals would no doubt argue that the British press should be free to publish anything it wants.

Those who are affected by the appalling behaviour of some newspapers may think something else however.

The likes of Chris Jefferies, the McCanns, the Dowlers and those who have been falsely accused, hacked and disparaged by the gutter press that is apparently so popular in Britain today, believe that the press is out of control and has been for years.

TheOpinionSite.org agrees with them.

Successive governments, especially the Blair administration, have relied heavily on press support during elections, the trade-off being the introduction of populist policies that are often unjust, unfair or simply serve to sell newspapers and provide income for money-hungry charities regardless of who gets hurt in the process.

In 1997, the Sun and News of the World pushed hard for the introduction of the Sex Offender Register (believe it or not, Blair was having second thoughts) and promoted the idea that only ‘the most dangerous sex offenders would be placed on the register’; today, there are 60,000 individuals on the register including children as young as 10 years old and who are unlikely to be amongst the ‘most dangerous’.

The Sun, supported by Sara Payne (who now writes a profitable column for the Sun as ‘Dr Sara Payne’, a title she is not entitled to use) insisted on the introduction of the now repealed and utterly disastrous Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection (IPP).

David Blunkett saw cooperation with the tack tabloid as a means to further his own career, only to discover later that the same newspaper would skewer him over misuse of his powers as home secretary. Blunkett was forced to resign.

Again, the press argued that just a ‘few hundred’ people would end up serving IPPs. In fact, there are now 6,500 individuals serving the sentence, half of whom have completed their tariff and should have been released years ago.

Thanks to the tabloid press threatening political damage on justice ministers, those prisoners are still in jail with little or no hope of any true justice being available to them any time soon.

TheOpinionSite.org would argue that a free press is indeed necessary to a true democracy.

However, Britain has a ‘free for all’ press and it is equally arguable that we do not have true ‘democracy’ in this country anyway; something that is demonstrated by the never ending gifting of powers to the police by government, the segregation of certain types of offender despite having served their sentences in full, institutional prejudice in the law enforcement agencies and the steady erosion of freedoms and liberty in Britain today.

When an un-fettered press gets together with an authoritarian government which is itself backed up by one of the most powerful police forces in the world, the only people to suffer are the citizens themselves.

Put the children into an inadequate and failed education system which is based on indoctrination of ‘acceptable’ ideas and it does not take too many years for the state to establish phenomenal power over their citizens whilst portraying that power as necessary ‘protection’ and ‘support’.

That is what we have in Britain today and to a large extent, the popular press is responsible.

With editors, reporters and even proprietors of newspapers being investigated and charged for colluding with the police, hacking phones and computers, police officers accepting money from newspapers and those newspapers then making stories up as they go along and publishing them as the truth, it is clear that press regulation is necessary and that such regulation must be strong.

It is for the above reasons that any ‘voluntary’ code will not work. Mr Cameron’s Royal Charter won’t work either because the terms of reference can be changed by future ministers; ministers that would still be open to pressure from an already over-powerful press. Hence the need for the charter to be backed by law as proposed by Clegg and Miliband

TheOpinionSite.org believes that whilst some of the press occasionally do something good – like exposing the MPs’ expense scandal – British tabloid newspapers will do anything, absolutely anything to sell newspapers.

Anyone who believes that the tabloid press are there to ‘serve the country’ or to ‘hold the administration to account’ is either blind or extremely naive.

The only thing newspapers are interested in is…selling newspapers. If the truth is distorted, tough. Profit is King, no matter who gets hurt in the process.

As previously stated, it is quite possible that Mr Cameron will lose the vote on Monday and, if he does, he will have only himself to blame. The Conservatives were creeping around Rupert Murdoch and others just as much as Tony Blair was when he was in government and the Tories were in opposition.

Previous statements by Blair and Cameron alike that policy was not influenced by the popular press are simply not true; as any brief comparison between events and news copy will show. They both said that Leveson confirmed that newspapers did not influence policy but in fact, if one reads the whole report, that is not the case.

The measures being proposed by Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband do not equate to ‘Statutory Regulation of the Press’ as the Mail, Express and Sun would have you believe.

What the amendment would do however is to give whatever mechanism is finally decided upon, the backing of the Law. Editors could not simply refuse to join as they can – and some do – now. The regulatory system would have substance in Law and not rely on the ‘self-policing’ that has been allowed so far.

Many thousands of people, rich and poor, young and old, have had their lives ripped apart by the obnoxious British tabloids that are a disgrace to this countries media; and we say that not because they are popular (though less so than they were) but because they mislead people, deliberately and callously in the quest for profit and influence.

The tabloids say that if the public didn’t want to read their newspapers, people would not buy them. But when half the copy is sport, a quarter is special offers and the 2 inch high headline screams at people’s lascivious human nature, many buyers will be sucked in; even if the headline in fact refers to a small article on page 16 that contains nothing other than speculation and hearsay.

Throw in a nude picture or two – possession of which might land an ordinary person in jail if a particularly zealous policeman discovered it in that person’s possession – and for 30 pence, the temptation is just too much for some; despite the fact that what they are reading may be either entirely untrue or designed solely to promote a particular policy.

TheOpinionSite.org sincerely hopes that Mr Cameron is defeated on Monday. In our view, it is time for press regulation with teeth, not a system where editors investigate themselves much as the police investigate other police officers.

Britain needs a press regulatory system with the force of Law behind it.

