JUSTICE OPINION

There have been some interesting commentaries on the justice system this week.  In Peru we had the sort of action I believe is common in America - the two British girls charged with drugs smuggling have been protesting their innocence in court, but, with the prospect of 15 years in prison, were advised to plead guilty and receive a mere 6 years sentence.  This says nothing about their guilt or innocence of course, but merely that the local justice system is punitive.

In the UK, we are less punitive in this way.  But there remain anomalies.  Voting rights for prisoners is one.  Although a recent decision in Parliament was not to afford voting rights to prisoners, that decision is now being re-examined.  It is generally acceptable here that those convicted of a crime may be incarcerated (not quite as readily as in the US).  But it does seem inequitable that, if you have a penal system based on rehabilitation, as we have here, you should deny prisoners access to basic rights throughout the process of their return to society.  The possibility of restoring voting rights towards the end of a sentence is now being considered.  This makes good sense, although one has to accept that the voting pattern of prisoners may not be in line with patterns throughout the country.  The world is divided on this question.  US State legislatures have also taken differing views.  What public opinion may make of the new proposal is to be seen; one possibility may well be that the public will see crimes as lying on some sort of scale of awfulness - it may be OK for burglars to vote, although maybe not child killers.  But I like that there is a debate.

With the death of the notorious/famous gangster Ronnie Biggs, the media has been replaying his life and some of his public statements.  One that struck me was from while he had been on the run 12 years (I think) after he had escaped from prison.  He was asked whether he didn't feel that he ought to return to UK to finish his prison sentence.  'No,' he said.  'The aim of incarceration is rehabilitation.  I have been living outside of prison for 12 years during which time I have committed no crime of any sort.  I am therefore completely rehabilitated and have no need to return to prison.'  Good point!  Would that more criminals could achieve rehabilitation without the cost to the State of their incarceration.

One issue which seems to raise people's blood pressure more than others is that of MPs' or Lords' parliamentary expenses.  There have been a number of criminal convictions now of members who made false statements in order to claim expenses.  This is as it should be and should satisfy the public that such matters are properly policed.  But recent cases of Lords attending the House for 30 minutes and thus claiming an attendance allowance has caused further ire.  I just wanted to say that actually, however mean you might think this practice to be, it is not illegal.  If you attend your place of work, you are entitled to the payments due from that attendance.  Until the rules are rewritten or laws passed, even if it seems that 30 mins is an unacceptable length for a working day, it is the rules not the members' practices that are at fault.  One member of the public interviewed on this subject, however, was so incensed that he demanded that all Lords should be sacked - thus effectively destroying any reasonable argument there might be for doing something about this situation.  He then compounded his irrational outburst by saying that 'they only do the job for the money.'  Er, yes, that's the general idea of employment.

Clearly, MPs and Lords have a lot of PR work to do.  But also I do find interesting this apparent view that our actions should not only be legal, but also fair and perhaps moral.  There is currently no way for the courts to consider such a concept, but nor do I believe that all we humans behave all the time in such an equitable way.  But maybe we should try to bring more of this moral consideration into the justice system.  Perhaps we could start with sentencing.  I was fascinated that the police managed to persuade the courts that the Great Train Robbers, Biggs included, should be given prison terms of up to 25 years.  This was pure vindictiveness on the part of the police, at a time when more serious crimes received lesser sentences (or am I constructing my own scale of awfulness?).  Or perhaps the sentences were a message to the criminal underworld that we frown on organised crime.  But this was a crime unique, or perhaps just of its time, in that no guns were used.  25 years for an unarmed robbery was not a good message to criminals though even then and the justice system did not in that case appear to have considered for example that the robbers might have tried to minimise injuries and have been less brutal than say a mugger or a rapist.

Finally, I can't finish this piece without a comment on the Charles Saatchi case.  Two employees of the Saatchis (Charles and Nigella Lawson) were on trial accused of stealing or misusing several hundred thousand pounds from Charles' bank account.  The defence case was that Nigella Lawson had condoned the theft of Charles' money in exchange for their concealing her drug use.  In these unusual circumstances, although Nigella was not charged with any offence, indeed although it was the employees who were on trial and she was a witness for the prosecution, the judge permitted her cross-examination.  The net result is that the only details of the trial that emerged were the employees' unsubstantiated allegations of Nigella's lifestyle and their criticism of her household management and her childminding abilities.  I am appalled.  Nigella denies the allegations of course.  But, even were the allegations true, no proof has been offered to the court; as far as I know, Nigella has committed no crime; and an opinion poll seems to have found that the public are still content that Nigella's alleged lifestyle is acceptable.  Yet Nigella's life has been pulled apart in the media, through no fault of her own (arguably) and hardly anything has been said about the accused's dissolute lifestyle.  The jury has decided to accept the word of two women who clearly dipped freely into Charles Saatchi's bank account to treat themselves to holidays and expensive clothes, which, whether condoned or not, is entirely irrelevant to their employment, two women who claim that they were in effect paid off to conceal evidence ie allowed to commit a crime by dissembling to their employer and keeping a confidence which they have now anyway broken, and who one might say have now revealed their true characters by selling their stories immediately to the media, no doubt aiming further to justify their nefarious activities and blacken further the name of a woman who has been neither accused nor convicted, nor given the opportunity to defend herself.  This seems to be the opposite of fairness in court.  The justice system has done itself no good in my eyes today.

