Monthly Archive for September, 2009

MORE SPIN FROM LABOUR ON OUR FAILING JUSTICE SYSTEM

Published on September 30, 2009 in Alan Johnson, Chris Grayling MP, Crime Recording, Gordon Brown, Nice 1 Ltd, PCSO, Police, UK Crime Statistics, WPC Yvonne Fletcher, asbo, home office, politics and victims. Closed

written by Crime Analyst from The Thin Blue Line

Extracts from Labour's Home Secretary, Alan Johnson's speech to the 2009 Labour Party Annual Conference:

"Crime is the area of government policy where statistics matter the least and perception matters the most. But the fact is that we have an excellent record to defend".

COMMENT : Statistics matter the least? You would say that, considering the actual level of crime (10million incidents) is twice that reported to the police (4.7million) and the Home Office admit that the higher figure is the most reliable. To admit they matter would mean you having do accept that crime is out of control and the public have lost confidence in reporting it. Tell the victims of crime that statistics matter the least, especially the ones that the Government policing system couldn't respond to because of endemic police bureaucracy, misdirected priorities and ivory tower minority projects.

"Overall crime is down by 36% since we came to power, violent crime by 41%, domestic burglary by 54% and vehicle-related theft by 57%."

COMMENT : What you mean is, you've found better ways to manipulate and misrepresent the statistics. If you mean that fewer people report crime because they have lost confidence in the system, we agree. However, the fudging of crime statistics has caused the general public to take your statistics with a pinch of salt, as political spin. Vehicle related thefts are now swallowed up in re allocated offences, such as burglary, robbery, or simple thefts. Your headlines earlier this year announced that vehicle crime was down by 10%. Yet Jacqui Smith revealed that 18,600 vehicle thefts were not reported as such, being absorbed into other offences. When added back into the vehicle theft numbers, take into account the under reporting and vehicle crime is INCREASING not decreasing. Your numbers are flawed by a serious corruption of the numbers for political gain.

"These achievements are a tribute to our policemen and women. There are more of them than ever before, supported by 16,000 Police Community Support Officers with a budget 60% higher than we inherited in 1997".

COMMENT : Yes, the crime figures are a tribute to our police officers, who do a very difficult job, despite a corrupted criminal justice system. 16,000 PCSO's without the powers to defend themselves and the public adequately. The funding for 16,000 PCSO's would have been better spent putting 12,500 regular officers, with full powers on the streets. 142,000 police officers in England & Wales. How many of them are involved in frontline duties?? The public would be shocked to hear that Government initiatives and projects, supported and promoted by the more senior politically directed officers take the vast majority of those officers off the streets, engaged in adminstrative, office based duties. A ridiculous number of officers are engaged in wasteful activity rather than actually doing the job we need them for, protecting our community and citizens.

The fact is, the thin blue line has become so transparent it is barely visible. Go to any police station between the hours of 9am - 5pm... try and get a parking space. Then revisit the same station at 10pm. That picture tells the story of the ineffective use of police resources when on the street policing is really needed. But hey, there are some lovely flow charts and tables to look at in those offices.

How much of that 60% budget funds frontline officer resources and how many millions are wasted on Government "Wendy House" ideas and projects?? All forces have been presented with a 10% budget cut for 2010/2011, based in part on the manufactured statistics and detections devised and implemented by the Home Office you represent.

"We need to ensure that any breach of an ASBO is prosecuted. Above all, we need to make it clear that anti-social behaviour isn't a low-level nuisance to be tolerated, it's a major source of insecurity and unhappiness that has to be tackled wherever and whenever it occurs".

COMMENT : 60,000 ASBO's with over half being breached, with the Criminal Justice System a toothless tiger to deal with it. The kids are laughing at authority because adequate powers were not put in place to deal with breaches of ASBO's. The penalties for breaching ASBO's are so pathetic, more than 50% have done so repeatedly with NO repercussions. Tell the victims of their behaviour how effective ASBO's have been without the necessary follow up powers to deal with breaches.

