The BBC were interviewing an ex police officer today who was complaining that it wasn’t their fault because of “cuts” and they couldn’t resource their investigations properly. This is nonsense. The cases were assigned an investigation officer. He – or she – failed to do their job properly. They also don’t need “resources” to forward all of the evidence to the defence team. They fucked up. This has much to do with politicising the police and the culture in which they now operate. They have gone from not believing the “victim” to believing them unconditionally. Somewhere along the way, they lost the ability to conduct an impartial investigation of all of the relevant evidence. To do this they need to take a neutral stance of neither believing nor not believing until the evidence determines whether there is a case to answer. Then and only then, seek to charge.
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Samizdata quote of the dayDecember 20th, 2017 |
 14 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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Note the news coverage of these debacles, in which there are constant expressions of ‘fear’ and ‘concern’ and ‘risk’ that prosecutions could be terminated and convictions vacated. So the proven factual innocence of an accused man is now seen as a negative result.
All of this whining and sniveling about ‘cuts’ and ‘resources’ and other impediments to a proper investigation are just a smokescreen. In both of the most recent cases, the prosecution had the exculpatory evidence in their hands, they knew they had it (because they were able to produce it on 24 hours notice when ordered by the court to do so) and they knew its implications (since they withdrew the prosecution within days of being compelled to hand it over). These were political decisions – a conviction on these charges would be a ‘win’, and a career boost, and getting a ‘win’ was seen as more-important than the discovery of the Queen’s justice, and so they thought they’d try it on.
One of the victims of these modern-day witch-hunts has stated that the police now see arrests/trials/convictions for certain offences as being ‘targets’. Wrong incentives, boys, wrong incentives.
llater,
llamas
You can adhere to “innocent until proven guilty” or you can “believe rape victims”. You can’t do both.
That innocent men have been wrongly accused is a price worth paying in the eyes of modern rape campaigners. For years they’ve been denying or downplaying the existence of false rape accusations, with the implication that automatic conviction on the strength of an accusation alone is desirable.
Never mind that such conduct overturns 1000 years of legal principle.
Women are not delicate little flowers. They’re human beings. They’re victims, they’re aggressors, they’re truth tellers and they’re liars just like the rest of us. The whole point of a legal system is to determine which one they are at any given moment.
All too often I think police and prosecutors view their role as deciding who’s guilty and then effectively “framing” them. That’s bad enough in ideal circumstances where they may merely be leaping to a questionable conclusion and brushing off exculpatory evidence. It’s still worse when that initial leap to judgment is fueled by “political” or career-driven considerations rather than evidence.
I recently saw a passing reference in the book The Power of Habit to an early-2000s study at Western University in Ontario (unfortunately not otherwise footnoted) indicating that eyewitness testimony tends to be particularly unreliable when the questioner’s stance is friendly and comforting. While a desire to encourage victims to come forward is understandable, a blanket “believe the victim” policy would seem to be even worse from a fact-gathering standpoint than would first be apparent.
My local council is forever blaming cuts for its decisions to end various services.
It still employs many more people than it did in 1997, before the Blair/Brown public sector recruitment frenzy began.
Too much conspiracy theory. They are stupid, lazy and arrogant.
I dealt with the police for many years.
Firstly as a lawyer, but not too much.
Then as a landlord in 2 different and unpleasant ways. Police tend to cluster together and we had a building they liked, so we had 10 suites occupied by police officers for about a 5 year period. Then they moved on. As tenants they were mostly stupid lazy and arrogant.
Also as a landlord we had to call them for help sometimes, deal with them on a few occasions when they wanted entry to tenants’ units and on two occasions when they thought we had wrongfully treated a tenant. Once again, mostly stupid lazy and arrogant.
What did we think would happen when we gave them so much status and power and this absurd Crown immunity thing?
I lost all trust in the police many years ago when I was a witness in a case and watched in horror as they blatantly lied under oath. Thankfully the jury believed me and the other witnesses or a young mans life would have been ruined. This was not a sex case but carried a serious sentence if convicted. Until then I believed that the police were on the side of the law abiding and I was shocked at what I saw and heard.
I don’t claim to be a libertarian, I’m more of a libertarian-sympathising conservative. One of the ways you can tell is that I have an ingrained feeling of support and trust for the police. The difficulty is that the suspension of disbelief gets harder and harder. On pretty much every occasion I’ve had to deal with a member of the police (not that often, and not as a perp) I’ve come away feeling that the police could certainly learn something about customer service from 1970s and 80s British Rail. And that anyone with an O level would rapidly rise to Chief Superintendent. Inspector Morse they ain’t.
The rot is not confined to the police alone. The CPS and the police routinely refer to complainants in rape cases as ‘victims’. They give anonymity to these victims but not to the alleged perpetrators, with the flimsy justification that the publicity may encourage more ‘victims’ to come forward. All condoned and defended by our craven politicians. A vocal minority of radical feminists has succeeded in driving a coach and horses through our legal system and the establishment has been largely complicit.
The Blair/Brown years were perfect for them – they stuffed the ‘establishment’ with their left-leaning, right-thinking placemen, who happily pushed the PC feminist line; it was the line of least resistance and allowed them to portray themselves as caring and right thinking and let them demonise their opponents as uncaring and conservative. They only cared for their own advancement and self aggrandising.
I hate them all with a passion.
And yet the wankers have the resources to go after wrongthink on the Internet.
Our police were once excellent, but then they had a better education than than there is available in these benighted times. The Rules were as defined by Sir Robert Peel and they worked. Now we have barely educated young men dressed up like pretend soldiers, but without the discipline of Soldiers. They were local and knew thoroughly the area and people in it, helpful to all, would speak to anyone they met on the street. Nowadays they strut, no, slouch is probably more accurate, in pairs chatting to each other and ignoring those who pay their ill earned salaries.
Take a bow, Alison Saunders (aka Pauline).
The evolution of the police force into a “modern public service” is at the root of this.
Ex and serving police officers have told me that the modern force (sorry “service”) is worm eaten with P.C. doctrines and endless whining for “more resources”. Thief Takers – policemen who actually want to catch the enemies of property, are despised in the modern “service”.
I suspect that things are going to get a lot worse.
‘Nowadays they strut, no, slouch is probably more accurate, in pairs chatting to each other and ignoring those who pay their ill earned salaries.’
Quite. Many look like thugs and behave accordingly. To suggest that they might get more respect if they had the self respect to look like a policeman of not so long ago (a proper uniform?) does not go down well (least of all to the armed variety strutting/slouching around at airports).
“least of all to the armed variety strutting/slouching around at airports”
Encountered a couple them in the middle of the night at Gatwick rail station. I & a girl in her twenties were the only people on any of the platforms. She’d moved half a dozen steps away from her luggage to check the timetable for southbound trains & got barked at by a couple of stormtroopers sticking guns in her face. She looked scared shitless.
Look. I understand the menacing demeanour is probably intentional & policy. I can think of several reasons. The unmistakeable authority figure to be obeyed if the shit hit the fan. You don’t want these guys to be approachable. Want their sightlines blocked by travellers asking where the toilets are. Or terrorists using such a pretext to get up close & neutralise them. (And I sincerely hope airports are also patrolled by innocuous but armed officers who aren’t dressed as targets of opportunity) But there’s no need to be gratuitous with it. But modern British policing. It’d be hard to find a more deliberately offensive bunch of thugs outside of some 3rd world dictatorship. Only fortunate they don’t arm more of them.