Not All Our Police Are Wonderful

Ex-Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn

Some are corrupt, self-serving scumbags who deserve exemplary punishment.  See here.

A Diamond With No Pearls

“There was a period of remorse and apology for banks. I think that period needs to be over.”

If this is what Bob Diamond regards as wisdom then he is stupid as well as deeply unpleasant.

Spiv

The spectacle of this ostentatious, overpaid and arrogant Yank defending the banker robbers against their richly deserved condemnation is sickening.  Almost as sickening as Cameron and his poodle’s capitulation over bonuses.  See here for the full story.

We shouldn’t be surprised really.  It was too much to expect that integrity and justice should triumph over the greed and corruption of the banks.  They are worthless parasites on society which contribute nothing worthwhile at all apart from an administrative process for transferring money.

Diamond also says that banks should be allowed to fail and not be bailed out by the taxpayer.  The man is clever.  I’ll give him that.  As clever as any cheap, wide boy, conman spiv.  He says that Barclays took no money from the taxpayer but he knows full well that his own reckless, roulette wheel gambling was only possible because the taxpayer had no option but to stand behind him.

I will not shrink from the truth.  Men like Bob Diamond are unfit to be in charge of banks.  I would prefer him and his cronies to be in jail but I would be content with lifetime disqualification and, in his case, deportation.

Anti-Social Police Behaviour

Out Of Control

The British police are out of control.  Far from becoming a politically correct “service”, they’re moving more and more towards the “force” ethos, promoting their own self-interest and resisting all attempts to be subject to democratic control.  The sooner we get elected police commissioners the better.  Those presently in charge of the police increasingly place themselves above the law and regard the public as the opposition, not the people they are paid to protect and serve.

They’re even trying to frighten us over the spending cuts, suggesting that any reduction in police budgets will lead to increased crime and disorder.  What other public service with its budget under threat uses direct fear of violence as its response?  I call that scaremongering.  I call it precious close to a protection racket, to blackmail and extortion.

The police are very, very good at road accidents.  There are brave and clever men and women in anti-terrorism and serious crime.  But we lost the British bobby sometime ago now.  I’d say it was in the 1990s.  Dixon Of Dock Green had retired to the other side of the world.  Jack Regan was supposed to have gone but he returned disguised as Gene Hunt.  The TSG continued its long tradition of brutality providing a career path for violent thugs.  The term “institutionalised racism” was coined.  The cars got faster.  The uniforms got sexier in a Nazi stormtrooper sort of way.   Meanwhile, in parallel,  the gay rights, politically correct, sociology graduates and new Labour bureaucrats gained influence and these two factions, fundamentally incompatible, consumed huge quantities of police time and procedure,  and eventually created a perfect storm of bureaucracy, corruption and laziness.  The police lost touch with the people completely.

The police don’t want to be accountable to anybody.   Even when they assault members of the public, even when innocent bystanders die at the hands of police officers in disguise, they close ranks, obstruct justice, lie, cheat and dissemble to avoid the consequences.  Now,  Sir Paul Stephenson, not content with the way his officers pervert the criminal justice system, wants some sort of immunity from the civil courts.  His secret letter to Theresa May, seeking protection against officers being sued for brutality or wrongful arrest is a disgrace.  See here. It reveals his true intentions only too clearly.  He even wants to charge for requests under the Freedom Of Information Act, further tightening the police culture of secrecy and concealment.   It is truly terrifying that Britain’s most senior police officer should even contemplate such ideas.  It is the very opposite of responsibility and conclusive proof that he is not a fit and proper person to be any sort of policeman, let alone commissioner of the Metropolitan police.  Theresa May should dismiss him immediately.   He is a power hungry, manipulative, enemy of justice.  No sort of protector or champion or servant of the public at all.