"It was Labour that introduced specialist domestic violence courts and helped put 720 fully trained independent domestic violence advisers in place. More arrests are being made and conviction rates are rising".

COMMENT : Domestic violence is an important issue that needs effective solutions. Yet again though, the Home Office saw this as a means of manipulating statistics and detection rates. No one would dispute the benefits of the extra steps now being taken to protect vulnerable victims in these circumstances. However, look more closely at the crime figures you boast about. Ask the front line officers how many cases they have been forced to deal with where complaints are withdrawn but the offence remains on the books for the purposes of ticking the detection box, criminalising thousands more people that the victim does not want to see prosecuted. Genuine cases where vulnerable parties are victimised and want to proceed are applauded, but there remains a massive distortion of the real picture by the Home Officer and senior officers pursuing detections at all costs.

"Gordon Brown has been integral to all of these achievements and he has led the way in addressing the biggest global economic and political challenges of our age".

COMMENT : This is the same Gordon Brown that did the deal with Gadaffi, trading justice for commerce over the Lockerbie bomber and the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher? How can the British public ever trust a man who would make such a despicable trade off?

Mr Johnson, you may choose to dismiss the statistics, the British public certainly do, they carry no weight when presented by a party that has manipulated and distorted them beyong truthful recognition. You may make your promises at Conference time, when it suits your political ends. However, the front line police officers know the real truth of your falsehoods. The general public are not stupid. They know the Government have been conning them these last twelve years on crime and policing. The see the evidence in the decay of our social fabric every day on the streets of Britain. So don't feed us your spin about crime being slashed, the figures are worthless and the words and hollow promises of your party are no longer trusted.

Britain may not yet be broken, but it is deeply wounded by the lies and spin we have been fed.

The wounds can be healed with transparent reform and back to basics policing unfettered by excessive political influence.

The Government to which you have pinned your flag of loyalty, no longer inspires the confidence and support of the public.

We look forward to witnessing a better future, with a Government whose actions will speak louder than words, delivering the justice and society we seek, with honesty and transparent solutions that will go a long way to regain the trust of the public.

The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Ltd

The original post can be found http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheThinBlueLine/~3/L-5kw-OJLjw/extracts-from-labours-home-secretary.html

And so it goes

Published on September 30, 2009 in The Job - Comment. Closed

written by 200 from 200 Weeks

Just a little follow on from yesterday’s entry…

Twenty years ago Mrs Pilkington would have had a much better service than she got in the years leading up to 2007. There were many thousands less police officers. In March this year there were 144,000 police officers. In March 1987 there were 120,000.

We have 24,000 more police officers yet those available for front line policing have been slashed dramatically. I don’t have access to any figures for the amount of officers available for day-to-day policing calls so I can only go by my own experience. In 1987 one division I worked in paraded 18 officers split between 4 police stations. This did not include 3 rural cars which covered the villages, 1 officer in every neighbourhood beat & a rural officers who shared all the villages between them. We put out 9 patrol cars in the division plus a walker in each of the town centres & the police stations were open 24 hours a day.

Now those same 4 towns have a maximum of 8 officers between them, we are lucky if they can put out 5 cars in the whole division, all of the police stations are closed longer than they are open.

Back in the day the village bobby lived on the patch & knew everyone & everything there was to be known. He probably looked after 2 or 3 villages. Every estate had a neighbourhood officer who lived on their patch, they often had a little police office attached to their house, they too knew everyone, they were a vast source of information. What they knew & what they did couldn’t be recorded in an exel spreadsheet yet their value to policing was enormous.

Then someone in a wendy house somewhere decided that the only way to measure the success of an organisation was to match its performance against a written down set of criteria & the way to do this was to count beans. Suddenly, the value of everything was measured in beans & rural/neighbourhood officers didn’t grow any beans on their patches. Add to that the fact that they lived in expensive police houses.

