A Counterblaste to Tobacco (but not to crime)

Violent assaults and serious antisocial behaviour are lower priorities for councils than stopping people smoking, town hall targets showed yesterday.

Despite a government poll showing community safety was voters' overwhelming priority, anti-crime initiatives will not be the main focus of authorities.

Details published yesterday by Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, set out the targets picked by each local authority — and agreed by her department — to be their future priorities. While performance will be measured across the whole range of 198 indicators, targets will be set only for the 35 chosen as top local concerns.

Jobless 16-18 year olds, reducing teenage pregnancy, providing housing, protecting the environment and cutting child obesity were the five selected by most councils. While reducing “serious acquisitive crime” such as thefts from cars was sixth, cutting the rate of “assault with injury” was 13th and domestic violence 20th.

Considered a higher priority than both by most councils were stopping smoking and boosting the numbers of local people “who feel they can influence decisions in their locality”.

The local targets are agreed with central government after consultation with bodies such as local police, health service and jobcentres.

Alongside the new targets, Ms Blears published a YouGov poll, commissioned by the Government, showing that 82 per cent of respondents considered “creating safer communities” among their top priorities.

The councils that do best at meeting their chosen targets will qualify for extra cash.

Presumably the number of people "who feel they can influence decisions in their locality" might best be increased by actually listening to the concerns of people, and placing the issues which they worry about at the top of the agenda, rather than by according those issues less importance than something which they don't really care about one way or the other.

But, of course, dealing with crime and anti-social behaviour might prove to be rather difficult. By contrast, in the present political climate, smokers are a remarkably soft target, and cutting levels of smoking (which, in my opinion, are not a matter for local government, anyway) is a remarkably easy challenge. Indeed, since the number of smokers is already in steady decline, it may be quite possible for councils to do nothing and still hit their targets! Perhaps that explains the claim that preventing people from lighting up every now and then is more important than preventing people from mugging one another. Or perhaps this rather bizarre ordering of priorities simply testifies to the prevalence of nanny statist attitudes among our political masters, national and local. Either way, it's idiotic.

Hat-tip: Julia M

London's vibrant diversity

Police were appealing for witnesses today following the attempted murder of a man who was doused in petrol and set on fire in east London.

The 20-year-old, who is fighting for his life in hospital, was torched as he sat in his car in Forest Gate.

It is believed the Hindi [sic] victim, who suffered 65 per cent burns in the attack, was targeted because he was dating a Muslim girlfriend.

He had just parked his car, a green Honda Prelude, in St George’s Road when he was approached by the suspect or suspects and had petrol poured over him before being set alight.

[...]

Two men aged 20 and 21 have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and released on bail.

While this report tells us that the victim was a Hindu, and his girlfriend a Muslim, no details are provided regarding the religious affiliation of his attackers. They could be literally anyone...

Hat-tip: Dhimmi Watch

Compare and contrast

A lawbreaker:

A bus passenger is launching a legal challenge after being handed a criminal record amid a dispute over a 90 pence fare.

Tom Usher believed he had paid the charge by swiping his Oyster travel card as he boarded the bus in December.

But a spot check by an inspector found that the payment had not been debited.

Although Mr Usher, 37, still had £1.30 on his card when challenged and maintains that he offered to pay it as soon as the oversight was discovered, he was ordered before magistrates, found guilty of failing to pay the fare and fined £90 with costs of £100.

A lawmaker:

Giles Chichester resigned as Conservative leader in the European Parliament after a scandal surrounding expenses worth more than £145,000.

Europe's most senior Tory was forced to step down after Caroline Spelman, Conservative Chairman, demanded that he opened his books to Party auditors within 24 hours, for a "full explanation".

Mr Chichester had at first tried to shrug off a "technical breach of rules", which he claimed, had followed a misunderstanding of the Parliament's financial regulations.

[...]

Mr Chichester's case was not helped by comments he made while admitting a "mistake" during a television interview on Wednesday night.

"Whoops-a-daisy I am shown up to have made a mistake," he said, in comments that angered Conservative HQ in London.

Mr Chichester first admitted on Wednesday that he had broken rules over the last five years, after a change in financial rules, by paying the Parliamentary Assistant Allowance, worth an annual £160,000, into a family owned firm, where he is a paid director.