When it comes to the brutal assault by Sergeant Delroy Smellie on Nicola Fisher or the death of Ian Tomlinson, clearly caused by PC Simon Harwood, most of us would be prepared to accept the “bad apple” argument.   Yet somehow, in the Nicola Fisher case, District Judge Daphne Wickham was persuaded to refuse to hear Ms Fisher’s statement in court.  Somehow,  over a year and a half after Ian Tomlinson was killed, PC Harwood has still not been called to account for his actions and is still suspended on full pay.  Neither have his colleagues who blatantly lied and tried to cover up what had happened.  The truth is these men are not bad apples.  They are the deliberate product of the Met’s Territorial Support Group (TSG).  In hiding their identification and using brutal, disproportionate violence, they are entirely consistent with the culture and training that their senior officers have designed.

Hero

Of course, there are still good cops, selfless, conscientious heroes like PC Bill Barker who genuinely seek to serve the public.  He gave his life while protecting people during the Cumbrian floods.  See here.   He deserves every honour that we can bestow on him.  He shames all those corrupt, cowardly bullies that infect our country, that hide in their offices and cars, that display their vile and despicable attitudes on the Inspector Gadget website.   Officers like PC Barker are now in the minority, in full scale retreat, ridiculed and excluded by a wannabe Gene Hunt culture that has attracted more and more borderline psychopaths to the paramilitary uniform and fast car culture.

Role Model

Now they don’t even think that anti-social behaviour is police work.  It’s not exciting or glamorous enough.  In the early noughties in North Kensington, I saw how the police completely lost control of the Avenues, the terraced houses between the Harrow Road and Queens Park.  The police from Kilburn and Paddington Green stations were in full scale retreat, absolutely impotent and useless in the face of gangs of kids aged 10 – 16, on the streets at all hours, abusing people, keying cars, throwing eggs and laughing at any authority or discipline.   Those hooligans and yobs are now breeding and the police are reaping what they’ve sown.  I expect their solution will be violence and “fit-ups”.  They’re no different from the lowlife,  layabouts themselves.  They’re just two sides of the same coin.

Illegal Weapon

The Raoul Moat affair revealed how the police have lost the plot.   While some officers proved their courage and worth, others indulged in an orgy of technology, expense, hiding behind their procedures and precautions.  Others used banned super-Tasers, illegally obtained from their cronies in the arms industry and undoubtedly caused the death of the mad nutter.  Not a bad result but achieved in a dreadful way.  It was a dismal and demeaning epsiode for all concerned.  See here.

Corruption is endemic in the police.  It starts at the beginning of every shift and continues off duty.  At its worst, it’s the disgusting spectacle of PC Stephen Mitchell in Newcastle, who inflicted his sexual desires and drug appetite on those he arrested.  See here.  At the everyday, commonplace level, it’s the copper who confiscates a bag of weed and takes it home to smoke himself, or who brutalises a wheelchair bound medicinal cannabis user.  It’s the thugs who think it’s acceptable to terrorise and batter an old man over a motoring offence.  See here.

Elected police commissioners are our only hope.  I applaud the coalition government for bringing forward this proposal and acting on it.  I see no other way of rolling back the  Stasi-like culture that the Labour party has allowed to flourish.  Beware though, those that put themselves forward for election as a commissioners are in the front line.  They risk the attention of the police establishment in ways that we cannot yet know.  I wonder how many candidates will have their personal lives investigated and possibly fabricated?  Any prospective commissioner who wants to disrupt the comfortable life of the police may find himself in the firing line.   All sorts of inconveniences,  stops and searches, investigations and embarrassments may be just around the corner.

The police want us to believe that if they are squeezed in the spending review we will face danger, disorder and violence in the streets.  Instead, what we must do is paralyse the police bureaucracy, starve it of the resources it needs to promote its self-fulfilling prophecies and force officers back onto the streets. We will pay for shoe leather but not for air conditioned limousines.  We will support bobbies on the beat but not poseurs in flashy SUVs.   We will not tolerate any sort of discrimination or favouritism.  No officer may be a freemason or belong to any secret organsation.  We must fight for the soul and integrity of our police service against the corrupt thugs that have infiltrated it.

