STAFFORDSHIRE CRIME STATISTICS GOING UP AND DOWN

 08. Jun. 2010. – 16:00:45 

This blog is for the happy cops bringing down the crime rate in Staffordshire and the unhappy cops in Staffordshire Constabulary who can`t control the criminal activity in Burton on Trent a fair town in the above mentioned county of Staffordshire. 

If there`s one topic on which my fuse burns rather quickly and brightly it is crime statistics and especially those reported locally through local press. These are not F.O.I. figures. They are generally prepared and supplied by the local constabulary. 
It was therefore salutary to read in "This is Staffordshire" of the falling crime rate. After all amongst other things that`s what the council tax payers of the county are paying for and surely Staffordshire Constabulary`s P.R. department will tell it how it is....or will it? Burton on Trent lies in the aforesaid county of Staffordshire. According to its local newspaper "The Burton News and Staffordshire" crime is rising in that fair town. I am not here to contradict these reports. But if anybody reading this blog lives in the town and reads both these newspapers are you happy or dissatisfied with the performance of your local police force? 

Surely the report re Burton on Trent should have included overall county figures in addition to the local criminal activity? Surely the P.R. department should have managed the publication of crime figures more comprehensively? Surely for the public benefit this type of nonsense should be controlled more effectively?

JEKYLL AND HYDE PROSECUTIONS

 

07. Jun. 2010. – 10:41:51

When Robert Louis Stevenson published "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" in 1886 little did he realise that the name[s] of the central character would become synonymous with behaviour that can only be described as schizophrenic either literally or metaphorically.

And a Jekyll and Hyde performance was the only way to describe the local council`s prosecuting performance a couple of months ago when various cases were before us. The afternoon began with two matters of estate agents having erected boards and in the first instance also an advertising hording apparently without the correct authority. The prosecutor told us the facts and the first agent pleaded guilty but after listening carefully to his mitigation which involved many years` history and pages of documents [he was unrepresented] and revolved around "grandfather rights" we concluded it was an equivocal plea and ordered a trial. This provoked concerned looks all round and in order to ensure justice was seen to be done we stayed our decision and put the matter back so that the parties could have further discussions. Eventually on the parties` return and the defendant`s final plea of guilty we fined his firm £500 plus a similar sum for costs. The prosecutor had had a clearly documented file and the defendant had only himself to blame for being in contravention of the planning laws.

The very next case of a broadly similar nature with another guilty plea from an unrepresented defendant whose mitigation prompted so many questions from the bench to the prosecutor that he admitted that the quality of preparation was such that the matter should and could have been settled weeks previously. There was a history of many unanswered e-mails from the defendant, telephone calls to the council not returned and letters sent to wrong addresses. This estate agent was however guilty. He was given a conditional discharge for six months and no costs were ordered.

The third and final case that afternoon had the prosecutor presenting a clearly documented file of over ten pages with umpteen e-mails, phone calls and letters to and from the defendant over seven years laid out in meticulous fashion. A garage owner had purchased a freehold comprising a garage, two retail outlets and flat. He had let the flat and shops and carried out a car repair business from that area of the premises making, he told us later, about £10,000 p/a profit from the garage. The only problem for him was that he had not received planning permissions for the car repair business and alterations to the building. The brief history was that after hoping that his ignoring the council`s letters would make the problem go away and belatedly not taking professional advice when he eventually responded this defendant had virtually no mitigation to offer after he had pleaded guilty except to apologise for his inaction as above and a litany of feeble excuses.

When it came to his completing a "means form" prior to sentencing it took a lengthy question and answer session to prise from him the profit figures over the years of illegal trading. His defiance of council planning requirements was expensive. He was ordered to pay around £11,000 in fine and costs.

When councils set their minds to it their prosecutions can be a model of efficiency but when they go wrong they go badly wrong and that costs us all.

SENTENCING IS AS FASHIONABLE AS WOMENS` HEMLINES

 

06. Jun. 2010. – 13:57:25

"Pleading guilty to the police should be rewarded with a lighter sentence", said Lord Leveson Court of Appeal Judge and chairman of the new Sentencing Council.