Between 2003 and 2007, Francis Chichester Ltd, the family company named after Mr Chichester's famous round-the-world yachtsman [father], received £134,499 in Parliament payments, according to figures seen by the Daily Telegraph.

During the same period, the directors, Mr Chichester and his wife, were paid £30,660.

Payments continued into the company until June 2008, taking the total sum thought to be under investigation by the Parliament authorities over the £145,000 mark.

The Parliament first contacted Mr Chichester 18 months ago about a "potential conflict of interests" but pressure built after media reports that Mr Chichester had paid the family firm £445,000 in allowances since 1996.

Another lawmaker:

Another top Tory MEP has lost his job in the second expenses scandal to hit the party in two days.

Den Dover has been replaced as the Conservatives' chief whip in Europe after admitting paying his wife and daughter £750,000 for work.

And another:

Michael Cashman, a leading Labour MEP, has paid his boyfriend more than 8,000 pounds a month from his taxpayer-funded expenses, the Telegraph can disclose.

Documents show that Paul Cottingham was given secretarial allowances worth £8,143 a month to administer in 2002. This was the maximum allowance available at the time. Euro-MPs can now receive an allowance for staff of £160,000 a year.

Back in 1696 Samuel Garth observed that "little villains must submit to fate/that great ones may enjoy the world in state". And boy, was he right! Whatever way you look at it, it is surely self-evident that the three MEPs listed above - not to mention the numerous other MPs and MEPs whose greed has been widely and extensively chronicled over recent months - are infinitely more morally culpable than Tom Usher. But he's the one with the criminal record, and they're the ones who are still "enjoying the world in state", and dictating how the rest of us live our lives, into the bargain.

Demonising an entire community

I have to confess that when the news that the Stephen Lawrence memorial had been vandalised broke, I didn't follow the story as attentively as I might have done. I did, however, note that Ken Livingstone had come out and claimed that it was an "outrageous act of racism", and that various race hustlers (such as the lowlife at BLINK) had made the same claim.
But while I read about the claims that evil white racists had been behind the crime, I did not see the following descriptions of the people who are really alleged to be responsible:

Officers, who have studied CCTV footage, said three suspects were seen approaching the £10 million building from a footbridge over the Dockland’s Light Railway before fleeing the scene after the attack.

Two of the suspects are described as white, between 16 and 18 years old, wearing plain dark hooded tops.

See! Evil white racists! See, Ken was right! Only:

The third is described as a light-skinned black man in his late teens or early twenties and shorter than the other two suspects. He was wearing a dark hat and had facial hair.

It's true that the police are continuing to treat this as a racist incident. But that probably says more about the cowed and politically-correct nature of the Metropolitan Police than it does about the truth. After all, one finds it difficult to imagine in what circumstances a black vandal would have an anti-black racist motive for his crime. Furthermore, as the black suspect was a few years older than the two white ones, it seems quite probable that he was, in fact, the ringleader. If this was the case, then the possibility of a racist motive would be further negated.

Regardless of one's views on the Stephen Lawrence case, and, more particularly, on the victimhood circus to which it has given rise, the fact is that vandalising a memorial to a murder victim is a particularly obscene act. Hopefully, the individuals who have done this will be swiftly brought to justice.
However, equally obscene was the speed with which Livingstone and his race hustler friends leapt up to scream "RACISM" at the tops of their voices, without bothering to produce any real evidence to back up their claim. Had they directed their false allegations against any group other than whites, they would, no doubt, have been accused of "demonising an entire community". Indeed, in those circumstances Livingstone and BLINK might well have been among the first to make the allegations of demonisation...

Our friends the police

A policeman who helped in a fatal attack on a pensioner's home can be unmasked today.

Stephen Smith, 49, used the police national computer to find Bernard Gilbert's address on behalf of an assailant hell-bent on revenge after a row over a parking space.

The officer's involvement in the tragedy can be revealed after two brothers were found guilty of manslaughter by a jury yesterday at the end of a two-week trial at Nottingham Crown Court.

