WHERE ARE WE GOING? WHY ARE WE GOING? WHAT ARE WE DOING?

Changes in society take place at the edges; not in the centre.  They are insidious.  They creep in unnoticed by most but in a process which I liken to osmosis absorption takes place silently by stealth until at some future time the cry goes out, “How did we get here?  How could this (or that) happen in a country like ours?”  Why did this happen?" In the last couple of days three events, each insignificant in itself , give a clear indication of just what is taking place in our country beneath our  very own noses.  The combined odour is not to my taste.

Police forces are increasingly making it clear that they are no longer interested in accepting lost property being handed in to them by honest citizens behaving in what can only be described as a good example to others. I remember as a child my mother telling me to hand in to the local police station a ten shilling note I found in the park. That at a time when 10/- was a fortune to a seven year old.  Theft by finding is an offence rarely made out.  It will be rarer still from now on.   Decisions such as this  by police initiated by lack of resources will only reinforce the concept of all for one and one for one. So much for the concept of being my brother`s keeper.

Paedophilia is a grotesque offence.  Charging and convicting elderly men even in their nineties for their heinous actions many decades previously is as correct as  charging those involved in the Holocaust.  But to give immediate custody to such an individual who suffers from dementia, diabetes, deafness and uses a catheter IMHO shows that even the Appeal Court is being driven by hysteria.  It is intolerable.

The final example of the legal process living in its version of cloud cuckoo land is when a woman`s complaint about being wolf whistled is taken seriously enough by police to talk to the supposed offender.  Perhaps West Mercia Police used the time saved from accepting lost property found on the streets by the public to send officers to investigate.

NOBODY WANTS TO KNOW

The topic of fines has been here previously, previously and previously.............It doesn`t go away because governments of all persuasions have no provision for a final deterrent against non payers.  Of course the usual claptrap about means courts and ability to pay are used as an argument as to why up to £2 billion in fines, costs, surcharges etc is unpaid.  The numbers and arguments here in a single court in Northern Ireland serve as a microcosm of the situation in Great Britain.  It is virtually impossible to find official current figures for the numbers jailed for non payment of fines etc. for offences committed in England & Wales.  Page 19 of this document is the nearest I can find.  The estimate is that about 100 fine defaulters are jailed annually. Perhaps that insignificant number is why that £2 billion is owed to the Treasury when one includes all manner of unpaid Fixed Penalty Notices.  When there is no active deterrent to wilful non payers the system is a joke.  Of course such opinions are anathema to those in authority.  Well known organisations are on the phone to all and sundry when news of a Council Tax or TV License non payer of a fine lawfully imposed refuses to pay and after perhaps a year of hearings is  sentenced to 7 days inside.  This is aggravated by the pressure from the same organisations and others to remove the ability of Magistrates` Courts to impose custodial sentences in any cases whatsoever. Nobody from individual magistrates to prison governors wants these people put away but what is an alternative?  Whilst fines are the most common sentence in our courts, mainly in the lower court system, without enforcement they have no meaning.  But as with most matters in the justice system the public doesn`t care and politicians don`t want to know.

COFFEE AND STATISTICS

All those involved or remotely concerned with the justice system in this country will be unsurprised that law `n order has not been a topic of those seeking to bribe us for our votes next Thursday.  When the NHS has been adopted as an article of faith and those offering alternatives to its current position as the national religion being described as heretics to expect intelligent comment on both defence and justice in this election is to expect disappointment.   But the statistics are still emanating from Petty France.  I doubt there will be much comment on this latest set of numbers concerning re-offending.  For the mathematically inclined try crunching them with your coffee and biscuits.

A GIFT FOR UKIP

To be a Justice of the Peace is or was to be a representative of the public, of the common man, so that alleged offenders can be judged by their peers.  Indeed when I was appointed having “common sense” was a requisite.  That was dropped a decade or more ago.  With the many changes to the manner of domestic legislation since 1945 and the establishment of the European Convention of Human Rights in 1950 as a direct result of the atrocities committed during World War 2 and the introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998 some matters where common sense might have prevailed have been overtaken by the minutiae of legal jargon being argued by very eloquent lawyers and  interpreted  by judges sometimes too fearful of straying beyond self erected boundaries.  I would posit that this case is a perfect example of how judicial decision making does indeed stray beyond the wit of the common man using his common sense. Of course there are those who would argue that such decisions require more than just common sense; that only those highly skilled in the subject are fit to adjudicate and nobody would argue that a high intellect is not a necessity for such activity but would eg a Nobel Prize winner in Astrophysics or a chess Grandmaster be any less able to reach a just conclusion?   Such decisions as that for this self afflicted Libyan alcoholic are perfect ammunition to those who would offer extreme right wing views to many of the problems currently before us.  Some such problems might indeed profit from such views but when a total political philosophy is grounded upon an imagined contempt that the “Establishment” has for the majority of the population there lies trouble ahead.

No doubt certain aspiring UKIP candidates in next week`s election will quote this case.  It will be hard not to agree with them.

IO SONO IN VACANZA

As I`m off to warmer climes tomorrow I hadn`t intended posting today but having been an arch critic of interpretation services at magistrates` courts I thought it appropriate to pass on the latest statistics from the MOJ on the efficiency or otherwise of said services.  So for those statistically minded all the evidence is here.

All being well I hope to return here in a couple of weeks with more observations excessive amounts of Chianti and lasagne permitting.