The theory went that if you did away with neighbourhood & rural officers not only could you pull them all back to the nick where they could produce a few beans, you could also save the expense of maintaining their houses, sell them off & plough lots of lovely lolly into all the new & dynamic projects which were about to hit the world of UK policing. We lost a generation of intelligence which we are only now getting back, amazingly enough, through local PCSOs, who will, within a few years, be just as valuable a tool to police intelligence as the old village bobby.

It made good political – read voting – sense to increase the number of bobbies, so every government promised more. More bobbies means more votes ‘cos we all want more bobbies on the streets, only they never made the streets. They all went into disparate little ‘remit’ teams. You know the teams, they are the ones you ask for help when you’re struggling to meet all the frontline priorities who turn round & say “sorry, mate, not my remit”.

So we had the burglary squad, set up to specifically target burglary beans, the robbery squad busy collecting robbery beans, sexual offences squad, paedophile squad, computer crime squad, diversity squad, more officers means more potential for naughty goings-on so the rubber heel squad was boosted. We had the serious crime units, the bloody serious crime units, organised crime, it goes on. Then there are the units who monitor the other units, who count the beans, who supervise those who count the beans, who make sure the right beans are being counted.

So every time an Inspector of Constabulary comes a-calling & says, “now look here Mr Chief Constable, your force is doing particularly low in detections of spanner-wielding credit-card thieves” we have to have a department whose soul aim is to reduce spanner-wielding credit card thefts.

The problem for those on the front line is that most of the calls we get don’t lead to all the remit-beans. Nobody measures the prevention of crime, nobody measures kids who piss up your garage & chuck eggs through your windows, nobody measures depressed people who threaten suicide but never go through with it. You don’t get a bean for sitting outside a row of shops stopping the kids from spitting at people with special needs.

And if they’re not measured, they’re not important.

If the next Inspector of Constabulary comes round & says “Now look here Mr Chief Constable, the behaviour of teenage yobs in this area is apalling, this chart shows a 150% increase in bad language in front of old ladies, get it sorted” you’ll have so many shiny-arses out of their offices that the problem could be sorted in a year.

It ain’t gonna happen, though.

The original post can be found http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/2063

How Great Thou … Art?

Published on September 30, 2009 in Uncategorized. Closed

written by Michael Pinkstone from Michael Pinkstone

Thanks to all who commented on my last post. I did respond to you all but ended up deleting the whole thing. It appeared that a few nefarious individuals were finding my site through what can only be described as unacceptable Google searches. I’d rather be discovered via the phrase “Pinkstone’s fantastic offerings”, for example, as opposed to random links between the words “sex”, “babies” and “bathtub”.

So, talking of paedophiles. Tate Modern have decided in their infinite wisdom to display a so-called “famous” image of a naked 10 year-old girl as part of a pornography exhibition.

I wonder what other quite frankly abhorrent decisions can – and undoubtedly will - be made in the name of “art”. Perhaps Mr Polanski will make a film about it or something.

Meanwhile, I woke this morning to discover that a Coronation Street actor has threatened to quit the soap if a storyline doesn’t go his way, which was important enough to overshadow news of a tsunami and an earthquake that have left hundreds, if not thousands, dead or buried alive.

Oh, how great thou art.

Now, because I am in an apocryphal frame of mind, here are 10 predictions concerning the future of the world. Unlike the occultist Nostradamus, I have not consulted arcane texts or summonsed ethereal beings to my locality using a complicated-looking tripod (especially not one bought from Argos during the January sale) and not a small amount of hallucinogenic substances.

Nay, instead I am sitting here in my “lounge pants” (please note the North American context of the word “pants” before you start making any unwarranted assumptions) and a slightly tatty but nonetheless robust Hook Norton Brewery T-shirt.

The time is 0925 hours, and this is what will happen:

1. Islam will merge with Catholicism to create an uber religion of unparallelled social, moral and ethical influence. This will usher in what is known as The Last Days.