PC Smith, a police officer for 24 years, resigned from the Derbyshire force before he could be sacked.

A police source said Smith had kept his pension, but it was frozen at the point he resigned.

Yeah, that'll teach him!

The court heard that 79-year-old Mr Gilbert, of Spondon, near Derby, argued with Zoe Forbes, 26, after she "nipped into" the parking space he was intending to use at their local Asda in January last year.

She wrote down his car number and passed it to her husband Mark, who gave it to a friend, Dale Phillips, who knew Smith.

The court heard that the following day, 40-year-old Forbes texted his wife, assuring her: "I've got someone on to it.

"Fingers crossed, I'll get an address. Then we'll smash his car to bits - and then his hire car and then whatever he gets after that until he dies."

Smith traced the pensioner's address and it was passed back to Forbes, who sent another text reading: "Bingo! Number 17, your time is up!"

Days later, armed with the information supplied by Smith, Forbes and his brother Steven drove to the pensioner's bungalow and Steven, 22, hurled a half-brick through the window while Mr Gilbert was watching television.

The former Rolls Royce aero worker collapsed in front of his wife Betty.

By the time a paramedic arrived, he was already dead. He was later found to have been suffering from angina.

Smith, of Oakerthorpe, Derbyshire, admitted disclosing personal data contrary to the Data Protection Act 1988 at Derby Magistrates' Court in March last year and was fined £1,200.

[...]

Smith was living with a girlfriend and their children but the couple recently split up and he now stays with his mother, Joan.

He refused to comment yesterday but his mother said he had been under stress at work at the time of the incident.

She said: "It has affected him immensely. Steve had been suffering from stress and depression - and still is - and I have been left to pick up the pieces.

"He has found a new job, but he is still suffering because of all this. Why won't people leave him alone?"

I know how she feels. You commit one tiny little violation of your duty to the public, one person - only one - gets killed because of it, and suddenly, you're the bad guy.

Cases like this provide one of the reasons why we should all be extremely wary about the ever-increasing number of databases held by various agencies of the state. Because it only takes one bad apple for the records to end up in the wrong hands. Or indeed, one government cock-up of the kind we've seen rather a lot of recently.

Postscript: In other Plod news, there's a rather entertaining argument going on between the author of the Devil's Kitchen blog, and the members of the Police Oracle forum. The comments at the Police Oracle forum, and those left by policemen in the comments section of this post (the one which started the whole thing off) are especially interesting, in illustrating the contempt with which many police officers view the general public (something which I, for one, am more than willing to reciprocate), as well as their self-righteous detachment from reality. They're rather reminiscent of our social worker friends in that respect...

Today's Home Office Cock-up

We've had the illegal immigrant who was employed as a security guard at the Home Office, not to mention numerous illegal immigrants who were working there as cleaners, but this story really does take the proverbial biscuit. In fact, I think it takes the whole pack:

An asylum seeker with a false passport worked for almost a year processing immigration appeals, it emerged yesterday.

Eugene Tawanda Madzima landed the job at the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal Service after supposedly undergoing background checks.

Officials were tricked by a faked letter from the Home Office saying the 24-year old had permission to stay in the UK.

Madzima was so well regarded at work he even gave a staff training presentation at the AITS centre in Leicester.

He was caught only when he tried to use the forged passport to open an HSBC bank account.

As Madzima was jailed for 12 months at Leicester Crown Court for holding forged documents, Judge Simon Hammond said the situation was "staggering" and "beggars belief".

He added: "Why was he able to get a fulltime job with the Appeals and Immigration Tribunal Service, of all people, who are meant to be dealing with people seeking asylum?

"No proper checks were made and yet he must have been on their records. "

Words really do fail me. Is there anyone at the Home Office who isn't an utter buffoon (apart from the apparently rather cunning asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, that is)?

Scumwatch

The ringleader of the group who committed this crime may have been as young as 14:

A terminally-ill woman in a wheelchair has been assaulted by a group of youths who hit her on the back of the head.

Police said the attack in Woolworths in Biggin Street, Dover, Kent on Saturday, may have been filmed on a mobile phone.

The youths were seen laughing and looking at a mobile phone after the attack on Beverley McFarlane, 41, who has lymphoma, a form of cancer.