The British people deserve police officers they can be proud of.

Let’s Put Dave The Taxman On The Dole

Collect Your P45 On The Way Out

Who is this pompous, conceited, arrogant, Boris Johnson lookalike?

He’s Dave Hartnett, Permanent Secretary at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. He’s refusing to apologise for getting tax deductions wrong for six million British taxpayers.

Just who the hell does he think he is?   We’re back to Sir Humphrey and lazy, fatcat incompetence and corruption again.  You’d think the civil service would have managed to drag itself entirely out of the 19th century by now wouldn’t you?  Not this prize plonker.  Maybe because his overgrown schoolboy, pudding basin haircut is just as messy as Boris’ he thinks he’ll endear himself to the British public?  Hogwash.  He’s the very opposite of Boris.  He represents everything that’s bad about Britain – self-satisfied, smug, deluded, living in the past.

I say let’s get him sacked.  Let’s create the biggest outcry against a useless civil sevant that the country has ever seen.  Let’s lose Mr Hartnett his job.  Let’s put him in his place – in the queue at the Jobcentre.  Then we’ll see who’s a cocky, scruffy, little git won’t we?

For A Bad Cop, Prison Is Just The Start

Doing His Duty

I hope that  ex-Police Sergeant Mark Andrews had a really bad night on Tuesday.   It was his first night in jail after being sentenced to six months for assaulting Pamela Somerville, an innocent member of the public, someone he was paid and trusted to protect.  See here for the full story.

I hope he had a really bad day yesterday too.  I hope he’s scared.  I hope he’s ashamed and racked with guilt.  I hope he has a really bad day tomorrow and the day after and the day after that.  I hope every single minute of his jail time is frightening, distressing, humiliating and painful.  I hope he misses his wife and two children and is beside himself with grief and shame at the way he has let them down.  The man is pond life scum.  He should be extremely grateful that he got off so lightly because if I was the judge I would have considered six years to be a more appropriate sentence than six months.   In fact,  I really hope that the CPS appeals the sentence.  There’s no way that it is sufficient.  He’ll  be out in just 13 weeks and free to go back to his family.   He should be made to suffer.

When a police officer commits a crime, particularly an assault while on duty, it is far, far more serious than when it is an ordinary member of the public.  It is a breach of trust.   It is like a bank manager stealing from his own bank.  It can never be forgiven.  It has to be marked as the most heinous of crimes.

Sleazy Starmer

I suppose we have to be thankful that the CPS even brought charges in the first place.  It and its thoroughly sleazy boss, Keir Starmer, seem to do everything they can to avoid bringing police officers to justice.   Keir Starmer has the brazen cheek to pontificate about changing the system of murder charges when he is complicit in enabling police officers to avoid justice!  See here.   We’re really not interested in his thoughts about the future of justice in Britain.  He is too deeply ensconsed in the corruption and failures of the past.  We want him out of his job and on the scrapheap with Andrews.    In fact,  I’d have him in the cell next door to Andrews and I’d put them both back on slopping out but they could do each other’s rather than their own.

I congratulate Wiltshire Constabulary on bringing Andrews to justice and particularly the police officer who turned him in.  That man deserves a medal.

Killer

Thug

This should send a signal to thugs like Delroy Smellie, Simon Harwood and every other bent cop that you will never, ever get away with your behaviour.  Even if you manage to wriggle free like Smellie with the assistance of slimeball judges or evade the full force of the law like Harwood with the help of his crony Starmer, we, the British public, will never let you off.   It won’t ever be over for you, whether or not you do time in prison.  You and your kind are on a life sentence.  You will be despised, reviled, hated and subject to ridicule and abuse until the end of your days.  You deserve nothing less.

British Justice On Trial

Thugs, Slimeballs And Grunts

At last, four of the Metropolitan Police’s Territorial Support Group are to stand in the dock charged with assault causing actual bodily harm and a jury is to decide their fate.   They are PC Nigel Cowley, PC Mark Jones, PC Roderick James-Bowen and DC John Donohue.

