75ZT Community

Nothing to do with the deprived 'underclass' then.
They are all simply criminals regardless, no excuses.

Bernard wrote:Nothing to do with the deprived 'underclass' then.
They are all simply criminals regardless, no excuses.

Many of whom would hitherto have been regarded as 'Decent Citizens' then?

Tourerfogey wrote:

Bernard wrote:Nothing to do with the deprived 'underclass' then.
They are all simply criminals regardless, no excuses.

Many of whom would hitherto have been regarded as 'Decent Citizens' then?

Maybe maybe not. As I have never knowingly met the guy in question, I could not possibly opine.

Do you deliberately indulge in confrontation or is it accidental?

Bernard wrote:

Tourerfogey wrote:

Bernard wrote:Nothing to do with the deprived 'underclass' then.
They are all simply criminals regardless, no excuses.

Many of whom would hitherto have been regarded as 'Decent Citizens' then?

Maybe maybe not. As I have never knowingly met the guy in question, I could not possibly opine.

Do you deliberately indulge in confrontation or is it accidental?

Aw come on Bernard....he is not confrontational.....much *Thinks 'pot, kettle, black' in relation to self..*

My post was not intended to be confrontational and certainly wasn't having a dig at you.

I heard today that an 11 year old and a 14 year old have both been "presented" by their parents to the police for taking part in the looting in two of teh Cities affected. I would say good on the Parents, but to be honest, what kind of Parent lets kids of that age out at those times of night

I good friend of mine, who is a District Judge in Birmingham Magistrates' Court passed on a little anecdote this afternoon.

For those of you who do not know, the Bench in a Youth Court have the advantage of being able to talk to the defendant directly, rather than through their advocate.

My friend tells me that he asked a 15 year old boy why he had taken part in activities which ended up with him being brought before the Court on charges of theft, burglary, assault PC.

The reply was:- "We is exploited innit"

The DJ then asked him to explain further and apparently the silence that followed told its own story.

To further prompt the defendant, he was asked how to spell "exploited" and again, the silence was deafening.

In a further attempt to get to the bottom of the defendant's reasoning, he was asked what the word "exploited" actually meant.

The reply:- " it means we is black innit".

After a moment of thought, my friend then made the following observation "But you are white"

The DJ then decided to give up the futile attempt to try and find mitigation from the mouth of the defendant rather than the ritualistic protestations of his advocate.

Unsurprisingly, this was not an isolated or unique incident

Not sure his ability to spell would be mitigation or otherwise!?

Here is a thought...regarding on all these new prisoners that will be forthcoming.. North Sea Prison Freiston...up the road from me...a Category C 'Open Prison'...

Operational capacity 378...currently housing 600+ due to riots in other prisons in the vicinity...number of prison officers on duty overnight....bearing in mind they are NOT locked in their cells... one...I kid you not...

another thought - they shouldn't lock them up they should put them all in the army or boot camp. Also they should pay for their own uniforms out of their benefits! No namby pampy prison sentances or borstals that have TV and gym facilities. We've got to have zero tolerance to let them know we mean business and it will not be allowed to happen again.
Another thing - bring back National Service. Didn't do people any harm before, some, not all, it probably made better citizens out of them.

Tourerfogey wrote:And whilst all this goes on the police seem to be standing by, watching and doing sweet FA.

I've spent the last 3 hours watching BBC News 24 and in all the areas filmed it seems that the police do nothing but sit back and watch. I understood that the remit of the Police was to protect life, limb and property but I don't see that happening tonight.

But it's ok because Cameron and Boris are coming back from holiday . . .

I thought this until hearing the reason from a front line police officer....

If they go in an arrest someone then they have to be taken back to the station and processed. Result at least one police officer not present. Arrest a few more and the police lines are very depleted.

A Catch22 situation

Thats what they have vans for!

Did anyone else see the mother of the 11 year old who was done being interviewed....

'He only went in there out of curiosity' - mother

'But he had a hammer strapped to his leg' - interviewer

'He's only a kid' - mother

HELLLLLP!!!