A Woolworths spokeswoman said the firm is co-operating with police and all stores had CCTV and security guards.

Mrs McFarlane said she grabbed her bag before being thumped hard in the back.

She said the attack began when one youth banged a tin of chocolates she had on her knees.

She said: "I grabbed my bag, thinking that they might grab my bag, and then another boy came behind me, and thumped me in the back.

"It was that hard it made me cry."

[...]

Staff alerted a supervisor to the incident, who radioed for police backup.

The staff then intervened and asked the boys to leave, after which the incident was "in police hands", [a Woolworths spokeswoman] said.

Of course, the ideal course of action would have been for the staff, assisted by the other customers (who seem to have done nothing whatsoever while this was going on) to secure the boys, by force if necessary, and detain them until the police arrived. But I suppose that then it would have been fifty-fifty whether the police arrested Mrs McFarlane's attackers, or the people who (hypothetically) caught them.

On the plus side, the lowlife responsible for one of the crimes I wrote about back in February has been jailed indefinitely. Of course, had he not been granted early release from prison - despite breaking a fellow inmate's jaw while incarcerated - this crime would never have happened at all:

A crack addict who left a charity worker for dead had been freed early from prison weeks earlier after another violent attack.

Ebanezer Adesina was on licence when he ferociously attacked Roger Hare after the profoundly deaf grandfather asked him to move his legs so he could get off a train.

The 20-year-old was released early from a three-year jail term for robbing two men.

While in jail, he broke a fellow inmate's jaw and was sentenced to serve 15 months concurrently for the attack.

Adesina, who was unemployed, was on the same train as 61-year-old Mr Hare, who was returning home after an evening discussing charity events in London on February 20 this year.

As he stood up to leave the train at West Dulwich station in South London, Mr Hare politely asked Adesina to move his feet so he could pass by.

Adesina remained motionless and as Mr Hare brushed past him, he stood up, swore and started to punch his victim repeatedly.

Mr Hare was struck with such force that he landed head first on the platform, shattering his skull.

Witnesses described him hitting the ground "like a sack of potatoes".

Adesina then calmly stepped over his Mr Hare's unconscious body and walked out of the station, telling a passenger who shouted at him to stop: "What's the point? He's dead already."

Mr Hare spent a week in a coma on a life-support machine.

Yesterday Adesina, from Dagenham, East London, was sent to jail indefinitely at Southwark Crown Court for causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

And a Scumwatch old boy has also found his way to chokey, albeit for only four months:

A thug who blocked the path of an ambulance carrying a dying pensioner to hospital was today jailed for four months.

Michael Boyd, 22, stood directly in front of the ambulance to prevent it making its journey to hospital.

Inside, a paramedic was treating Norman Bell, 84, who had collapsed from a massive heart attach as he played bowls at St Oswald Catholic Social Club in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Wigan, in July.

Mr Bell died the following day.

Magistrates in Wigan were told today that Boyd, a father-of-one from Belvedere Road, Newton-Le-Willows, put his hand on the windscreen of the ambulance then began to swear at the driver and shouted threats that he would kill him.

The driver set off but Boyd continued to shout threats then began to bang on the side of the ambulance.

I should point out that there's no evidence that Boyd's actions contributed to Mr Bell's death. Still, with a sentence of four months (which will mean rather less than that in practice), I have to say that Boyd has got off pretty lightly.

The stealth amnesty for illegal immigrants

As many as 165,000 asylum seekers are to be granted an "amnesty" to live in Britain, it was revealed.

The vast bulk of the migrants are failed refugees whose files were left lying in boxes by bungling Home Office staff.

They have now been living here so long that officials have ruled that it would be a breach of their human rights to kick them out.

Ministers admitted that the first 19,000 have already been granted leave to remain under what the Tories described as a "stealth amnesty".

All will now be free to bring their relatives to Britain - and claim the full range of benefits.

As I have written at least three times already (in relation to calls for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, which is basically what we have here) these people are illegal immigrants: their very presence in our country is in violation of our laws. As such, it is simply ridiculous to say that because they have succeeded in breaking the law, and getting away with it, for an unusually long time, they should be rewarded (in this case, by being allowed to live here legally). As I wrote in July, it's rather like saying that if you kill someone and then avoid capture for ten years, then you should have all charges against you dropped, and be given a knighthood.