2. Under laws implied by Gordon Brown, but later implemented by David Cameron’s successor’s successor’s successor, parents of children who commit crimes – including urban antagonism – will be severely punished. In some cases children will make judicial style decisions regarding their parents if they have been victims of crime at their hands. This will constitute a literal and allegorical fulfilment of the final part of Matthew 10:21 – “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.”

3. Petrol will cost £5.79 a litre by the time my son is old enough to drive. Mind you, if he ever moves to a sink estate near Doncaster he might consider himself old enough already.

4. You will be able to buy Walkers “Infidel” flavour crisps, courtesy of the Heathen Re-purposing Program. See point 1.

5. Sex and alcohol will only be available on prescription.

6. Police will respond to “Thought Crimes” and record them as such.

7. England’s new National Day (inaugurated in 2066) will consist of a vodka drinking competition whilst eating leftover sweets from the Hindu festival of Diwali. This won’t last long. See point 1.

8. Ugliness will become the 7th strand of diversity.

9. Unemployment will go through the roof. This will be recorded as “Criminal Damage to Personal Property”.

10. None of the above.

Thankyou for taking the time to consider my proposals. Answers on a postcard by next Wednesday.

Michael Pinkstone

Tales from Area 51: Memoirs of policing near London available to order online or from any good bookstore nationwide.

The original post can be found http://michaelpinkstone.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/how-great-thou-art/

The Persistant Caller

Published on September 30, 2009 in Uncategorized. Closed

written by PC Bloggs from PC Bloggs - a Twenty-first Century Police Officer

Last week there was a 999 call in Blandmore area from a woman reporting decades of sexual abuse by her parents and a historical rape by a co-worker. The police responded to it by phoning Social Services, logging the call, and hanging up.

This isn't because this is how we deal with allegations of serious sexual abuse and rape. It is because the woman was Patricia Levy and she calls the police three or four times a month to report the same thing. She usually makes the calls in batches of 30-40 in a day, and she's usually drunk. Patricia Levy was indeed abused as a child - at least that is what her mental health worker believes and he's probably right. She is now an alcoholic with learning difficulties and an obsession with sexual activity. She thinks it's happening to her everywhere, all the time. If that was happening to you, you'd call the police 30-40 times a day too.

The trouble is, Patricia is always drunk, so the mental health team can't/won't treat her. The alcoholics' programme won't take her on because she has mental health problems, and they can't deal with her sex abuse allegations. It used to be the case that the police was the one service who always had to help her, but now even we have a 'Patricia Levy policy'. The policy isn't all-encompassing: if Patricia reports a recent sex offence a detective will be sent to speak to her. She usually shouts abuse at them when they arrive, or denies ever calling the police.

I don't know anything about Fiona Pilkington other than the fact she killed herself two years ago along with her daughter and her rabbit. I suspect she didn't have quite the array of problems that Patricia Levy has. But I also suspect that Patricia will end up meeting a similarly grisly end, and I am sure the police will be blamed when she does. One thing I do know is that anyone who torches themselves and their child to death in a car is mentally ill, and that has nothing to do with kids harassing them (although it probably doesn't help).

Alex Simmons: yob who drove a woman to suicide, or normal kid blamed for someone else' vulnerabilities?

It's not about eschewing responsibility - I'd be horrified if someone I went to visit about harassing antisocial behaviour was found dead the next day, week or month. God forbid they take out their innocent child at the same time. But it's complex. You have to work out whether the antisocial behaviour is really that harassing, or whether it's being perceived that way by someone who is vulnerable. You have to figure out if there's a way to reasonably protect someone from a group of kids they're scared of, when there is no evidence of criminal offences. You have to consider what will happen if you put the kids before the court, how soon they'll be walking free with their fistful of community hours and unenforceable ASBO.

It's all very well calling the police 30 or 40 or 100 times. As long as you realise that only the police will even pick up the phone every time. The rest of society's infrastructure just isn't bothered, until it all goes wrong.