Why? Because we have corrupt politicians, corrupt policemen and a whole raft of influential, money-making lobby groups masquerading as charities, all out to exercise control over our lives under the guise of ‘protection’ and ‘democracy’ and all of which are clearly out of control.

These groups and individuals want things to stay the way they are now but, for the sake of real freedom and liberty, the press that acts as their sycophantic mouthpiece must be properly regulated – right now.

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Secret hearings, secret evidence, legal aid cuts – Welcome to Nazi Britain

Raymond Peytors - theopinionsite.org — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:48:47 +0000

Is this the future for Britain?

The government is to introduce secret court hearings using secret evidence whilst cutting criminal legal aid in an attempt to protect the government from being held to account, all under the guise of “national security” and the need to save money.

For those with a knowledge of history, the similarity of these latest measures with the manner in which Hitler grew to having ultimate power over Germany’s citizens whilst ensuring government power could not be limited, will be obvious.

To those who do not recognize the similarity, we strongly advise you obtain a good history book and read it – twice.

No money in the government coffers, national security and the protection of children were all used by the Nazis as justification for the erosion of freedoms and civil liberty, the incarceration of trouble makers and social outcasts, longer prison sentences for criminals, cutting immigration and eventually, the building of concentration camps.

We may not have concentration camps yet in this country (they were a British invention by the way, not German) but we do have detention centres and the government has plans to build more.

Two years ago, TheOpinionSite.org warned that these new measures, all designed to give the government more power, would be introduced and now, they have been.

To be clear, these are real measures being put through Parliament right now, the first being the Justice and Security Bill – a euphemism for more state control – which allows for secret courts and which was slavishly supported by MPs yesterday.

The country’s most senior judge Lord Neuberger, president of the Supreme Court, is critical of the measures. He said:

“Anybody interested in justice and democracy will be very troubled by any legislation which involves having hearings which are closed in the sense of not open to the public because the public should see what’s going on, and possibly even more concerned about cases where one party cannot see the evidence which the other party is showing to the judge.”

One must also ask that if evidence is to be hidden from one of the parties in civil cases, how long before the same measure is introduced in criminal trials? Terrorism cases are already subject to secrecy in some cases.

The government says it is all about saving money and not an assault on freedom. At present, it says, sensitive intelligence cannot be produced in court – (often for fear of upsetting the Americans but the government does not want to say so) – and the government ends up giving in and paying millions of pounds in compensation.

That argument however falls flat in the light of today’s announcement by Grayling that legal aid is to be cut in criminal trials. Justice will not take place at all if a defendant cannot obtain a decent defence lawyer.

Some have suggested that the Justice Secretary would have looked quite at home in an SS uniform. We pass no opinion on that particular view but cannot help but compare Mr Grayling’s measures with those of the Third Reich as they are factually similar.

Nor are we unaware of the propaganda so often put out by Theresa May and the lobby groups (sorry! – we meant “charities”) that support her as she spews her ambition-driven bile all over the front page of the Sun and the Daily Mail, desperately trying to get us all to believe that we are in mortal and constant danger from immigrants, Muslims and child molesters – which by the way, we are not.

One might possibly believe that Theresa May has learnt well from Dr Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda, just as Tony Blair appears to have done.

British justice is based on the principle of ‘open justice’. In other words, justice must not only be done but be seen to be done. Both the new measures outlined above destroy that principle. Both measures ultimately give all the power to the state and take power away from the citizen.

Regrettably however, the fault lies with adult British citizens themselves. They have been more concerned with ‘The X Factor’, Jimmy Savile, football and banker’s bonuses than with what is happening in Parliament and the introduction of measures that will affect everyone – including themselves and their children.

Lessons have not been learned after the massive power-grab undertaken by Tony Blair; lessons have not been learned from the appalling IPP sentence introduced by David Blunkett; lessons have not been learned from the constant growth of the ‘surveillance state’ which is now so beloved by the Home Secretary, Theresa May – and lessons have not been learned from history either.

Experience teaches us that if nations do not learn from history, history will repeat itself until they do.

Lord Neuberger says he is frightened that the Rule of Law may be lost when the new measures are introduced and that people “may take the law into their own hands.”

TheOpinionSite.org believes that Neuberger may have learned what others have not. Judges of his status and calibre do not make the comments he has made without considerable thought and prior consideration of the long-tem effects.

Politicians on the other hand are only capable of thinking short-term whilst more sensible people think of the long-term effects of legislation and the law of unintended consequences.

Some government MPs voted against the secret courts but were overwhelmed by the sycophants who are more interested in their own well-being rather than doing what is right for the citizens they supposedly represent.

It is a fact that it is highly unlikely that anyone in Parliament will ever be affected by the new measures.

It is hoped by those of us who love freedom that the House of Lords will come to the rescue of the majority of citizens who, for whatever reason, seem impotent when it comes to protecting themselves against the state. Citizens who insist on government doing everything for them and who have given away the power they once had to help themselves.

TheOpinionSite.org believes however that it is highly likely the new measures will become law, simply because everyone is noticing what is happening far too late in the day.

The broadcasters and the press, like most British citizens, have been far too interested in Jimmy Savile, the NHS and the queen to notice what has been happening with the Justice and Security Bill.