Furthermore, the fact that these illegal immigrants are being rewarded for breaking the law is likely to encourage more people to seek to enter Britain illegally. Thanks to the government's complete inability (or perhaps unwillingness) to do anything to limit either legal or illegal immigration, this country is already seen as a soft touch, as the number one destination for the discerning phoney refugee - as one Iranian would-be illegal immigrant, waiting at Cherbourg to nip across the channel, put it, "Britain has been our destination from the day we left our home countries". Now, because of yet more government incompetence, coupled with the excesses of the "human rights" culture, there is a further incentive to come here: stick around long enough, and you can stay forever.

Can we call him a crook yet?

In all the ongoing fiasco over the dodgy dealings of various senior Labourites, one story has given me particular satisfaction. One story? Well, three actually:

1. Hain declares deputy leader gift

2. Hain admits more donations errors

3. Hain Cheated the Labour Party as Well

And there could be more to come...

Oh, how I hope this kills that utter bastard's career. And so close to Christmas!

Postscript: As regards the question posed in the title, the answer is "yes, we can call him a crook - that's a fair way to describe a convicted criminal".

Marksman of the Day

A Texas man has become a hero after he took it upon himself to shoot and kill two burglars who had broken into his neighbour's house.

Joe Horn called the police to report the burglary and then stepped outside and shot the burglars dead as they left the neighbour's house.

A recording of the call suggests Mr Horn, 61, was itching to kill the two burglars.

"Don't go outside the house," the 911 operator pleaded.

"You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with a gun. I don't care what you think."

"You want to make a bet?" Horn answered.

"I'm going to kill them."

Admirers, including several of his neighbours, say Mr Horn is a hero for killing the burglars, protecting his neighbourhood and sending a message to would-be criminals. Critics call him a loose cannon. His attorney says Mr Horn just feared for his life.

[...]

Horn was home in Pasadena, about 15 miles southeast of Houston, on Nov 14 when he heard glass breaking, said his attorney, Tom Lambright.

He looked out the window and saw 38-year-old Miguel Antonio DeJesus and 30-year-old Diego Ortiz using a crowbar to break out the rest of the glass.

He grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun and called 911, the police emergency number, Lambright said. "Uh, I've got a shotgun," he told the dispatcher.

"Uh, do you want me to stop them?"

"Nope, don't do that," the dispatcher responded.

"Ain't no property worth shooting somebody over, OK?"

Horn and the dispatcher spoke for several minutes, during which Mr Horn pleaded with the dispatcher to send someone to catch the men and vowed not to let them escape.

Over and over, the dispatcher told him to stay inside.

Horn repeatedly said he couldn't.

When the men crawled back out the window carrying a bag, Mr Horn began to sound increasingly frantic.

"Well, here it goes, buddy," Mr Horn said as a shell clicked into the chamber.

"You hear the shotgun clicking, and I'm going."

A few seconds passed.

"Move," Horn can be heard saying on the tape. "You're dead."

Boom.

Click.

Boom.

Click.

Boom.

Mr Horn redialed 911 and told the dispatcher what he'd done. "I had no choice," he said, his voice shaking. "They came in the front yard with me, man. I had no choice. Get somebody over here quick."

Mr Lambright said Mr Horn had intended to take a look around when he left his house and instead came face to face with the burglars, standing 10 to 12 feet from him in his yard.

Mr Horn is heavyset and middle-aged and would have been no match in a physical confrontation with the two men, who were young and strong, Lambright said.

So when one or both of them "made lunging movements," Mr Horn fired in self-defence, he said.

Family members of the two shooting victims have made few public statements.

Diamond Morgan, Ortiz's widow, who has an 8-month-old son with him, told Houston television station KTRK that she was stunned by Horn's statements on the 911 tape.

"It's horrible," she said. "He was so eager, so eager to shoot."

Yes, and your husband was clearly rather eager to help himself to other people's property. Had he been able to refrain from doing so, he would still be alive today. As it is, I for one won't be shedding any tears for him.