He's Got To Go

Perhaps Keir Starmer, Director Of Public Prosecutions, thinks he will win back some credibility through this after his catastrophically bad judgement in the Ian Tomlinson case.   Not a bit of it.  In fact, the decision to prosecute now after a successful civil claim against these thugs, proves how negligent the original decision was.  The CPS is charged to uphold the public interest by statute.   It should not have to be harried to the Court reluctantly by civil action.  Yet again, Keir Starmer should hang his head in shame.  In fact, he should resign

These officers have already been proven on the balance of probabilities to have illegally assaulted Babar Ahmad in 2003.  Last year the High Court heard that he  was subject to “serious, gratuitous, prolonged, unjustified violence” and “religious abuse”.   Now the criminal courts will seek to extend that proof to beyond a reasonable doubt.   Meanwhile, the Met, which decided against any disciplinary action, chooses not even to suspend these proven thugs and bullies.  Sir Paul Stephenson should join them in the dock.  His disrespect for due process is astounding.  How can he have such men under his command?  The IPCC also failed in this case – yet again.  In 2007, it decided to take no action against any of the officers.

Keeping Mum

Almost every day now, new horror stories of illegal, brutal or simply dumb police behaviour are revealed.  This is the reward we have reaped from the massive investment and huge increase in salaries we gave to the police in the 80s.  According to my contact with inside knowledge it is due to a “collapse in supervision…and an arrogance due to few cops having much other work experience”.  The police service is no such thing for the average British citizen.  It is a self-serving bureaucracy with an aggressive sub-culture, acting as a revenue generating workforce for the state.  It is institutionalised racism, brutality, prejudice, bullying, corruption, cowardice, freemasonry, all dressed up in a jack-the-lad, paramilitary uniform.   It isn’t even any good at what it does.    Aside from dealing with road accidents and high-level anti-terrorism, I know of little good work done by the British police.  It has become an out of control monster that avoids doing what the public wants and picks and chooses what to devote its resources to.

PC Simon Harwood

If Keir Starmer can reverse his decsion on these thugs who beat up a suspected terrorist, he can also reverse his decison on the fatal assault on Ian Tomlinson, an entirely innocent bystander.   Meanwhile we await impatiently the coroner’s inquest on his death and the disciplinary hearing against PC Simon Harwood, which must be held in public in accordance with the statutory provisions.

Every time that a police officer breaks the law or exceeds his powers he breaches our trust.   It is the same as a bank employee stealing from his bank.  It must be punished particularly severely.  This must be the standard that British police adhere to.  We must never relent from calling the corrupt and incompetent to account.

We Wait For Justice

Whether a conviction is possible in this latest case, seven years after the events took place, I don’t know.  On the basis of its own rules the CPS must believe a conviction is more likely than not or it wouldn’t be proceeding .  Justice delayed though, is justice denied for Babar Ahmad and the policemen.  This repeated and continuing incompetence by the prosecution and regulatory authorities is every bid as dangerous as the deterioration in the police.   Suspicions of corruption, collusion and conspiracy are inevitable and must be answered.  These are serious threats to British justice.

Moat’s Last Moments. Are All Our Policemen Wonderful?

Almost Over

On Friday night they had Raoul Moat cornered at last.  It was the culmination of something more akin to a military invasion than a reasonable response to just one deranged nutter.   Northumbria Police had already made fools of themselves but we were all biting our lips,  not yet protesting, hoping against hope that there would be no further casualties.

The first photographs from the stand-off were released and they clearly showed police pointing tasers.  On BBC News the ex-police firearms expert was interviewed and asked why a taser couldn’t be used to disable Moat.  He answered quite unequivocally that using a taser when a man has a gun pointed at his head was more than likely to result in him firing the weapon involuntarily.

First thing on Saturday morning and it was no surprise to learn that Moat was dead.  What was utterly shocking was to learn that two tasers had been fired and the recording broadcast by the BBC revealed the shouting before the sound of the shotgun blast.  The unavoidable conclusion is that exactly what the firearms expert had predicted was what happened.