The situation is made worse by the fact that individuals in Britain are not taught the Law or Constitution in school, they are not brought up to have an interest in the one thing that is guaranteed to affect their lives – politics – and they are not encouraged by parents to think for themselves, most parents being far too protective towards their children instead of encouraging kids to learn to deal with problems that may be encountered in daily life.

What is more, successive British governments have engineered this situation. It has not come about by coincidence or accident and British people have allowed it to develop.

Just like the Germans in the mid-1930s, the citizens of Britain will do nothing, say nothing and ignore what is happening until one day they awaken to the sound of tanks rolling down the road and find troops on every street corner.

Freedom will at that point be lost forever, if indeed that is not the case already.

It is the right of every voter in Britain (at present anyway) to contact their MP; yet hardly any MPs have received representation over these latest measures that are sapping the freedom of citizens. Whether people do now contact their representatives in Parliament having read this article is of course entirely a matter for them. It is also their right not to contact their MP if they choose not to.

Nevertheless, TheOpinionSite.org would argue that to do nothing is to allow the government to seize power over the citizen in a manner that is truly terrifying. If the politicians are not prepared to stand up and be counted then all is lost already but, if they are prepared to listen to the fears of their constituents, it may not be too late if the constituents themselves are prepared to make those concerns clear.

Edmund Burke, the great Irish philosopher and orator once famously said that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Unfortunately, the British seem to be rather good at ‘doing nothing’ where their freedom is concerned; something that may eventually result in the state having complete control of their lives, their freedoms, their ambitions…and their children.

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British juries are ignorant, incompetent and dangerous

Raymond Peytors - theopinionsite.org — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 14:02:25 +0000

British juries are ignorant, incompetent and dangerous – and always have been.

Research should be carried out into how and why British juries reach their (sometimes clearly flawed) verdicts. So says a former Director of Public Prosecutions and a former Lord Chief Justice. As with previous administrations however and amid a sea of provocative ‘historic’ abuse allegations, David Cameron’s government is fighting hard to resist any possibility of change.

Ministers know only too well that by leaving difficult decisions to a jury, criminal laws can be drafted ambiguously, thus increasing the likelihood of convictions and increasing popular and political support.

The trial of Vicky Pryce was unceremoniously ditched last week after the jury was proved to be worse than useless. Because of its political connections with former minister Chris Huhne, this case has attracted media attention but TheOpinionSite.org believes that in reality, most British juries are not fit for purpose.

The really smart people who actually would make good jurors are clever enough to avoid jury service, leaving uninformed, often illiterate individuals to fill the spaces in the jury room.

In the last year alone, jurors have been removed from trials for reasons that one would expect to find in a satirical sitcom. Such reasons include:

Listening to music on an MP3 player instead of listening to the evidence

Using a Ouija board to determine whether or not the defendant was guilty

Failing to turn up and going to a musical or shopping instead

Researching defendants and witnesses on the Internet after being told not to

Asking for the defendant’s star sign in order to decide innocence or guilt

Finding the defendant guilty because ‘he looks like he did it.’

Prejudice: One man convicted the defendant because ‘He looks like a nonce so he must have done it.’

These are just a few of the reported reasons that juries should never be trusted to reach a fair and impartial verdict but TheOpinionSite.org knows that the fundamental problem with juries is much more fundamental:

Most of the people who become jurors know nothing about the law, are incapable of following the evidence and judge’s directions, would rather be somewhere else and are so badly educated that they make decisions based on emotion rather than evidence.

Former DPP Lord Macdonald told the BBC:

”We perhaps ought to allow a bit more access to jury reasoning than we do.”

Macdonald suggested that Britain should follow the example of other jurisdictions and allow research to be carried out, though not too much. He would not, it seems, want to change the system even if there are faults with it.

At present, absolutely no enquiry is permitted into how juries reach their decisions.

In addition, at present jurors are not supposed to discuss their verdicts (even if they think it is wrong), are not permitted to access the Internet during trials (really?) and should not discuss the case with anyone outside the jury room, especially friends and family. If jurors are caught breaking these rules, they risk conviction under the Contempt of Court Act and a possible charge of Perverting the Course of Justice.

The problem is that ‘justice’ is already perverted – and nobody wants to change things for the better.

For example, ‘jury vetting’, as carried out in other countries – even the United States – is virtually non-existent in the UK. The limits on objections to jurors in UK proceedings are such that defence barristers very often face an impossible task trying to secure a fair trial for their clients.

The former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf was even more cautious in his support for research into juries:

“I wouldn’t rush into doing anything, I would think about it… Some very carefully organised, responsible research may be a good thing, but it would have to be treated with great care.”

Clearly, neither of these two individuals have ever had to stand in the dock and realise that their fate lies with 12 people who usually have no idea of what is going on in the court, often cannot read properly or speak English and most of whom are weak and make decisions subject to peer-pressure rather than on the evidence.

Both Macdonald and Woolf have both previously declined to discuss the thorny problem of what to do about the jury in cases involving sexual assault, especially where children are involved; probably the easiest type of case in which to secure a conviction.

Where the alleged victim is or was a child at the time of the alleged offence, the conviction rate is almost 100%. something that should be impossible if jurors were truly making decisions based on the evidence.

TheOpinionSite.org must point out – again – that in most such cases, there isn’t any real evidence to speak of. The prosecution rely on ‘similar fact evidence’ or, to be blunt, enough people saying more or less the same thing about what supposedly happened to them but without being able – or being required – to prove anything.