Update: They certainly know how to deal with burglars in Texas: here's another case of a Texan property owner shooting a thief dead, on Thursday afternoon local time.

Stupid Criminals of the Day

Are these the most stupid muggers in Britain?

Minutes after attacking a teenager on a commuter train, these young lads shamelessly posed for CCTV footage.

Then, astonishingly, they tried to cover up their faces with their scarves and jumpers once they realised what they'd done.

The three youths had just mugged a 15-year-old for his mobile phone and iPod after jumping on him on the train to Guildford, Surrey.

They punched him repeatedly in the face before pinning him down and stealing his possessions.

The victim fled the train at Effingham Junction after the attack, which took place between Leatherhead and Effingham Junction around 4pm on 13 September.

But the suspects remained on board and strutted in front of the train's security cameras, brazenly pulling faces and making themselves easily identifiable.

And here are two of the three Nobel Prize nominees:


Charming, aren't they?

What would Elizabeth Fry do?

An inmate has failed to use human rights legislation to force a prison to charge him less for phone calls.

Richard Davison, serving 12 years for drugs offences at HMP Elmley, in Kent, wanted the High Court to back his bid.

But Mr Justice Mitting ruled Davison's right to family and private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights had not been infringed.

The fact that prisoners received visits and letters demonstrated their rights were protected, said the judge.

Davison, who is not due for release from the jail until September 2009, had applied for permission to challenge a Prison Service refusal in January to attempt to renegotiate its BT contract, which runs until 2011.

Davison's lawyers had argued that the price of calling his girlfriend in Essex, or family members in Yorkshire, was unfairly higher from jail phones than from public booths.

They said prisoners currently pay 10p for the first 55 seconds of local or national calls to landlines, then 1p per every 5.5 seconds.

The cost of calls from BT public payphones is 40p for the first 20 minutes followed by 10p for each subsequent 10 minutes.

You get 20 minutes for 40p? What public payphones are these? And where can I find one? All the ones I find seem to give rather less value for money than the prison ones.

Nonetheless, my heart really does bleed for poor Mr Davison, and all his fellow criminals victims of bourgeois oppression. It is simply intolerable that he and other inmates should have to pay fully 10p per minute to use the telephone, and, being the great philanthropist that I am, I have devised a way of sparing all prisoners the great burden of the costs associated with the use of telephones: take away the phones! Do that, and never again will any prisoner have to endure the humiliating violation of their human rights that paying for their calls undoubtedly is. So take away the prisoners' payphones: their human rights demand nothing less!

Paedophile has sentenced increased

Back in August I wrote about Michael Porter, the man who, after pleading guilty to twenty-five counts of indecent assault and gross indecency, was sentenced to just three years of community rehabilitation.

Well, I am now pleased to be able to report that, after the case was referred to the Court of Appeal by the Attorney-General, the sentence was increased to an eighteen-month prison term. Still not very much for a man who committed crimes against numerous victims, one only eighteen months old, over a period of fourteen years, but at least it's a slight improvement.

Bizarre headline of the day

From the BBC News website:

Bike sex man placed on probation

And yes, the story is just as freakish as it sounds!

For a change: a nice news story

In a comment on my post about Stephen Gordon, who carried out a vicious assault on a 96 year-old war veteran, and got off with a three year supervision order, Daphne wrote the following:

FR, you have the absolutely worst stories anywhere on the blogosphere.

I need to go take my Prozac after reading you!

So here, for Daphne, and also for any readers who may feel, as I sometimes do, that this country is definitely doomed, is a story of the kind that makes one proud to be British:

He was carrying a gun with intent to rob. She was behind the till at a Tesco petrol station.

With the odds so heavily in his favour the gunman must have thought the next few seconds would be a breeze. He had not, however, allowed for the formidable Linda Faulkner.

Instead of surrendering the £15 cash from her till, the 51-year-old turned to the raider and told him she was too busy to deal with him.

"I just got on with it," she said. "British people don't stop work just because someone is trying to bully us with guns."

Yesterday David Collinson, 42, was beginning a seven-year jail sentence after he was convicted of robbery at Gloucester Crown Court.

