www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-26437879
At the time of this, I was posted on a public order unit for 3 months, predecessor to the TSG (Territorial Support Group), as a young PC.
You went out on patrol in a Transit LWB minibus with riot shields etc and were obviously first port of call to incidents of disorder.
Luckily for me, I was off on a 2 week holiday to Corfu, so all my lot went to this with out me.. and some poor sod from my nick was covering my absence.
When I got back from my hols, I rejoined the bus..and immediately noticed a load of new faces..because half my bus were in hospital (just like all the other buses).
Some of the tales were unreal.
They showed me the place where Keith Blakelock was hacked to death...a bit of raised mud/grass, about 4 inches high, that he tripped over running for his life...he nearly made it.
We patrolled the place for weeks/months afterwards..all the old dears would come out with trays of tea for us and rejoice at being able to get out and about for a while and do their shopping or collect pensions etc, without fear of crime.
Broadwater Farm is/was a total crap hole...whoever designed that needs a sharp kick in the nether regions.
I remember a real hoo-hah when someone superglued up the locks on the community centre.
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The dark days will never leave us.
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Westpig, I salute you and all your colleagues for trying to keep society decent.
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>> Westpig, I salute you and all your colleagues for trying to keep society decent.
Agree 100%. No so sure about decisions to charge Silcot etc. though.
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Westpig, that wasn't you on Popmaster this morning, was it?
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A lynching is an ugly and sinister spectacle. I've been around one or two in foreign parts and they are frightening.
I've said before that I witnessed the beginning of one at THE carnival, perhaps at about the same time as the ghastly Blakelock murder. The uniformed copper, alone with no colleagues in sight, was on the ground and being kicked and hit by a dozen or more boys, all or most black. He was saved by a Jamaican friend older than me, who waded in, shoved the boys back and made them stay back.
I've also said the friend was a person of great presence and natural authority. He had served as chairman of the Standing Conference of West Indians in Great Britain (I think it was called) and was a well-known Jamaican community leader, if the term means anything. But of course totally lacking in pomposity, non-racist and jolly good fun over the forty years I knew him. Great cat, much missed not just by me.
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>> I've said before that I witnessed the beginning of one at THE carnival,
Chapeau!
;-0
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>> Westpig, that wasn't you on Popmaster this morning, was it?
>>
No...I'm really good at remembering useless trivia...just not pop trivia
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If they can catch the guy and put away the guy who did it, all well and good.
The real guy that is.
Isn't this the third or fourth major suspect they have had a go at tho? The Winston Silcott debacle means that the local community and the country will never have 100% faith that real justice is being done here, and thats not good for us and specially not the police.
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>> If they can catch the guy and put away the guy who did it, all
>> well and good.
>>
>> The real guy that is.
>>
>>
>> Isn't this the third or fourth major suspect they have had a go at tho?
>> The Winston Silcott debacle means that the local community and the country will never have
>> 100% faith that real justice is being done here, and thats not good for us
>> and specially not the police.
>>
Agreed....although Winston Silcott might well have been the real deal (amongst a load of others), we'll never know, because someone tried to convict him with fiddled evidence.
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I hope this isn't the 'star witness' or the CPS is wasting another few million.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-26531007
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"It's very hard for me because, like, I'm not a racist person but to me a black is a black, all right?"
One for my oxymoron collection.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 12 Mar 14 at 20:07
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>> I hope this isn't the 'star witness' or the CPS is wasting another few million.
>>
>> www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-26531007
Riiiiiiiiiight..... I can see thats going well then.
Hes gonna walk isn't he. Seems to me the only way to be sure of getting convictions is by obtaining scientific evidence that wasn't available earlier.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 12 Mar 14 at 20:16
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>> Riiiiiiiiiight..... I can see thats going well then.
You never know. The right member of the judiciary could easily see Mr Brown as a representative of that crucial category the 'reasonable man'.
You have to remember what some of these people are like even when sober, which they seldom are. Not that I favour any sort of reform, far from it!
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Were I on the jury, Mr Brown's evidence would immediately be discounted as unreliable.
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>>Were I on the jury, .........
I've never been on a jury, although I've sat and watched many, many of them as part of Law studies.
It is quite remarkable how normal, reasonable people become quite peculiar when put on a jury.
To anyone who has sat on a jury on a complex or serious case, what's it like in the jury room during deliberations?
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>> what's it like in the jury room during deliberations?
It must vary a lot. Juries are 'chosen' from a panel but 12 is too small a sample to ensure stable representativeness of the population at large.
I think that Mr Brown sounds an ignorant bigot too. But some judges and magistrates can be mind-bogglingly crude and bigoted in their attitudes. Most aren't - the ones who have dealt with me have been OK as far as I can remember - but some are terrible, thuggish and ruffianly. I've seen and heard them in action, and people I know have been messed up badly by the carphounds.
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>>To anyone who has sat on a jury on a complex or serious case, what's it like in the jury room during deliberations?
I've only ever had a trivial case, but I'd suggest juries are like the general public. The majority sit quietly 'on the fence', one or two express strong opinions and one shouldn't be let out on their own.
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I was on a double rape case jury. three weeks.
The first thing you get is the natural dynamics of pack behaviour. Everyone has been cooped up together, little cliques form, and the inevitable struggle to be foreman. There was stress and angry scenes, tempers and tantrums.