One final point: the coroner asked ,"Why did no one sit and chat to her over a cup of tea about her problems?"

If he's aiming that question at the police, the answer is to be found on this and all other police blogs, as well as here.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.

The original post can be found http://pcbloggs.blogspot.com/2009/09/persistant-caller.html

Civil Route – Stronger Justice

Published on September 30, 2009 in Uncategorized. Closed

written by Stressed Out Cop from Stressed Out Cop

I've been beaten down by the criminal justice system and like many others just accept it as a waste of time. There is no fear of it from young offenders and in the Fiona PILKINGTON case a criminal prosecution would have had little effect.

Here is the sentence handed down to a youth convicted of attempted robbery that I was involved in.

Supervision Order 9 months to follow directions in the order:

Supervised by a member of YOT (Youth Offending Team)
Participate in young black men's group work programme
one to one sessions with victim liason worker to address the impact of offending on the victim
reparation sessions as assessed by specialist worker
one to one sessions to consider thinking and behaviour and appropriate responses to situations
one to one sessions to identify and engage in appropriate training or employment.

Now for non recidivist offenders the above might well be worthwhile. I'm sure that for many it might divert them from a life of crime. More minor offences would also be subject to intervention by the youth offending team. Non compliance can result in curfew by Tag and being taken back to youth court. You need to be convicted though for any of this to take place, very difficult in itself. In the case I allude to above the best result was having the lad and his mates on conditional bail for several months on a night time curfew before trial. I'm sure it was a coincidence that the little series of robberies I'd suffered locally ceased during that time. Robbery is of course seen as a more serious offence.

For the minor public order offences I've seen the civil law used to good effect. One particular tool I like is the ASBI (Anti Social Behaviour Injunction) which despite the fancy handle is just a civil injunction. This can however come with a power of arrest if the civil judge decrees.

It would appear from what I've read that the Leicestershire council had taken over the lead on the Pilkington case and gone down the proportionate route by first getting an ABC (Anti-Social Behaviour Contract) signed by some young people. This is basically just the first step to getting an ASBO where conduct is challenged and a contract signed where they promise to behave and not contravene certain conditions like throwing stones etc. The local authority was in the process of getting things done as an ASBI was also granted but this was after the suicides. They were actually getting there and I think the orders in place may have helped. Perhaps the local police should have put their remarks about the criminal justice system more bluntly.

I would assume an ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) was not sought as this would have meant researching and compiling a massive pack of incidents and statements to put before the magistrates court. These are somewhat time consuming to say the least.

Let me give you an example of when my local authority sought an ASBI. A young man came onto one of my estates and abused one of the caretakers threatening to hit him. The caretaker only knew his first name, so things were discussed at the joint ASB meeting. Yours truly puts forward the likely suspect and supplies an address and police image. I'm set for an investigation knowing full well that the lads friends would back him and it's the caretakers word against them, CPS would say unrealistic chance of conviction = No Further Action.

The ASB manager who I've worked with for years is a good bloke knows this too well. He wants to protect his staff and is committed to getting an ASBI. I supply a few bits and pieces he requires, he gets a statement and their legal department get an injunction. The result being said individual is banned from the estate for 12 months WITH A POWER OF ARREST for me should I catch him. I was convinced he would breach it but he didn't or not to my knowledge. I was still on his case but when I spoke to him he saw this as a stronger punishment than if we'd gone down the criminal route, even if we'd got a conviction. The caretaker was happy too as he'd been supported by his employer.

I should just add that I worked with a very much "can do" authority that did actually allocate many resources to ASB. They had better vehicles, better kit and better administration back up than I could ever muster.

I suppose it depends on the judge who sits in the county court. I'm not so sure that they would be keen to grant injunctions in similar circumstances against juveniles. Civil route is definitely the way forwards. Lets just get an injunction to ban travelling criminals from being in certain areas where they've been caught doing crime. They can then be arrested and placed in front of a civil judge to explain why they breached their order.