Judge Martin Picton paid tribute to Miss Faulkner with a £200 court award and told her she had shown ' remarkable courage' in standing up to the armed raider.

Exactly. I am also pleased to note that Collinson got a pretty decent sentence, even bearing in mind that he may only serve half of it. Certainly a lot more reasonable than that given to Stephen Gordon. All in all a happy ending all round, except for the bad guy.

Now, if only our politicians could learn to stand up to the Islamofascists, the EU, and the other scum who threaten our country, in the same way that Linda Faulkner stood up to this criminal thug, then we might be in business!

Wanted: Lynch Mob

A paranoid schizophrenic who punched a 96-year-old war veteran in the face, leaving him blind in one eye, walked free from court yesterday after a judge ruled that detaining him was not in the best interests of the public.

Stephen Gordon, 44, was captured on CCTV launching a savage, unprovoked attack on defenceless Shah Chaudhury after they bumped into each other on a crowded tram in south London.

Other afternoon passengers, including children, looked on in horror as Gordon called Mr Chaudhury a "b******" and lashed out at the great-grandfather with his clenched right fist.

In a statement to Croydon Crown Court Mr Chaudhury, a British citizen, said he had been standing in the aisle of the tram because nobody would give up their seat for him.

Which is bad enough in itself, although hardly surprising: London is, after all, the world centre for rudeness and discourtesy. On crowded tube trains I have actually seen healthy young people, who would be quite capable of standing for a few minutes, pushing the elderly out of the way in their selfish desperation to get a seat for themselves.

He was gripping a rail with both hands to steady himself when Gordon tried to squeeze by under his arms.

In the process Gordon’s hat fell off, triggering the attack.

“I had done nothing to provoke him,’’ said Mr Chaudhury. “The driver and the other passengers came to my aid and I was taken to hospital.”

At a trial earlier this year Gordon, of Academy Gardens, Croydon, was found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm.

During the trial Gordon claimed that Mr Chaudhury had punched him.

Causing GBH with intent carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The attack was vicious and unprovoked, the victim was about as defenceless as you can get, and has suffered severe adverse consequences as a result of the attack (as well as losing the sight in one eye, he has suffered a general deterioration in his health, and now resides in a care home) and Gordon appears to have been completely unrepentant. In these circumstances, what sentence do you think Gordon got?

He was sentenced yesterday to a three year supervision order which requires him to receive psychiatric treatment.

“At first blush it is not a difficult sentencing exercise, an immediate and significant prison sentence would well be justified,” Judge Kenneth Macrae told the court.

“That said it would do nothing to protect the public in the future and my real concern is the public. It seems to me that the best way of ensuring that he is not a risk, is in relying on various support from psychiatrists and probation officers.”

I would suggest that Gordon would be still less of a threat to the public, were he to reside behind the sturdy walls of one of Her Majesty's prisons, while receiving "support from psychiatrists". Judge Macrae also seems to have completely rejected any notion that Gordon should actually be punished for his behaviour, or that the sentence given should aim to deter anyone else from pursuing a similar course of conduct. Indeed, it would rather appear that Gordon has got off almost scot-free. What does that tell us about the extent to which the criminal has become favoured over the victim in the British criminal justice system?

Personally, I would rather like to see Gordon strung-up from a lamppost. And, I can't say that I'd be all that upset to see Judge Macrae swinging alongside him...

Do you feel safe?

Another classic example of joined-up thinking, courtesy of police chiefs:

The controversy over Police Community Support Officers deepened last night with the emergence of a leaked memo that "makes a mockery" of their ability to fight crime.

The memo states that PCSOs - dubbed Blunkett's Bobbies after the home secretary who created them - are not allowed to tackle violent yobs.

They are also barred from responding to any serious incident where there is not a fully-trained police officer already present.

The risk assessment compiled by Lancashire Police even forbids the PCSOs to issue fines, detain people or confiscate alcohol if any violence is threatened.

Instead, they are instructed to call for back-up or withdraw if they face confrontation by a member of the public.