Exemplary sentencing:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8705212/Facebook-riot-inciters-among-those-to-get-toughest-jail-terms-yet.html

We have all seen a bunch of chumps emptying stores, ransacking and burning, even endangering life and making people homeless.
While we discuss the obvious I do suspect that there are people out there inciting and orchestrating this kind of thing for their own ends (mostly deluded).

We witnessed an understaffed police force suffering a barrage of missiles with little retaliation. Was that due to lack of resources or was there a degree of reluctance to appear able to cope with the numbers they had to hand? I think it's obvious the officers involved bravely stood their ground when possible. If it was a tactic it was likely dictated by their inadequate numbers. Each arrest would deplete their numbers further.
If some element orchestrated this, was it chancers wanting to grab something? Did they think of that themselves?
Was it people thinking this was the way to start a movement of change?
Was it people suggesting to the gullible that this was the way to make change with the actual intention of causing as much chaos as possible? Would that also be in the hope of filming police officers at their worst to hopefully bring about more restrictions on police powers?
I have noted that comments on sites such as Youtube prompting more acts of disorder ranging from riot to killing the 'elite' often come from persons not resident in the UK and/or apparently equally interested in playing Minecraft and/or Call of Doody - Black Ops.
There's also the possibility it was orchestrated from within to enable a heavier hand to be accepted by the majority. Being law abiding I would be happy to see them react to rioting in a befitting manner.

I did find one chappy suggesting we should have more of this targeting Cameron and Brown directly. This fellow turned out to be from the USofA and equally interested in spotting UFO's...not a Minecraft video in sight.

For the anarchy types (who probably couldn't hold their own in an actual anarchy) the wish to bring about change has probably set in motion the wrong kind of change. Errm, tuff.

raistlin wrote:Exemplary sentencing:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8705212/Facebook-riot-inciters-among-those-to-get-toughest-jail-terms-yet.html

From the article:

Gillespie Doyle, who has at least 12 previous convictions for violence and dishonesty, was jailed for two years after being caught "red-handed" by police about to steal cigarettes in a Salisbury's shop in Manchester.

A fourth defendant, Linda Boyd, 31, who has 62 previous convictions, was given a 10 month jail term suspended for two years after she was caught trying to drag away a £500 haul of alcohol, cigarettes and tobacco.

What the hell use are these people to society? Clearly, the justice system is not working with these. Perhaps the Californian system should be employed - 3 offences and you are jailed for 25 years. I think the first person to be sentenced to 25 years was because his third offence was stealing a pizza.

The UK system seems to be to slap their wrists and then all sorts of organisations come forward to help them reintegrate in to society where they commit the next offence.

This morning there were two groups on the radio complaining about inconsistent sentencing and about examples being made.

Perhaps the UK needs to change - a girl Yve works with got herself pregnant and then said 'the council will now give me a house'. Then there are those that 'bash out' kids as for each one they get benefits, larger council houses etc. To me the lesson from this is that the more irresponsible you are the more the state bends helps you.

Then there is the judiciary (our JP excluded) - an illegal immigrant who has stolen the identity of people to enter this country three times is given an 11 month sentence so that he will not be deported! The Immigration Service say they will but then there is the wonderful Human rights Act that will probably prevent that.

Will at some point the responsible people rise up, completely fed up with their taxes etc going to support the scroungers - I hasten to add that some peoples circumstances do change, i.e. made redundant and require help until they find a job which they actively seek so agree with this. But there are familes of three generations who have never worked and lived off the State, and for State read you and me.

Rant over - thought this was the mellow site?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/17/facebook-cases-criticism-riot-sentences

OK. So what do you want us to do?

Is it any wonder the Judiciary is said to be out of touch? You lot can't even decide amongst yourselves what you want us to do so how are we supposed to guess?

I give up

The simple answer to your question Paul is 'don't give us a choice'. We (nearly) all manage to not jump out of trees, not walk out in front of buses, not drink bleach, not claim to have a concealed bomb, not riot or loot. We should be aware of the consequences of these actions. We then have the right to suffer those consequences.