I don’t have any sympathy for Moat.  As far as I’m concerned a good case could have been made for him being shot on sight but I am very, very unhappy with the way the police handled the affair.

All Over Now

It may be that the denouement itself was handled properly.  We will never know what really happened however many inquiries we have.  What I am certain of is that overall the police should have done much better.  Those far, far better qualified to judge than me have already said as much.  I speak only as a concerned citizen.

I really worry about our police service.  While I believe there are many brave, honourable coppers, some of whom are highly skilled,  there are too many worrying indications that our police service is not up to the job.

There’s thuggery and the rank-closing covering-up and justification of it.  There’s the appalling canteen culture which is at the root of all the institutionalised racism, thuggery and freemasonry.  There’s the amateurish approach of senior officers who seem barely competent at times.  There is inevitably some corruption but also a long-running deception that the decision to prosecute is at arms length.  The police decide who to investigate in the first place. The CPS and the police eat in the same canteen

Look at the brutality of the police, the TSG in particular, at the Gaza and G20 protests and how they’ve got away with it.  Look at the Inspector Gadget police website for an insight into the disgusting attitude of many officers.   Look at the management of situations like the Cumbrian shootings and the Raoul Moat affair and the use of ludicrous, self-evidently bad ideas like the “kettling” at the Gaza and G20 protests.  Look at the income generation from speed cameras promoted by some chief constables.  Look at the absurd, intrusive, wildly excessive use of CCTV.  Look at the ridiculous administration routines that many chief constables have imposed.  Look at the insistence on retaining the DNA of innocent people.

The police are now very well paid.  A starting police officer gets about twice as much as a starting soldier.   They have wonderful pension arrangements.  They’re also excused, let off and get away with behaviour that should never be allowed.  Look at the thug, Sergeant Delroy Smellie , who repeatedly beat Nicola Fisher at the G20 protest and got away with it, or the officer who assaulted Ian Tomlinson, who later died, and who has still not been charged over a year later.

All the brave, honourable coppers are let down by those bad apples which myopic “support” of the police allows to rot and infect the rest.

The British police service needs a shake up.  It is complacent and inefficient.  Excellent work is done in anti-terrorism and organised crime but the truth is not all our policemen are wonderful.  We need to face up to that truth and make some changes.  Perhaps locally elected police chiefs are a way forward.

I Weep For Jamaica

Ocho Rios

The events unfolding in Jamaica are disastrous for the country, its reputation, tourist industry and economy.   They give an impression that is completely false.  In reality it is a wonderful place, full of kind, warm, generous people.  I was astonished on my first visit to find the countryside lush and green, rather like Cornwall or Wales and the people more friendly than anywhere else I have ever been.

I was very privileged to be introduced to Jamaica by a Jamaican.  It was no all-inclusive tourist resort for me.  There the poor Brits hunker down and never move anywhere.  They seem to believe that right outside the gates are a bunch of Uzi-toting crack dealers but it’s simply not true.  I’ve been back several times and I love the place.  I recommend Ocho Rios on the north coast of the island.

True, the murder rate is one of the highest in the world but it all happens in a very small area of Kingston.  The rest of the island is peaceful and probably safer than London.  I have been through the Tivoli Gardens and Trench Town districts where all the trouble is.  It’s not a good place.  You lock the car doors and windows and you don’t stop but it is tiny.  According to my memory it’s not much bigger than, say, Regent’s Park so it’s easy to avoid.

My Local

Undoubtedly at the root of these problems is high level corruption and I wouldn’t be surprised if that extended to US officials as well as Jamaican.  The cocaine trade is a huge curse on the country but while the world continues with its ludicrous, discredited policy of prohibition it will never solve the problem.  Drug laws support and encourage organised crime and corruption.   If we stay on our present course things will only get worse.

I weep for Jamaica and its wonderful people.  Without radical international action, I have no idea how this problem can be solved.