I would have thought that situations where violence appears possible or likely are precisely the ones which most require the presence of qualified police officers. If PCSOs are going to be unable to deal with such situations, then there really is very little purpose behind their continued employment. As the Police Federation's Steve Edwards told the Daily Mail, it is surely going to be a more efficient use of resources to hire 60 fully-trained officers, who actually can take action in such circumstances, than to hire 100 PCSOs, who can't.

Meanwhile:

Police community support officers are to have more powers to investigate crime in an attempt to relieve work pressures on front-line officers.

Now, to me, this sounds rather like telling nurses that they are no longer allowed to take patients' temperatures, and then letting them carry out open heart surgery. How, precisely, are PCSOs going to be able to investigate crime, when they have absolutely no powers with which to back up their investigations? What will they do if the person they are investigating starts getting angry? Run away crying, presumably.

First wife beating, now shoplifting!

After Andrew Pelling's (alleged) altercation with his good lady, another senior Tory has found himself in a spot of legal bother:

Coronation Street star-turned-Tory blue-eyed boy Adam Rickitt was facing political ruin last night after being caught shoplifting.

Rickitt, one of Tory leader David Cameron's 100 A-listers, had hoped to secure a safe seat at the next General Election.

But his political aspirations could be destroyed after he tried to walk out of a supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand, with a block of cheese, a bottle of HP sauce and a jar of coffee.

Last night Rickitt - who is starring in popular in New Zealand TV soap Shortland Street - was in tears as he apologised for his actions.

He said: "I recently found out some very upsetting news. I was feeling helpless to deal with it because of the distance.

"I was so stressed-out that without thinking during my weekly shop I failed to pay at the checkout for a jar of coffee, a bottle of HP and cheese."

You'd think that, as an actor-turned-politician (i.e. as someone who specialises in deceiving people, one way or the other), he could at least have come up with a more imaginative excuse!

In more bad news for the Tories, the latest MORI poll has shown them lagging 8% behind Labour (up from 5% at the start of the month). As Conservative Home puts it, "it's now going to be difficult for Brown not to call an autumn election"! Still, with both an MP and an "elite" parliamentary candidate arrested within the space of a week, it's hard to see how, short of David Cameron actually murdering someone, things can get all that much worse...

Hat-tip: House of Dumb

Miranda Grell Convicted

An update on this story:

LABOUR Cllr Miranda Grell has been found guilty on two counts of making false statements under the Representation of the People Act 1983 - the first case of its kind in Britain.

She was alleged to have claimed during last year's Waltham Forest local election that Liberal Democrat rival, then Cllr Barry Smith, was a paedophile.

Announcing his findings of guilt this afternoon at Waltham Forest Magistrates Court, District Judge John Woollard fined Grell £500 on each of the two charges and ordered her to pay £3,000 costs.

She has also been banned from holding public office for three years, so will be forced to resign her seat, triggering what should be an interesting by-election.

Well done tourists!

A suspected burglar fell 30 feet from a top-storey window of a London hotel after being disturbed by guests.

He is fighting for his life after plunging face first on to the pavement from the second-floor window of the building in Victoria.

Five men, all of whom are believed to be tourists and guests at the hotel, are being interviewed by police. "Two men have been arrested and are being held at a central London police station," a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said.

Witnesses heard shouting and smashing noises from the top floor of the building just before the man fell at 6pm last night.

The man is believed to have been disturbed by two Italian guests returning to their room at the Cedar Guest House in Hugh Street.

Detectives are trying to establish if the intruder fell trying to escape or was pushed during a struggle. The police spokeswoman would not confirm the man was a burglar but said it was one of several lines of inquiry.

Because there are so very many alternative explanations for why he was poking through someone else's hotel room.

As with the similar case of Patrick Walsh, my sympathies are firmly with the two arrested men. While Mr Walsh's situation was somewhat worse - he was one-on-one with the burglar, who disturbed him as he slept in his flat, while these two tourists were two against one, and appear to have disturbed the burglar in the practice of his trade - I support the right of all law-abiding people to use whatever force is necessary to defend their property, no matter how little. From the information that we have at this point, this appears to be precisely what has happened here. And if the burglar gets injured, and if he dies, then that's just his hard luck. He chose to go out and break the law, and he must take whatever negative consequences accrue to him as a result of that decision.