Andrew Gilbart QC has my support. In cases like these we have to remember the circumstances that the offences were committed in. These people hid among the mass to break the law so why look at their individual situations. The guidelines do need to be set aside in favour of harsher punishments.

The people that were inciting trouble using social networking should be held up as examples. People know what will happen if they jokingly claim to have a bomb about their person in an airport. People should be equally wary of this kind of incitement and be aware of the weight of sentence that such action attracts. Perhaps these people are often inciting the gullible to offend whilst remaining immune from repercussions themselves.

If every one that rioted along with their friends, supporters and those people with subversive agendas were to cause outcry against these punishments would that not be a large number of voices? Very biased and self serving voices at that.

The riots were an attack on the general populace. That can't be condoned. Where's the future in that. Perhaps we should have guidelines on which rights we have and which we will sacrifice by becoming involved in mindless riots like these. I will stand up for peaceful protest as an essential tool along with other peaceful actions.

When people talk about their basic rights am I wrong in thinking that our basic rights are to suffer no loss or punishment if we cause no loss or harm? Nothing more than that? How often are human rights reeled out for those that offend in comparison with those that don't? Should I say 'in contrast' with those that don't offend?

Make examples of them. Leniency can be introduced later if the offenders are suitably remorseful and dependant on their history.
They should think themselves lucky we don't adopt the Russian or Turkish systems (or shariah law and its "hands off" approach).

I find the comment from Tom Brake a little concering:

Tom Brake, told BBC2's Newsnight that people were receiving sentences and "if they had committed the same offence the day before the riots, they would not have received a sentence of that nature".

shows a distinct lack of thought on his part. The day before was completely different - there were not riots going on. That day there were so possible that some of the community would have been spurred on by them.

There will always be different views. Perhaps the other problem is the media. Having done jury service some 35+ years ago that was an eye-opener in more than one way. Hearing all of the evidence rather than just what the media reports could give different impressions.

Paul your comment 'you lot cannot even decide amogst yourselves' has the problem of 'you lot'. There are all different views and as you might detect I do not agree with Tom Brake so whatever you do will be right with some, not enough with some and too much with the rest.

Now within 'magistrating' you must have the likes of Tom Brake who will give lenient sentences and ones that go the other way. You will never get it right in the eyes of all but do a very necessary task.

I think there SHOULD be stiffer sentencing for participating in civil unrest of this nature. It should be common knowledge that this will be the case.( I nearly said common sense). I obviously don't include peaceful protest in there but that shouldn't matter anyway as peaceful protest is lawful until it changes into something else, whereupon it should be treated for what it is.


(Can anyone remember when common sense was common? I blame the gumment.)


I read a report about rioting in Rotherham in 1865.
40 police officers could not contain the riot so the 5th Hussars were called in. After a magistrate read the Riot Act the Hussars were sent to peacefully contain the crowd (they only used the flat of the sword from horseback on the most stubborn offenders).
This happened during an election in which only 3.1% of the towns population were allowed to vote. Due in small part to this unfairness and due to the unrest being caused during an election the judge chose to give sentences of 2 months in prison instead of 7 years hard labour for general riot.

It would appear strange now that the rioters chose to mainly break pub windows. The only two parties in this election were the Conservatives and the Liberals.

Further to my previous comments, does fiddling expenses rate lower down the low morals list?
I'm in favour of not overlooking the fact that Gerald Kaufman fiddled £9k to pay for his flatscreen B&O telly. I just read an article that reminded me of these facts. While no lives were endangered (in the UK) when these fiddles took place the loot bagged was considerably higher per offender.

I also now think the two "Facebook riot inciters" should be set free following appeal in view of the facts (i.e. no riot occurred in the area and no previous bad behaviour - more stupid folly than actual incitement - when seen retrospectively).

It would be a good idea to threaten higher sentences for future riots but the imbalance of current sentences has me wondering. When someone of previously good behaviour hands themselves in and is told to expect a long sentence and known offenders get off light.

I may sound like a pinball bouncing off the cushions but..common decency does occasionally rear it's head amongst the anger.

signed
a Lord Macdonald supporter.