The jury in these cases secretly comes to its conclusion, very often based on how jurors feel rather than what has been proved ‘beyond reasonable doubt’; a phrase that can mean anything an individual wants it to mean and which is entirely subjective.

In two recent child sex cases where jurors have confidentially (and courageously) spoken out about the problems they faced in the jury room, both said that they were pressured by the foreman into ‘going along with the others’.

“You don’t get a choice because if you want to vote not guilty, you get accused of being a paedo-lover.”

For the last 50 years, there have been calls for jury reform and for that entire period, successive government have refused to carry out the recommended measures, knowing full well that if juries had to justify their decisions, the conviction rate in Crown Court trials would fall dramatically.

Some years ago, Lord Justice Robin Auld was asked by a heavily leant-on Tony Blair to make recommendations to improve fairness in cases involving child sex offences.

When Auld LJ suggested that in child sex cases and other ‘sensitive’ proceedings the defendant should have the choice of being tried by a judge instead of a jury, Blair categorically refused to implement such a measure.

At present, particularly in so-called ‘historic’ cases of abuse – the only type of ‘historic’ offence that is ever guaranteed to be prosecuted – the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) really can bring whatever charges it likes, safe in the knowledge that in almost every case the jury will find the defendant guilty, despite there being no corroborated evidence and only the word of the alleged victims, all of whom will back each other up.

If the case of jimmy Savile had come to court, he would not have received a fair trial. The ‘evidence’ as published by the police and the NSPCC is nothing more than a list of accusations, nothing else. There is still no corroboration or proof; only gossip.

Yet TheOpinionSite.org has no doubt whatsoever that the jury would have convicted Savile, once more substituting emotion for evidence and peer-pressure for fairness.

British juries really are ignorant, incompetent and dangerous and will remain so until the government orders proper research to be carried out. Research that would in fact demonstrate jut what a failure the current jury system really is.

The fact that no other European democracy uses the British model of juries says it all.

Regarding reform, threat of exposing one of the biggest frauds in the British criminal justice system is of course the single reason why much needed research and reform will never be carried out.

Macdonald said that the jury system “…has served the country well and juries usually come to the right decision most of the time”.

Those words are of course from the mouth of a prosecutor. He knows that the flawed jury system in Britain will go on delivering injustice and dishonesty every day of the week for the foreseeable future, much to the delight of the politicians and other individuals and organisations who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Neither the government, the police, probation, the CPS or the protection charities that support the aforementioned want any change to the jury system. Therefore, they will all continue to block any meaningful research.

The judge in the Pryce case, Mr Justice Sweeney – a High Court judge, not a regular Crown Court ‘referee’ – said:

“Quite apart from my concern as to the absolutely fundamental deficits in understanding which the [jury’s] questions demonstrate, I wonder, given that it is actually all there and has been there the whole time, the extent to which anything said by me is going to be capable of getting them back on track again. In well over 30 years of criminal trial I have never come across this at this stage, never.”

In non-legal language, the jury was thick, stupid and utterly incapable of understanding the evidence, had no idea about how the law operates and was in short, utterly useless.

TheOpinionSite.org would however point out to his Lordship that he omitted three other important observations:

Juries are as they are because the government and its agencies want them that way

Juries do not understand the law because unlike other countries, Britain never teaches such things in schools

Juries are the single biggest threat to a fair trial and should never be allowed anywhere near sensitive, emotional or publicly emotive cases, such as child sexual offences.

So if juries are so bad, what of ‘British Justice’?

One might seriously argue that ‘British Justice’ has nothing to do with ‘justice’ at all. It is in fact a device invented 500 years ago by the rich and powerful to keep everyone else in their place. It is still doing just that – and is doing so as effectively as when it was first introduced.

Given that the jury in the Pryce case was so utterly flawed, why then did the clearly fed up Mr Justice Sweeney not report the fact to the Lord Chancellor?

Oh, sorry…we must not forget that the Lord Chancellor is also the Secretary of State for Justice, Chris Grayling; the man who wants to lock more people up for longer and make it even easier to convict people on no evidence.

How disgustingly British then that the man in charge of the courts and the judiciary is also a cabinet minister; a politician interested only in his own ambitions.

Unfortunately, the apparently homophobic, right-wing, ambitious Mr Grayling is also responsible for juries and how they function and does not believe in reform of Britain’s jury system.

But then in this now insignificant, broke, vindictive, revenge-filled little island, why should anyone ever expect anything else?

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Government loses more court battles over IPP & CRB checks

Raymond Peytors - theopinionsite.org — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 15:48:39 +0000

Judges again overrule government on IPP sentences and CRB checks

TheOpinionSite.org can report that the UK government has been heavily criticised by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in two major rulings this week involving IPP sentences. The government lost both cases, Downing Street has not made a statement and needless to say, the tabloid press have not reported the story.

This follows the Court of Appeal ruling against the government two weeks ago declaring the blanket disclosure of details in CRB checks to be unlawful.

This week, the government lost its appeal against the court’s ruling in Wells, James & Lee v UK, the case which effectively killed off the appalling Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection (IPP). Despite government protestations to the contrary, the government was exposed as being dishonest in not having put sufficient resources in place to enable IPP prisoners to realistically stand any chance of release.

The ECtHR also said that the UK senior judiciary was ‘far too narrow’ in its interpretation of Article 5 of the ECHR which says prisoners cannot be kept in jail indefinitely for purely preventative purposes unless there are mechanisms in place to allow them a realistic chance of release by reducing their risk level.