But we shouldn't even be contemplating the civil law should we? Shows how badly things have gone. Tough On Crime Mmmm ..

The original post can be found http://stressedoutcop.blogspot.com/2009/09/civil-route-stronger-justice.html

PCSOs

Published on September 30, 2009 in Uncategorized. Closed

written by Sergeant Simon from Sergeant Simon

I know that I'm not so prolific a blogger as some of the other police bloggers types floating around (I note Gadget even writes the odd piece for the Telegraph column these days) but the old posts linger around and presumably crop up in searches.

I get emailed every time someone leaves a comment and a post from a long time ago still attracts comments. It started here with a general question about whether PCSO uniforms should be more distinct from sworn officers, followed up here and it appears that this theme still provokes reactions today.

3 years ago PCSO's were still quite new and controversial and media wise things seem to have calmed down. I'm curious to see if attitudes have changed. My own experience now is that apart from a few exceptions, PCSO's generally see their time as that role as merely a preliminary to joining the job proper. At least half of the last street duties intake were ex-PCSO's. I'm not surprised as they see as much nonsense as we do with a tiny percentage of the powers to do anything about it, and combined with the lack of any career structure its no wonder they apply once their year is up.

Wondering what people think of PCSO's now, whether they've proved their worth or otherwise and the same question again, whether they should be more distinct from sworn officers to make it easier for the public to know the difference.

The original post can be found http://policelockerroom.blogspot.com/2009/09/pcsos.html

Not important enough

Published on September 29, 2009 in The Job - Comment. Closed

written by 200 from 200 Weeks

The dreadful case of Fiona Pilkington whose life was blighted by anti social youths on her estate to such an extent that she took her own child’s life & committed suicide by setting fire to her car as they sat in it, will have some far-reaching repurcussions. The surprise is that, in the two years since this tragic event happened, there has been just about zero change in the way police deal with anti-social behaviour.

I spend every late shift in every town I control not sending police officers to anti social youths. This is despite the fact that I know what an effect it can have on people’s lives let alone their peace. I’m almost ashamed to say but I have anti social behaviour in my street & I never report it to the police, the reason purely & simply is, I know there is little chance of the police arriving before the youths have moved on. If it’s gotten too bad I have gone out there myself & given some ‘advice’, though I don’t like doing this in my own street. (I tend to climb over my back fence & appear from somewhere not near my house so they don’t know where I live).

The apalling crux of the matter is one of mathematics. We have X-amount of officers & we get Y-amount of jobs which take Z-amount of time. When Y x Z > X we cannot possibly get to all the jobs on time, if at all. We either have to make people wait, in some cases days, or we just don’t go.

The problem with antisocial behaviour is that it doesn’t fit in with any targets & we don’t get to tick any boxes. When Jay sends a text message to his ex-girlfriend Leah saying she’s a slag, that’s threats to violence or damage, malicious communications or a domestic, all of which are recordable & may result in a detected crime. When Mrs Miggins is fed up to the back teeth with a bunch of teenage yobs who spend every night shouting & swearing outside her bedroom & pissing up against her fence, that’s just a bit of ASB. Guess which one gets an officer sent to it whether they want one or not & which one gets closed off 2 hours after the youths have gone elsewhere with a ‘no officer available’ closing.

Mrs Pilkington did not have the protection afforded to certain groups within society. Had she been black or Asian, Jewish or gay, she would have had an officer every single occasion she phoned. There are teams within each police force whose sole job it is to look at ‘hate’ crimes against minority groups. I well remember a case of some kids throwing snowballs at a Jewish shop, on a day when the kids were throwing snowballs at everyone & anyone & we didn’t have the resources to deal with all the accidents & crime let alone kids chucking snowballs. Most of the snowball jobs just got closed off because there was absolutely no chance of us sending anyone; we had more important & immediate things to do. The Jewish shop had to remain open because the racism word had been mentioned. Within an hour the Inspector in charge of the diversity unit was on the phone to the control room inspector demanding to know why this racist incident hadn’t been assigned within the 1 hour requirement of force policy.