John Thornhill, Chairman of the Magistrates` Association, is quoted saying, “If a defendant holds up his hand at the earliest opportunity then I have no problem with credit being given. Whether a guilty plea could be taken at the police station was another matter, but if the court is presented with a defendant who has already admitted guilt, then why not have a more structured scale of discounts to reflect that?”

Lord Justice Leveson wants to review the discounts for guilty pleas to award bigger credit to defendants who admit their crimes even before the first hearing – the idea has potential for saving money in police and court time and helps victims and witnesses. However lawyers share John Thornhill’s caution by warning that unless carefully managed it could put suspects under pressure to plead guilty at crimes that they had not committee and would lead to miscarriages of justice.

Defendants who plead guilty "at the earliest opportunity" are usually allowed one third reduction in their sentence be it financial, unpaid work or custody. If an additional reduction is given for a guilty plea at the police station it could lead to dissimilar sentences for guilty pleas to similar offences by similar defendants where one offender wishes to hedge his options under legal advice. All this is based on the old story of persuading the donkey to get a move on by waving a carrot under its nose. But discussing carrots as incentives for donkeys is akin to rocket engineers discussing propulsion as action; the rocket cannot exist without also including reaction. So with regard to incentivising a donkey`s forward locomotion we need to discuss the corollary and that is a stick to the donkey`s rump if it refuses to move. I would opine that many? most? defendants cannot comprehend reductions in future sentences as they could understand "more". I would suggest we cease reducing sentences for early pleas, good behaviour etc. etc. and make it very clear that sentences will increase if found guilty after a trial vis a vis a guilty plea made early. The sentences themselves could theoretically be tailored to fit as now but the psychological addition of time or money has more significance than the corresponding reduction.

There are traditional “hangers and floggers” and there are so called prison reformers who find difficulty in accepting incarceration for all but the most heinous crimes and offenders. The central majority is following the penal pendulum as it makes its arc swinging from left to right to left to right……………..jumping on and off as opinions change. Who is to say eg that the use of Class A,B and C drugs will not be decriminalised within the next twenty years or that jury trials will be abolished for all indictable only crimes. Sentencing is as much a fashion product as womens` hemlines.

---

OFF THE GUIDELINES JUDICIAL SENTENCING

 

05. Jun. 2010. – 14:04:49

The judiciaries` sentencing powers have long been a political dog for the government`s bones. The bones are limitless in number and varied in content. When the dog starts showing restlessness it is usually given something to chew on. A motto for Magistrates` Courts could be or rather used to be "local courts, local JPs, local justice." All that ended in 1939. The rural population decreased. Deference to a local hierachy based on perceived class differences was shattered fifty years ago to be replaced by the worship of wealth and those who achieved it. Mass immigration lessened the bonds of a common historical memory which many would say was beyond its sell by date in any case. In the last twenty years owing to economic arguments not needed here high streets achieved such homogenity that one could be forgiven that without any sound a high street in Luton could just as easily be in Dudley. Magistrates are appointed locally to national standards of competence and approval and that is as it should be. But sentencing could be argued to be a different matter.

For many years there have been committees of "the great and the good" formulating the appropriate sentences for appropriate offences and offenders these "guidelines" to be applied nationally with the argument commonly levelled against NHS treatments and outcomes that "we don`t want a post code lottery in sentencing". I would ask why not? If as is revealed in the press almost weekly an NHS treatment in eg Manchester will extend a patient`s life by two years yet in Birmingham that treatment is not available would one prefer a Manchester post code or a Birmingham post code? It could be said that all treatments should be as Manchester post codes. 

The newly formed Sentencing Council differs from its predecessor the Sentencing Guidelines Council insofar as sentencers "must follow" the guidelines unless it would not be "in the interests of justice." That phrase is open to interpretation and I am quite sure it will be widely quoted in the future perhaps in The Sun or Daily Mail both in praise and criticism of an "off the guidelines" judicial sentence.

DANGEROUS DOGS ;TIME FOR THE LAW TO BITE BACK

 

04. Jun. 2010. – 12:58:07

Thankfully most people do not come into contact with the legal process with the possible exception of when they are encased in a metal and glass box containing combustible liquid and are travelling in an inappropriate manner but that`s for another time.