The second case lost this week by the government is that of Betteridge v UK.

Mr Betteridge had taken all available action through the British courts to speed up his Parole Board (PB) hearing, which was long overdue, only to find that British judges were too weak to award damages for the delay or even to do anything about making the PB hearing available.

Despite admitting and confirming the obvious failings of the government, the judges said they were not prepared to ‘fast-track’ Betteridge over those prisoners who had not bothered to take the issue to the courts and in any case, the government had put measures in place to deal with the problem.

In fact, the government has done no such thing and when the promised PB hearing was cancelled yet again, Betteridge took his case to the ECtHR, the British judges having made it clear that they would not no longer listen to reasoned argument.

This week – and to the government’s great embarrassment – the ECtHR not only awarded monetary damages to Betteridge (something that is very unusual) but also very effectively criticised senior British judges for taking the government’s word that it would solve the problem when in fact, the government had no intention of doing any such thing.

There are currently around 6,000 IPP prisoners in jail, 3,500 of whom are past the date at which release should be considered. The same issue applies to many life-sentenced prisoners of whom there are about 8,000. The Parole Board is hopelessly under-resourced and, for purely political reasons, the Home Office and Ministry of Justice are quite content to leave things that way.

Having IPP prisoners and ‘lifers’ (there is little difference) remain in custody generates thousands of jobs; not just for prison staff but also probation officers, course facilitators and administrative staff.

For the sake of clarity (unlike the Sun newspaper which deliberately misleads people) TheOpinionSite.org should point out for those who do not know, that the ECtHR has nothing at all to do with the “EU” or the “Europe” so hated by Tory MPs.

The court is in fact part of the Council of Europe which is a totally separate body ; the council is subscribed to by 47 countries, including Turkey and the Russian Federation and under International Law, rulings from the ECtHR must be adhered to by all subscribed member states.

The implications of the rulings

These two cases are a monumental blow for the government and especially for the now furious Home Secretary, Theresa may and the equally irate, seemingly anti-gay, anti-freedom Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling. This is why neither are making statements about the judgements.

These latest ECtHR rulings come only a week after the blanket operation of the government’s flagship CRB checking system was found to be unlawful. This time the ruling came not from European judges but by judges in the British Court of Appeal who decided that the ECtHR would also rule against the government.

The Home Secretary, rather predictably, has decided to appeal the ruling to the UK Supreme Court but it is quite likely that the Supreme Court won’t even be prepared to hear the case, let alone find in the government’s favour.

(Read more in our Members Forum. Click Here)

The important connection between the CRB case and the two IPP cases above is that all three cases criticise the methodology use by the British government when formulating public protection policies, especially those supposedly designed to protect children.

For the last 30 years, successive administrations have used anecdotal or ‘hearsay’ evidence and opinion to formulate policies such as the CRB system, the Sex Offenders Register, the various sexual and other types of Prevention Orders as well as IPP sentences.

Not one of these policies, which affect many hundreds of thousands of people in different ways, has been based on independent research or factual reference. Instead, they rely on the ‘opinions’ and ‘professional judgement’ of so-called ‘professionals’, all of whom directly benefit from having such policies in place.

Furthermore, most UK protection policies were imported from the United States and have been further developed to satisfy the demands of the child protection industry and the press, both of which profit from generating public fear, genuine or not.

The Appeal Court and the ECtHR have now both said – and for the first time – that the process by which these policies are made should rely on fact and real independent research; not on a “what if” basis or on a desire to generate popular support from the public or lobby groups and not on research which simply tells ministers what they want to hear.

The rulings therefore are highly significant. They now open the door for the State to be challenged when it locks people up without giving them any real chance of release.

However, the rulings also show that the British courts have been wrong in interpreting Article 5 (which determines whether or not detention is lawful) far too narrowly.

Perhaps most important of all though, the rulings completely undermine the basis on which successive British governments have formulated and applied ‘public protection’ policies that when exposed, seem to be designed solely to give the police whatever they want and to satisfy the tabloids and charities.

TheOpinionSite.org would therefore hope – and suggest – that having now been severely battered by judges who are not afraid of British politicians, ministers will stop making excuses and do something about the 6,500 IPP prisoners still in jail and who have been left completely unaffected by the repeal of the disastrous IPP sentence; a repeal that followed only after the government’s own embarrassment.

We also suggest that in future, ‘knee jerk’ legislation is avoided at all costs. The IPP was such a piece of legislation and it has left the government in a deep and potentially very expensive hole, now with no chance of escape.

We would also hope that British judges will realise that they are not duty bound to interpret the ‘Will of Parliament’ regarding law and order in a manner that is only advantageous to ministers or, to put it another way, their Lordships should accept that contrary to the belief of polite society, ministers lie. And they lie a lot.

Judges should never take the word of any government minister because British governments always lie. They have always lied and probably always will.

If British governments had to be honest, the government would fall apart because politicians would be truly accountable. Policemen would once again have to serve the public instead of the public bowing down to them, prisoners would get real help to reform and money-grabbing children’s charities would be put out of business – after having been convicted for fraud on a grand scale.

Perhaps it is too much to hope for but Cameron and his cronies should take note of these judgements. Failure to do so will only result in more embarrassment, more unjust imprisonment and more government by ‘tabloid and charity’.