The jury ended up hung - We ended up with a not guilty by majority and a hung jury on the two charges. There was a bizarre twist re the accused that I can't reveal because the case could be traced, being pretty unique. The women and the men fundamentally disagreed.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 13 Mar 14 at 18:13
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Did you feel that people were sensibly holding their view of guilty or not guilty, irrespective of whether or not you agreed?
Or was it like a religious / political discussion?
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Things like, "I think he's guilty",
"Why"
"Because I do - don't bully me"
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Oh that would hack me off. I have crusading tendencies at the best of times, that'd just set me off.
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Part of my belief that if you cannot cope with the question "Why?" then you should not be permitted to make a statement.
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>> if you cannot cope with the question "Why?" then you should not be permitted to make a statement.
In an ideal world, yes. But 'crusading' about that isn't going to get you far in a jury room which will have at least four, perhaps eight, total or partial halfwits in it.
The fact is that people are allowed to make statements however half-witted they are, and our society bends over backwards to accommodate that, instead of demoting idiots to the B stream and paying scant attention to their blathering. Hard luck on the rest of us... but we mustn't be nasty to the congenitally stupid. It's elitist and we can't have that can we? .
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>> But 'crusading' about that isn't going to get you far in a jury room
Crusading has never got me far anywhere, I just can't stop myself.
>> The fact is that people are allowed to make statements however half-witted they are,
And I believe that the should be allowed to make such statements. However, part of that freedom is that I should be able to ridicule their opinion.
Open your mouth and then stand by what you said, or apologise for it - and I've done lots of both.
Elitism might not be great, but avoiding any idea that people are better at different things is worse.
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>> part of that freedom is that I should be able to ridicule their opinion.
The average halfwit wouldn't agree. They want half-wittedness to be the norm. And it is, more or less. Under most circumstances anything else is frowned on even by people who should know better.
>> Elitism might not be great
... but it does ensure that some things are run more or less properly at least some of the time. Equality is legal, not physical, intellectual or moral.
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Equality is artificial.
Its using it as a value judgement which is wrong.
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[Missed the edit window]
Let me rephrase that. We are all equally important, but we are not all the same. We are different in many ways. We should just not use those difference to judge each other.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 13 Mar 14 at 19:08
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>> Part of my belief that if you cannot cope with the question "Why?" then you
>> should not be permitted to make a statement.
>>
Why did you vote for that man?
My parents voted Labour/Conservative and so do I..
There's an answer which is as sensible as no answer..
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Its an answer, and thus a valid one.
I didn't say that you need to be able to convince me, or that I should agree with you, or indeed that your reasons should be good or reasonable. Simply that there should be reasons which work for you.
Merely that you should be able to explain why *you* made that statement.
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More o' the same.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-26614601
Another guy who admits to putting the boot in - no doubt ensuring he can never face trial.
Going to end up with no conviction and a bunch of guys who admit to assaulting Blakelock but who no doubt have been offered immunity for their (massively unreliable) testimony.
Good work.
Last edited by: Lygonos on Mon 17 Mar 14 at 20:28
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"During police interviews, Mr Levin had said that Winston Silcott had been behind the attack on PC Blakelock and was the only one he saw with a "large machete", which he now admits was a lie".
How on earth are they hoping to get a conviction putting "Witnesses" like that in the box?
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>> How on earth are they hoping to get a conviction putting "Witnesses" like that in
>> the box?
In short, they aint. As we all suspected.
PC Keith Blakelock: Nicholas Jacobs cleared of killing officer
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26960690
Jury took 4 hours. IE they were pretty well unanimously unconvinced.
Have to say, the CPS has proven itself to be utterly useless and unfit for purpose these past 12 months.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 9 Apr 14 at 15:56
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It's hard to get convictions against members of lynch mobs. Photographic evidence where it exists seldom proves anything, the members tend not to give evidence against each other, but when questioned run off in different directions muttering or bawling evasive rubbish.
As one would of course in those circumstances.
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Needed to be a 'joint enterprise' prosecution to have any chance of pinning anyone beyond reasonable doubt (even if that is now possible).
From wiki: In English law, 'joint enterprise' derives from R v Swindall and Osborne (1846) , where two cart drivers engaged in a race. One of them ran down and killed a pedestrian. It was not known which one had driven the fatal cart, but since both were equally encouraging each other in the race, it was irrelevant which of them had actually struck the man so both were held jointly liable.
Outcome was pretty much never in doubt but then the star witnesses may have much more convincing to the CPS chaps before being cross-examined by defence barristers.
From BBC: During the course of three separate investigations, a decision was made to give immunity to so-called "kickers" - those who were involved in the attack but did not use weapons - in exchange for their co-operation.
Epic fail.
Last edited by: Lygonos on Wed 9 Apr 14 at 17:17
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>> and unfit for
>> purpose these past 12 months.
>>
...only the 12?
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It's the perspective that's been present pretty much from (before) day one unfortunately.
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Yes. With the result that so far four self-admitted members of the lynch mob that murdered PC Blakelock have been acquitted. Beyond belief almost.
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>> four self-admitted members of the lynch mob
Make that three, sorry. The latest chap denies being present.
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It's what happens when law enforcement/prosecution is leant on for results.
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>>It's what happens when spineless gits reach the upper echelons of law enforcement/prosecution.
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>> Make that three, sorry. The latest chap denies being present.
Of course I was forgetting the three toerags bribed by the police to give the evidence that proved so useless. Two of those were apparently members of the lynch mob, the other perhaps just claiming to be one.
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Whoever the hell decided to put a case based on the evidence of those three before a jury is in the wrong job.
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Blakelock trial - MD