There are eight million dogs in the U.K. and of course each has at least a single owner. They are all descended from wolves; that is the dogs are.....although some might say they are higher up the tree of civilisation than some of the owners. The ancient Persians were the first to domesticate dogs and they and later civilisations in Egypt used them as hunting animals, guard dogs and pets. At times domestic dogs were buried as sacred animals in the Anubieion catacombs at Saqqara. Anubis (Inpew, Yinepu, Anpu) was an ancient Egyptian god of the underworld who guided and protected the spirits of the dead.
For many hundreds of years kings and queens of England have employed dogs for hunting and canine association with royalty is very much with us today. Dogs have been bred also for virtues other than the strength of their jaws which is solely related to their head size. Dogs in fiction are known to most of us; Bull`s Eye in Oliver Twist, Rin Tin Tin, Lassie. Alpine dogs and swimming dogs have saved many people in peril; police dogs and dogs for the blind are essential helpers to their human owners. And there perhaps is the nub of the point of this post.....dogs of whatever breed will, generally, behave according to the manner in which they have or have not been trained.

Until 1871 there was no legislation regarding dogs behaving badly. If you were a man of substance you took your gun and shot the offending creature and perhaps also its owner if he resisted. If you were poor it ate the same scraps as its owner and perhaps provided some protection as well as companionship. The Dogs Act of 1871 allowed a complaint to be made to a magistrate under civil law. Such a complaint occurs if a dog is not kept under proper control and is dangerous. Generally a dog is regarded as not being under proper control if it is neither on a lead nor muzzled. Without a complaint the Act cannot be enforced.

After a series of serious dog bite attacks in the 1980s parliamentary knee jerk reaction was to enact the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 which allowed for the destruction or neutering of certain breeds. Most dog behaviourists and dog trainers agree that it is the dog owners that are the problem with dangerous dogs not the breed. This Act is, to coin a phrase, a dogsbody of law. There is a lack of protection against attacks on private property. This means that postmen and women, or any worker visiting the dog's home, can be attacked without criminal charges being brought against the owner.. I blogged on this and an actual case which demonstrated some anomalies earlier this year on 21st February. But dogs still bite people and people are still seriously injured by dogs. In 2008 4,699 people were admitted to hospital and kept in at least one night with injuries from dog bites. Children under nine were by far the most likely victims.

I have written previously that Scotland in many areas of legislation from car clamping to age of criminal responsibility has shown a lead where common sense and clearly drafted regulation has benefited its people. The Control of Dogs (Scotland) Bill passed its third stage in the Scottish Parliament at the end of April and now looks set to become law north of the border. This new Act importantly places the onus on the owners, not the dogs, to ensure they are properly controlled.

Dog bite incidents which happen dozens of times every day rarely make news unless a child is killed or the people involved can sometimes dubiously be described as “personalities”. Such was the case reported today when Ozzy Osbourne's old boss was fined £2,500 after his dog attacked a cyclist near 

Edenbridge. Patrick Meehan the former manager of Black Sabbath and former chairman of Handmade Films, the financially troubled film company founded by Beetle George Harrison, is an extremely wealthy individual. And paying less than £3,000 including costs for the actions of his dog is not only a puny amount it does not reflect the seriousness of the crime. The punishment under the Dangerous Dogs Act is currently a maximum fine of £5,000 or up to six months` imprisonment. A person convicted of carrying a knife in a public place faces a minimum punishment of imprisonment even for a first offence according to “Povey”. Irresponsible dog owners even if they are multi millionaire media personalities are equally culpable if their “pets” are running free and/or not muzzled and attack innocent bystanders. 

HOW MANY POLICE DOES IT TAKE TO ???

 

02. Jun. 2010. – 16:03:59

Are the following statistics for 2009 concerning the numbers of police officers in England and Wales worthy of comment from somebody who knows more than I about staffing structures?

There is 1 sergeant for every 4.8 constables
There is 1 inspector for every 3.04 sergeants
There is 1 chief inspector for every 3.85 inspectors
There is 1 superintendent for every 1.89 chief inspectors
There is 1 chief superintendent for every 2.1 superintendents