It is regrettably a fact that the UK locks up more people than any other country in Europe. It also has more prisoners sentenced to some kind of life imprisonment than all the other EU states put together. It is a country whose so-called ‘Justice’ is based on revenge, not fairness. It punishes the weak whilst hiding and protecting the strong.

Every society gets what it deserves and British society is no exception. Ignorance, selfishness and greed have produced the incompetent and unfair British Criminal Justice System that exists today and those who benefit financially and politically from it don’t want it to change.

However, TheOpinionSite.org believes that after these latest rulings, it may have to change after all – whether those powerful beneficiaries want it to or not.

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Police powers increase as MPs declare IPCC useless

Raymond Peytors - theopinionsite.org — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 16:26:06 +0000

Britain’s Police: Over-powerful and seemingly above the Law

As the police continue to become more powerful, Britain’s police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission has been slated in an influential Parliamentary report that accuses the IPCC of being overloaded with cases, leaving cases un-investigated, of having no real power and of too often using former policemen as supposedly “independent” investigators.

Meanwhile, the Association of Chief Police Officers is asking the government to give police even more power, threatening the likelihood of civil unrest as people’s living standards steeply decline as the economy worsens.

The Home Affairs Select Committee report reveals that 1 in 4 police officers (33,000) faced a complaint over the course of last year. Although some were trivial, some were extremely serious including sexual assault and deaths in custody.

As well as London, complaints were up in all police areas with the greatest increase occurring in the Hampshire Constabulary.

The vast majority of complaints were made against police constables, though all ranks up to Chief Constable received a significant number of complaints.

Most complaints are handled locally by the police themselves. For minor complaints, an apology is often all that is necessary but once the complaint becomes more serious, the police start to build barriers to effective investigation of the complaint, trying desperately to hide the truth and to avoid criticism or even prosecution.

This comes naturally to the police who always protect their own and are not afraid to delay, obfuscate, intimidate and lie in order to protect themselves. This has been seen very recently in cases involving Hillsborough, phone hacking and the latest “Plebgate” row where once again, the police appear to have tampered with evidence in an attempt to hide the truth.

This week we have seen Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn, 53 being jailed for having unlawful dealings with the now defunct tabloid, the News of the World. The case should have been dealt with years ago and, given that the woman was head of a counter-terrorist unit, you would have thought that someone would have done something sooner.

In fact, the police didn’t even bother to admit that there was a problem until News International’s own Standards Department effectively forced them to investigate.

If such willingness exist to hide the truth in a case involving such a senior officer in such a sensitive position, why should anyone doubt that the police regularly cover up or change evidence when police constables, the main stay of front-line policing are accused of wrongdoing?

The select committee refers to the police as a body that “…are warranted with powers that can strip people of their freedom, their money and even their life.”

…and TheOpinionSite.org would suggest that is the real problem.

The police in the UK are simply much too powerful and have been made so by successive Home Secretaries that have delegated more and more power to the police whilst telling the public, “It is what the police have asked for in order to do the difficult job they do.”

However, those same Home Secretaries fail to mention the fact that by giving the police more and more power, the politicians themselves cannot be blamed if something goes wrong.

If the police act outside the law, ministers do nothing. They don’t have to.

If a senior MP – such as the former and ousted Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith who fiddled £166,000 in expenses and was let off with an apology – breaks the law, the police are usually leant on and persuaded not to investigate, let alone prosecute.

It is the perfect reciprocal deal in which wrongdoing by those with the most power goes unpunished while the police work secretly to enforce their own position of power over the rest of us. The public can do nothing about it as its only recourse is to the utterly useless and truly pathetic IPCC.

The police regularly monitor private communications, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, use covert detection without proper authority and regularly give misinformation to offenders under their control, frequently stating that the offender is subject to some restriction or other when in fact they are not.

If the matter later comes to court, the judge will give in to the police and CPS and still allow such evidence to be used, even though it was often obtained unlawfully.

Police routinely target those groups that are unpopular with the public and are easy to convict with very little, if any evidence; groups such as released drug users, released sex offenders, members of the black community and those who follow the Islamic faith.

These people may in fact be doing nothing wrong at all and be completely innocent but, if they complain against the police, they can expect some kind of reprisal.

Every day, completely innocent people are arrested, intimidated, photographed, have their DNA and fingerprints taken, are put on multiple databases and held in custody in the vague hope that something that the police can use against them will present itself.

If released, they are repeatedly stopped on every possible occasion by the police under the guise of “public protection”.

All of this is possible with no evidence and no witnesses, as the police officer concerned can use his so called “professional judgement” to demonstrate “reasonable suspicion”; a meaningless phrase that is as ambiguous as it is dishonest.

An effective police watchdog with real powers is therefore even more necessary now than ever before. At present though, it simply doesn’t exist.

The select committee report (link at the end of this article) sums up the problems with the IPCC in its introduction:

‘Compared with the might of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, the IPCC is woefully underequipped and hamstrung in achieving its original objectives. It has neither the powers nor the resources that it needs to get to the truth when the integrity of the police is in doubt. Smaller even than the Professional Standards Department of the Metropolitan Police, the Commission is not even first among equals, yet it is meant to be the backstop of the system. It lacks the investigative resources necessary to get to the truth; police forces are too often left to investigate themselves; and the voice of the IPCC does not have binding authority.’