Nobody phoned up from any police unit who sit on their arses looking at logs in some office somewhere at HQ on behalf of all the other people being taunted by kids with snow. The fact that Mrs Pilkington had a disabled daughter, much of which taunting was aimed at, doesn’t seem to have cut any ice with the local constabulary.

I’ve blogged before about the unfairness of diversity policy & have argued that everyone should be treated on their own merits only. It completely baffles me that, for instance, a 6′6 Afro-Caribbean nightclub bouncer with years in the nighttime entertainment trade, who gets called a rude name is entitled to a better service than a vulnerable teenage girl who may be, unknowingly to us, considering suicide because of some bullying. How can a rule written on a policy somewhere at police HQ possibly differentiate between the effect on these two people & class one as somehow more deserving of a higher response than the other. Where is the leeway to attend based on the individual potential effect on the victim?

Just occasionally, someone will come up with a local operation to target antisocial behaviour. Extra resources will be called in & they will be tasked for ASB jobs alone, unavailable for RTCs, assaults or domestics. This is a clear acceptance of the importance of tackling such behaviour, but if it is important, why isn’t important all the time & on every estate.

Antisocial behaviour is the key to so many more problems in society. Someone who grows up not having consequences for their behaviour will learn that they are entitled to do what they want, when they want, to whom they want. They will grow up with a me, me, me attitude & will spend the rest of their lives demanding everything they can get. A child who grows up to respect other peoples needs & rights will end up as net givers to society.

When I was on the street I actually enjoyed helping to make other people’s lives a little better. One of the reasons I wanted to join the police was to help people who couldn’t help themselves. I held that belief until the day I retired. I still believe it. I am unable to do it because I do not have the resources nor the will from those who run the show to sort the matter out.

After the story of Mrs Pilkington, I will be wondering if the next job I fail to send an officer to will end up with someone murdering their child & topping themselves. That’s simply not fair & I don’t have the power to address it properly.

Time will tell whether the fallout from Mrs Pilkington will make any difference.

The original post can be found http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/2059

Dr. Kent Holtorf – Fox News “Tracking H1N1″ (Swine Flu)

Published on September 29, 2009 in MISCELLANEOUS. Closed

written by Old Plod from Old Plod of Plympton

Dr. Kent Holtorf talks with Fox News about the symptoms and treatment of H1N1 (Swine Flu). He is an expert on infectious diseases and his views on the new vaccine coming to the market in October are very alarming to say the least.

I am aware that other medical experts disagree with him but who are we to believe? I am in an "at risk" group being a heart patient, so I am confused as to what to do if or when I am offered this vaccination by my medical surgery. Annually, I receive the normal winter flu jab and have never suffered any ill effects but this is an additional vaccination with questionable trial research.

Your considered views and informed opinions would be most welcome.

The original post can be found http://old-plod-of-plympton.blogspot.com/2009/09/dr-kent-holtorf-fox-news-tracking-h1n1.html

FIONA PILKINGTON – SOCIETY WITH A BROKEN MORAL COMPASS

Published on September 29, 2009 in Dr Aric Sigman, Gordon Brown, Home Secretary, Nice 1 Ltd, Police Morale, Police News, Police and Politics, UK Crime, crime, home office, victims, young offenders and youth crime. Closed

written by Crime Analyst from The Thin Blue Line

The tragic story of the suicide of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francesca shocked the nation this week. Media attention returned to the events of that fateful day, following an inquest earlier this week when a coroners inquest ruled that police inaction had contributed to their deaths.

Years of torment from young neighbors led the despairing single mother to kill herself and her disabled daughter. Fiona Pilkington, 38, and her 18-year-old daughter, Francecca Hardwick, died when Ms Pilkington set fire to their car in Leicestershire in October 2007.