OFT – Incompetence, Conspiracy, Paper Tiger Or All Three?

I’m one of the lucky ones.  I recovered over £2000 of illegal penalty charges from the Nationwide and HSBC a couple of years back before the High Court stayed all the claims.  I had the great pleasure of walking into HSBC’s Kilburn branch with a judgment stamped by the Bow County Court (local to its Canary Wharf headquarters).  I demanded my money there and then and created a right hiatus in the branch!  I didn’t get it then but I did the following day in crisp £50 notes.

Den Of Thieves

It goes without saying that the banks are all, without exception, cheats, thieves, liars and lowlife scoundrels.  That’s why millions of people were relying on the Office Of Fair Trading to stand up for them.  The OFT’s decision now to drop their action against the banks is a national disgrace of monstrous proportions.  Although we cannot be sure of exactly who is behind this scandal, the fact that dishonesty, corruption and theft are at the root of it is manifest and crystal clear.

The banks were making around £7 billion a year in charges, most of which were for unauthorised overdrafts.  Claimants would have been able to claim for six years of charges so the banks have been let off a £40 billion hook.  Never have the British people been so let down by those who are supposed to protect them.

The High Court first made the extraordinary decision that these charges were not penalty charges.  This is nonsense.  HSBC actually described many of their charges to me as “card misuse” – so is that a penalty or not?.  Of course they were and as such were illegal and unenforceable at law.  When the banks debited your account like this they were committing theft and they’ve got away with it scot free.

It has now been well established that the actual cost to the banks of these transactions were less than £2 each when they were charging their customers up to £40 a time.

It must be truly astonishing to any right minded person that the OFT has backed down.  Even in the last Supreme Court judgement the OFT was given a clear hint, more like an invitation, that it should revert to the Court on a different basis.  So what possible reason can there be for abandoning the claim?

There can be no doubt that this decision is improper.  I wonder why it was announced on 22nd December when the entire country was at the peak of its pre-Christmas mass hysteria?

Two Faced Coward

John Fingleton, the OFT’s chief executive, should resign immediately.  He is either corrupt or weak.  He certainly has no integrity because whatever pressure or bribery has been put upon him he should have fought to his last breath to stop this massive crime by the banker robbers.

We cannot rely on these paper tigers of consumer protection.  We certainly cannot rely on government.  It is doubtful that our self-serving, whipped and bullied MPs will do anything meaningful.   It seems the only option now may be molotov cocktails through the door of every bank premises throughout the country.   How else are we supposed to protect ourselves when we are so badly let down?

We live in an entirely monetised society.  It is impossible to function without a bank account.  Therefore, the banker robbers must be regulated virtually to death.  Their policies and profits must be ruthlessly controlled.  Their crimes must not be overlooked but punished severely with massive multi-billion pound fines for the institutions and long prison sentences for the responsible executives.

Hoodwinked By The Banker Robbers

That’s you and me.  We’re the one’s who’ve been conned and cheated.  Gordon, Alistair, the FSA – they’re all either criminally negligent incompetents or co-conspirators.

Absolutely nothing has changed in the world of banking.  Is any more proof needed that the people running banks are liars, cheats and thieves?  Aside from the systematic extortion of the taxpayer, none of the promises about lending to the real ecomony or reining in their depraved “culture” have been kept.

Spineless assurances will not do anymore.  The government must radically overhaul the terms of the licences under which banks operate.   Real leadership and responsibility is needed now to ensure that this happens  before the end of the year – not after months or years of consultation and behind the scenes corruption.

Businesses that want to enjoy the huge privilege of serving UK consumers as bankers must be held to a strict and rigidly enforced rulebook.   No participation in casino banking, minimum levels of lending, maximum levels of interest rates and charges, a “right to borrow” for those businesses and consumers who meet straightforward criteria.

These steps are essential to re-establish the operation of an effective market economy.  In a world which has become entirely monetised we can no longer be subject to the rapacious and avaricious behaviour of those who run the money business.