TheOpinionSite.org was not therefore surprised when the police came out and said they did not agree with calls for Statutory Powers enshrined in Law to be given to the IPCC; the very powers it needs most.

At present, the IPCC is utterly toothless and has no powers at all. Anything it “recommends” can simply be ignored by the police.

In a huge understatement, Keith Vaz, the Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee said that public confidence was being ‘undermined’:

“When public trust in the police is tested by complaints of negligence, misconduct and corruption, a strong watchdog is vital to get to the truth: but the IPCC leaves the public frustrated and faithless.

It is woefully underequipped to supervise the 43 forces of England and Wales, never mind the UKBA, HMRC, NCA and all the private sector agencies involved in policing.

Nearly a quarter of officers were subject to a complaint last year. Many were trivial, but some were extremely serious, involving deaths in custody or corruption—it is an insult to all concerned to do no more than scratch the surface of these alleged abuses.

The IPCC investigated just a handful and often arrived at the scene late, when the trail had gone cold. The Commission is on the brink of letting grave misconduct go uninvestigated. It is buried under the weight of poor police investigations and bound by its limited powers. The public are bewildered by its continued reliance on the very forces it is investigating.

The complaints and appeals process is frustrating, time-consuming and frequently flawed. We must end the complaints roundabout and give the Commission the powers and resources it needs to restore public faith in policing.”

In response to the report, Dame Anne Owers, who heads the IPCC and was formerly the Chief Inspector of Prisons, said her organisation needed more resources and more power.

“We can’t do enough independent investigations, we can’t exercise sufficient rigorous oversight about the way that the police deal with complaints. To do that we need more resources, more power.

In short we cannot do the job the public expect us to be able to do, and if we are to do that job then we need to be properly resourced to do it, and we need to be given the powers to be able to do it.”

Having met Anne Owers several times, this writer is not surprised at her genuine frustration.

At present the IPCC cannot even compel officers to answer questions. If the officer decides not to cooperate, he can choose to simply not turn up.

TheOpinionSite.org therefore implores the government to gives the IPCC the statutory powers it needs before it is too late.

It is totally hypocritical of ministers to accuse other countries of human rights abuses when a huge abuse of power is happening in Britain itself and is happening every day.

Whilst police forces around the country, sensing likely public unrest in the months to come, continue to stockpile rubber bullets, make arrangements to use water-canon, train more officers in the use of automatic weapons, arm all officers with tazer guns and illegally monitor communications of law abiding people -all with the full knowledge and support of the government – the lack of any ability to keep these out of control, uniformed thugs in check is being conveniently ignored.

When he was appointed, the head of the Metropolitan Police, Bernard Hogan-Howe said, “I want people to be afraid of the police.”

Well, he has at last got what he wanted. A police service that is often hated, distrusted, massively arrogant, out of control, over powerful and positively dangerous to the very citizens the police are warranted to protect.

Without effective control of the police and the ability for ordinary people to bring them to book, the 43 police forces in Britain will soon become so powerful that democracy will be replaced by tyranny.

Only an ignorant fool would believe that this could not happen today, especially given the awesome powers the police already have and the likely effect of new powers that they are asking for.

Whether British people like to or not, they should now open their eyes as wide as possible. This week on the BBC, a Chief Superintendent referred to his rank as being “…the equivalent of a colonel or brigadier in the army.”; just one example of the police seeing themselves as a military force but there have recently also been many others.

The last European country to have a police force like ours was Germany in 1933. Six years later, Germany’s police force had been transformed and the Gestapo was terrorising civilians. It should be noted that nearly all the Gestapo officers had previously been ordinary policemen.

Wake up Mr Cameron – before it really is too late.

(Download the Select Committee report here and join our Members Forum and discuss this topic further by clicking HERE)
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Cameron heading for disaster over EU policing measures

Raymond Peytors - theopinionsite.org — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:56:56 +0000

The British government wants to opt out of the European Arrest Warrant and other measures

David Cameron’s intention to pull out of EU policing measures is likely to cause him great difficulty. However, TheOpinionSite.org hopes that the prime minister has the guts to see it through if it means getting rid of the horrendously unjust European Arrest Warrant.

The ever weaker prime minister is having his more sensitive parts twisted by anti-Europe Conservative back-benchers in the hope that he will give in to their demands and hold an ‘in or out‘ referendum before the next general election in 2015. They also want him to ditch anything to do with the much criticised EAW and everything else which, in their opinion anyway, are British powers stolen by Brussels.

TheOpinionSite.org can however see Mr Cameron coming to a very sticky end, probably having failed in everything he set out to do. He will continue to dither about what is best for Britain whilst at the same time trying to avoid the knives of his political opponents.

Opponents that are in the Conservative party that is; not those of other political persuasions.

Cameron’s problem over the EAW and other EU policing protocols has been brought about by the fact that in 2014, the powers come under the European Court of Justice (not to be confused with the European Court of Human Rights) which would theoretically give the court power over certain aspects of the policing of British citizens.

Needless to say, the police and all those individuals and organisations who make their living from manipulating law and order policy in the UK for their own benefit are not keen on this idea at all.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May (who cannot wait to stab Cameron in the back) has told MPs that the UK will opt out of all the measures and will then apparently opt back in to those measures that Britain thinks would be beneficial.

The problem is that do that, the UK will need the agreement of all the other EU states and if just one of the 26 says no, there is little the government can do about it as it is banished to the naughty step.