The ringleaders of a gang of children that terrorised Fiona and her daughter continue to be a menace in the area, the court heard. The children, who have virtually no parental control, are said to remain the root cause of antisocial behaviour on the street where they tormented Fiona and her severely disabled daughter, Francecca, for almost ten years. Fiona Pilkington suffered more than a decade of abuse from a gang of youths who terrorized her family by urinating on her house, taunting her developmentally challenged daughter and beating her severely dyslexic son. The family lived for more than 10 years under siege. A 16-strong gang of yobs regularly pelted Fiona’s house with eggs, they set fences on fire, pushed fireworks through the front door and taunted Francecca.

Most of us will never understand the mentality of feral yobs who stalk our streets. Though we’ve seen enough examples of lawlessness to know these knuckle-trailing neanderthals exist in increasing numbers and have utter disregard for the norms of a polite, civilised society.

Undoubtedly, the Leicestershire force will remain under the spotlight as a result of the crtiticism levelled against them. Time will reveal the degree of responsibility they must accept for the tragic events.

Superintendent Steve Harrod told the inquiry how low-level anti-social behaviour is now a local council’s responsibility. And the objective of British justice is to avoid criminalising young people.

COMMENT

Not so many years ago low-lives looking for trouble would have been hauled before courts or had the living daylights scared out of them by coppers determined to keep their beat problem-free. Now yobs tear up Asbos and mock authority. They consider the law a joke and who can blame them? While vile thugs circled Fiona’s family like wolves baying for blood her local force stand accused of doing nothing.

If the police were negligent in their duty, then those responsble should be identified and the appropriate action taken to prevent further similar occurrences involving vulnerable members of society.

The root cause of the problem though is symptomatic of policing in the UK in 2009. In exploring why the police might have failed in their duty it is essential to look beyond the front line officers who attended or dealt with calls.

The current state of the police is not the fault of good officers who want to do a proper job but are hamstrung by the burdens of paperwork and successive Government legislation, the latest being the excessive number of new offences brought in during the last twelve years by this Government.

Due to politically motivated control, bureaucracy and cost, the entire criminal justice system is corrupted from the top downwards starting with the treasury who hold the purse strings, and the Home Office who are allegedly in charge of policing.

Literally thousands of articles and posts echoing these sentiments have proliferated online forums during recent years. They can't all be wrong. There is something radically amiss with police priorities and modus operandi but, much more pertinently, they and the politicians are fully aware of it. There are plenty policemen and women imbued with moral integrity and sound motives. There are many police blogs where officers attempt to convey this very message to the public they serve.

Whichever Government is in charge, there needs to be an urgent and comprehensive review of policing in the UK and fast.

The sad case of Fiona Pilkington and her family are symptoms of a society whose moral compass is badly broken. It can be fixed but the repair work required needs to be more than the cosmetic surface level damage. A previous post from this site talked of the spoiled society, where some sectors of the younger generation are badly in need of a firm hand with a return to back to basics discipline and control. click here to read the article

If the Government are to start the task of fixing our society, then surely there is no better place to start than here. By instilling some firm handed forgotten disciplines within the "spoiled sector" of our youth, there will at least be a glimmer of hope that the UK may once again be a pleasant, less threatening place to live.

The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited

The original post can be found http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheThinBlueLine/~3/znZ8mAoALY8/fiona-pilkington-society-with-broken.html

IPCC To Investigate Barwell Deaths

Published on September 29, 2009 in 1. Closed

written by inspectorgadget from POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG

IPCC TO INVESTIGATE FAMILY DEATHS

If that address had been a Mosque, we would have reacted.

I said this in the Daily Telegraph.

PC Ellie Bloggs said this:

I don’t know anything about Fiona Pilkington other than the fact she killed herself two years ago along with her daughter and her rabbit. One thing I do know is that anyone who torches themselves and their child to death in a car is mentally ill, and that has nothing to do with kids harassing them (although it probably doesn’t help).

I think she was written what many of us were secretly thinking but couldn’t quite bring ourselves to say.