The Gray Monk

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January 04, 2004

The Law is an Ass .....

A post on An Englishman's Castle that is worth a read can be found under the title of "Todays Result" and touches on several items which have come up in the Sunday papers. The crazy state of the law in the UK essentially turns the householder into a criminal if he or she does anything to apprehend the thief/burglar or attempts to defend themselves.

What on earth the people at BBC Radio 4 thought they would get as suggestions I'm damned if I know. As for the idiot MP who stuck his neck out and then retracted his promise, well, his constituents should know what to do with him at the next election. Trouble is, most of those who vote for him are probably burglars anyway. The Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is promising us a Tony Martin Law to allow us to defend ourselves and our property, and already the sneering and so-called liberal left are trying to paint a picture of thousands of slaughtered sixteen year olds. To quote the MP embarrassed by the listeners "it would authorise the slaughter of sixteen year olds".

Really? And just how many sixteen year olds actually go in for breaking and entering? Outside of his area I would suspect that the number is very small indeed, and the police probably have bulky files on most of them - which was certainly the case of the one killed by Tony Martin.

It comes to something when an elderly retired High Sheriff of a County, a respectable country gentleman farmer and his wife can be burgled once, (little if any action by the police), then have a second attempted burglary while the pair are in residence, driven off by the old boy firing a shotgun over the getaway car, (police action, threaten arrest of the householder [Remember he was High Sheriff! - OK, its a titular appointment, but its certainly not handed out to just anybody - he represents the Crown and the Law in a County], confiscate the shotgun and make no attempt to catch the frustrated burglars) and then, when he is attacked again, assaulted and robbed again in his own house, the police warn him of the dangers of attempting to defend his property - and make no attempt to catch the would be thieves.

In similar vein, there is the story from another part of the counrty of a pharmacist whose shop was invaded by a brawling gang, a lot of damage caused and one of the thugs attacked him and his staff, beating the pharmacist unconscious before grabbing some goods and running off. The pharmacist had managed to get a photograph using a disposable camera and someone else identified the thug responsible. Doing the right thing, the pharmacist reports his knowledge to the police, hands over photograph, and from his own records, the address of the thug. Result? HE is now threatened with prosecution for breaking the law? What law? Oh, the Data Protection Act - it seems he should not have looked up the address of the thug and handed it over to the Police.

Have the police made any effort to catch and charge the thug? Of course not, it's much easier to catch speeding motorists, or charge the victims with hindering the criminals in their activities.

It must be said, that it is not the Police who make or even interpret the law. That is the exclusive task of the Legislature - ergo, Tone the Cronymakers bunch of bleeding hearts. Most of this moronic legislation can be traced back to clauses they have inserted into Bills or more recently Acts they have passed. The Human Rights Act, The amendments to the Data Protection Act, The Criminal Justice Act and a raft of others. These are not in themselves such bad concepts, but they are so badly written (blame the Civil Servants who can turn the design for a horse into a donkey!) that a good lawyer can drive a fleet of double decker busses through most of it.

Who can blame the police for going for the soft targets. The real crimanls can always rely on a technicality - such as the source of the b*st*ards address - to get them off.

I may just vote for Mr Howard this time round - you never know, being a lawyer himself, he might just get a piece of legislation right and give us the lever we need to get the criminals put on the spot instead of us.

There are just two things I would want to see any politician get right for a change. First, make all civil servants responsible for their cock ups and make them take the can for it. Too many of them just go from one huge cock up to the next and no one ever pays the penalty for it - unless its a Minister stupid enough to let the Civil Servants set him up for it.

Secondly, I want the right to defend my property without fear or favour, and I want a police force that is going to come down like a ton of bricks on the burglars, thugs and assorted other wrongdoers, backed by courts that aren't going to commend law breaking or allow people like Ian Huntley to walk away again and again laughing at the law.

I don't need politicians like the Labour MP on BBC Radio 4 whose opinion of the entire electorate was revealed in an unguarded moment, when he said, "The people have spoken - the bastards!"

So much for a party in tune with the electorate. I rest my case, my Lord.

Posted by The Gray Monk at January 4, 2004 10:08 PM

Comments

Posted by: Matthew at January 8, 2004 04:26 AM

Posted by: The Gray Monk at January 8, 2004 04:00 PM

Posted by: Peter Dwyer at January 30, 2004 08:33 PM