Viviane Reding, the vice-president of the European Commission and Justice Commissioner has made it very clear indeed that she has no intention whatsoever of changing the terms of the EAW. She also very firmly put Cameron on the spot by saying that no member state could “cherry pick” which parts of the EU arrangements it would follow and which it would reject.

The Dutch prime Minister, usually an ally of Cameron, has said much the same thing.

TheOpinionSite.org is of the view that there is a huge contradiction in the government’s proposed action in withdrawing from the EU policing measures; especially as ministers know full well that the chances of being let back in are very slim indeed.

The contradiction is thus:

On the one hand, you have those who say the EAW is essential for the prosecution of paedophiles, terrorists and other criminals who go abroad to offend or to avoid prosecution.

For example, in the child protection camp, we have the ambitious Claire Perry, MP and the tragic and rather pathetic “Dr” Sara Payne, along with many other – mainly feminist – organisations and individuals who are all jumping on the ‘Keep the EAW’ bandwagon.

Payne, who by the way has no right to use the title ‘Dr’ as she neither worked for her purely honorary degree from the OU nor passed any examinations, is banging on again in the Sun newspaper as ‘Dr’ Sara Payne, demanding more measures against sex offenders, real or otherwise.

Apparently they have laws in California she would like to see here in the UK. No doubt she will eventually give us her views on the EAW; if anyone is prepared to listen. She has already suggested taking away passports from those on the sex offender register; something that is inherently unlawful.

Perry meanwhile has been appointed as Cameron’s advisor on ‘Childhood’. Her latest outburst – she is prone to use the F word rather a lot according to other MPs – is to suggest that teenagers should forgo any privacy they might have and allow parents to check their offspring’s emails and texts; the views of teenagers have not been sought. She has naturally come out in favour of the EAW.

Then there is ECPAT, the zealous, paranoid protection charity that scares politicians to death and threatens to embarrass them if they do not give in to its demands regarding Britons who ‘are bound to offend’ against children overseas, even though – as the courts recently pointed out – the charity can produce no hard evidence to support such a claim.

Inevitably, the wealthy – and rather dubious – NSPCC is also joining the throng along with their partners in the police and CEOP – the online protection agency soon to be absorbed by the new National Crime Agency.

What is noticeable is that all these individuals and organisations are assuming – wrongly – that if the EAW goes, it will be impossible to extradite offenders back to Britain.

TheOpinionSite.org must point out that this is utter nonsense but – and this is what those listed above don’t like – real evidence would have to be produced rather than simply relying on hearsay, speculation or the so called ‘professional judgement’ of the police as at present.

The other side of the contradiction is that Conservative politicians, usually keen to be seen as ‘tough’ on crime, actually want to get rid of the EAW altogether. They rightly say it gets expensive (£30k a time) when the UK has to send Polish citizens back home in order to face prosecution for unpaid parking tickets.

The MPs also say that it is wrong that British citizens can be extradited under the EAW to other EU countries without any evidence – although the same hypocritical MPs still support the idea of dragging a UK citizen back to Britain on the same basis; ie. without any evidence.

Then of course, there is Cameron himself who is trying to achieve a second term in office by promising to ‘repatriate powers from the EU to the UK’; something that he knows is nigh impossible to do under Treaty Law.

The Liberal Democrats however want Britain to remain part of the EAW and other EU policing protocols, something that is rather odd given that Clegg stood for election on a platform of more freedom for the individual.

So, who is going to win? The child protection lobby? The anti-Euro MPs maybe? The prime minister or home secretary?

TheOpinionSite.org suggests that in the end, none of them will win.

The EU will not change its policing protocol just because the British tell them to and, as with any club, Britain will have to accept the rules or not take part.

If the UK opts out, it probably won’t be able to opt back in on a ‘cherry picking’ basis as hoped for by Theresa May.

The rest of the EU club will ensure that Cameron doesn’t get his precious powers back and the Conservative right will want to kick him out.

The problem for them though, is that they can’t; not yet anyway.

The fact is that just as the EU ripped John Major’s government apart, so it will destroy this one. As the wheels fall off, Britain becomes more and more isolated – something the US and Germany don’t want and which will damage Britain’s influence…if it still has any.

The different factions will take up their positions and the blood-letting will begin; no doubt led by Theresa May, knife in hand.

The Labour party, supporters of the EAW and every other method of locking up more people, will not win either. Nobody trusts them after Blair and nobody should. On that basis, whatever they say is likely to be largely ignored.

In the end, TheOpinionSite.org believes that Britain will pull out of the EAW and the other measures – all 135 of them. We also believe that Britain will stay out; principally because it will not be allowed back in on the terms the government wants.

By the time of the election in 2015, the country will have so little money available and there will be so much sniping and back-biting within the Conservative party, not to mention endless disagreements with the Liberal Democrats, that all the parties will go into the election completely confused about Britain’s involvement in the EU and wondering why other member states want nothing to do with the British.

The Europeans will have won; the charities, the government and all the political parties will have lost.

The EAW and other measures will no longer affect Britain and that will bring a whole load of new problems to the government as Britain tries so hard to prove that the UK still rules the world by refusing to be part of Europe and by demanding that everyone does everything the ‘British’ way.

Such is the stuff of dreams…and of nightmares.

We shall see.

(Click here to discuss the EAW and many other issues in our Members Forum)
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