Politicians, we are led to believe, are forever considering the public interest. To suggest that their actions and/or behaviour is more like the goldfish swimming endlessly around its bowl for the first time is to belittle the good fortune that we in this country have many saints and few sinners to govern us.
On 9th August 2011 whilst there was still disorder on the streets from riots initiated by the shooting dead of a criminal by Metropolitan Police I wrote on my as yet to be published diary:-
I have copied below from my yet to be published diary of 11th August 2011:-
"It had to happen; police complaining magistrates are being too soft both in bail decisions and sentences. I`m sitting tomorrow in a borough which was spared the anarchy of those nearby. Perhaps there will be some displaced rioters, looters and thieves before us? Under normal circumstances everyone has a right to bail and remands in custody are made only when there are grounds to believe a defendant will commit further offences, interfere with the course of justice or fail to appear at the future date specified and that no bail conditions will allay a court`s fears. Defendants of previous good character are often given the benefit of any doubt the above circumstances notwithstanding. Sentencing is applied to individuals and their particular circumstances. Many police officers seem to believe it appropriate that maximum sentences are given willy nilly. It ill behoves senior police officers to criticise the courts. When their own house is in order their comments might have more significance.
What is disturbing is the political pressure being applied by the Prime Minister in his televised statements and his remarks in the House today indicating custody as the expected option. Even disregarding the fact that defendants will be facing myriad charges, some summary only and some either way, no bench or District Judge[MC] should be influenced by this ill conceived posturing. My colleagues and I will do as we always do:-
"We will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second, in the office of Justice of the Peace and we will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of the realm without fear or favour, affection or ill-will."
It all seems so depressingly familiar. We are reminded by MSM that our prime minister was in charge of legal activities in August 2011 and was masterly in his actions to identify, prosecute and punish offenders. His objective was to have guilty offenders punished ASAP perhaps hoping that the Pavlov effect would be a deterrence to others. He had then at his disposal twice as many magistrates courts as now, twice as many magistrates as now, 147K police of whom majority were experienced, a functioning probation service and 1,200 prison spaces. Currently there are 1,458 such spaces. The CPS report for 2011-12 makes no mention of the number of prosecutors employed. What we do know is that between the year 2010/11 and 2011/12 the total number of CPS employed personnel fell from 8,094 to 7,394.
The 2011 riots, whilst causing material damage and physical harm to some, were largely caused by indignation within areas where there was a concentration of black people many taking their example from the reactions of black Americans to the iniquities of white American police officers on black suspects. Brexit and its consequences have been argued to have been a spark to an already volatile minority. The current mayhem might be traced to October 8th last year when supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign demonstrated against Israel whilst the dead bodies of 1,200 festival attenders and civilians were still warm lying in the sands a mile or so from Gaza from their murder the previous day and 250 hostages dead and alive were themselves taken to Gaza. Despite the open hate on display the Metropolitan Police then and for almost every weekend since have allowed blatantly anti Jew themed marches to proceed under the pretext that anti Zionist sentiment is not camouflage for anti Jewish sentiment. An unholy alliance of Islamists, marxists and fascists was and is involved in that expression of hate. The election of July 4th and the emergence of Reform as a parliamentary party has emboldened the fascist element within an increasingly disillusioned section of the population to argue that immigration concerns, legal and illegal, have reached a point which has taken the subject from statistics to personal disturbance of their daily lives.
From the point of view of observers the former DPP now the prime minister is putting into practice the same methods he considered suitable in 2011 but perhaps without the resources available in 2011. With crown and magistrates courts stymied by physical and personnel shortages it is unclear just how effective his wish list can be realised. Overnight court sittings didn`t last long last time out. A Guardian report of the time makes interesting reading. Whether the charges faced by defendants are summary eg common assault, affray which is either way or robbery which is indictable only they must be heard initially at magistrates court. In 2011 Justices Clerks who control day to day running of courts were told that all matters relating to the rioting which were either way must be sent to the crown court. They were also directed to place as many as possible before a District Judge rather than a bench of lay magistrates in the apparent belief that salaried judges were unlikely to disobey their paymasters. At my London court at that time as far as I know there were very few if any overnight sittings. At 9.30am on the first morning at which suspects of the August disturbances were brought to court for their first appearance the Deputy Justices Clerk told a very crowded retiring room that all those facing either way charges must be sent to the crown court. I was presiding magistrate of one such court. During the sitting a teenage black female defendant appeared on an either way charge which as I recollect was affray or theft. We heard the facts and the prosecutor`s request that the matter be sent to the crown court. We were disturbed. The facts as presented to us did not warrant our not keeping the case. We had a brief huddle in which we were absolutely in agreement. I whispered our decision to our legal advisor assuring her we would explain in open court that her (unsaid) advice was contrary to our decision thus absolving her from retribution. In my remarks I plainly told the court that we were going against the advice from our advisor but that as independent magistrates it was our decision to make. We never heard any more on our decision.
It seems that nothing at all has been learnt from 2011. When it comes to the crunch it appears that politics trumps legal niceties. It is not unlikely that the accusation against the Metropolitan Police [and others] of tolerating terrorist enablers and supporters of racial hatred for six months thus encouraging a wider range of law breaking will quietly go away.
14 years of Tory government ineptitude and institutional misinformation laid upon the naivety of Labour under Blair and Brown importing millions of people from alien cultures have brought us to this situation. It is only the near authoritarian governments of one or two EU members which have not experienced similar disturbances to their civil societies. Try as it might our new masters cannot brush the consequences of Muslim immigration under the carpet when the numbers who disdain our society, culture and history are such a large minority and those questioning such information considered against all reason as racist pariahs by those with their own agendas.
No comments:
Post a Comment