KNIT PICKING

Since the explosion of interest here in Scandinavian thrillers, both written and on television, I suppose it was inevitable that we should start seeing British thrillers based on the same tenets - dark scenes, broody, troubled detective, lots of suspects, every character with a mysterious secret, all the players somehow inter-connected, each episode meandering mysteriously and slowly on, each ending with yet more unanswered questions and maybe a new suspect, women in jumpers, etc.

I watched the 2-part thriller Shetland last week.  It was quite good.  It was set in a bleak landscape (the Shetland Isles unsurprisingly), there were lots of secrets, the community was close-knit, the jumpers were even more closely knit, everyone seemed to have a secret, the detective was broody, but . . . I don't know, it finished somehow rather unsatisfactorily.  I think they missed the point about making it slow.  Two episodes was just not enough.  When we found out whodunnit, it wasn't really such a big surprise and, since there had been little time for many plot twists, it ended with a phut.

There was great scenery though.  And an obscure Viking festival was featured; I had never heard of that and was fascinated that it has survived.  It could have added an even more sinister atmosphere to the context of the crime, but again, it sort of passed by.  The series was as if a producer had demanded a British rival to The Killing and someone had made the leap from Icelandic jumper to Shetland jumpers, but hadn't really followed the thought through.  The disillusioned detective's daughter had the best jumpers and all the best lines - he said to her, 'you can see Iceland over there.'  She responded, 'what the supermarket?  Oh no, I forgot, there are no supermarkets on the islands are there.'  Later she added, 'I can't even go out and climb a tree.  There aren't any!'  Unless you want to see what The Shetlands look like, don't bother to look for this series on catch-up.

I am in the middle of the longer Broadchurch at the moment.  Broadchurch beach is actually Bridport and is based around the high cliffs you may remember I featured in a recent post.  The main actors are David Tennant and Olivia Colman.  If you are a fan of David Tennant, he is brilliant.  If you're not, you might think he acts too hard.  He is the broody detective with a past to hide and, as with others in this genre, he seems to be emotionless.  But it's hard to tell whether he's trying to look like someone who's trying hide something and struggling to suppress his emotions for risk of giving too much away although not being quite broody enough to be charismatic and likeable or whether he's trying to look like someone who's a brilliant impassive detective with a broody nature, but isn't quite succeeding.

But the show is actually all about Colman.  She is just extraordinary.  Knowing all the members of the community well, her character has to help conduct an enquiry that appears to suspect any or all of them.  And of course she still wishes to be one of them and is distraught for all of them and shares all their suffering.  When she looks at the camera, you don't need any words, nor anyone else in the scene, you just feel what's going through her mind and what's going on.  Fabulous!

So far the series has followed all the rules - dark scenes, broody, troubled detective, lots of suspects, characters with secrets, all the players somehow inter-connected, each episode grinding slowly on, each ending with unanswered questions and maybe a new suspect, and a woman, not in a particularity memorable jumper, but in a nice boating waterproof anyway.  I hope it continues to unravel in this way (the series, not the jumper) (although, on the other hand . . .).  Broadchurch will be appearing on US TVs later in the year, so look out for it.

In contrast, I have just finished watching Spiral, the French detective series.  In many respects this series also followed the Scandinavian rules.  In fact it beat Shetland and Broadchurch by also having subtitles.  They both had tricky Scottish accents to contend with, but there's something about subtitles that adds to the mystery.  Or maybe that's just by association with the Scandinavian language thrillers.

Anyway, Spiral also had a woman in a jumper.  Again, not a particularly memorable one, although I might have just been distracted by the fact  that it kept slipping off her shoulder.  All the police here  seemed to interpret 'plain clothes' as down-and-out scruffy blousons.  What a waste of an opportunity for the French fashion knitwear industry.  One of the criminals disguised himself as a policeman at one stage by not shaving and putting on a leather bomber jacket.  Even he saw that it was some sort of uniform.  But I suppose it must have had an element of realism in it, otherwise it wouldn't have been accepted on French TV.  Perhaps all those louche men hanging around on French street corners with cigarettes in their mouths are actually police officers.

Spiral was also a police procedural thriller, like most of the dark, mysterious Scandinavian ones.  I am in the process of reading through the 10-book Martin Beck series, which was the forerunner of all of today's police procedurals.  The main premise there, apart from the gloomy, dedicated detective with a consequent hopeless homelife, was that society was rotten, mostly because of the actions of Government.  So most of the action takes place in run-down public housing, with understaffed police, illegal immigrants living outside the law, citizens with their lives ruined by public servants or wealthy industrialists, etc and most of the criminals evoking more sympathy than the representatives of the law.

Spiral had the dingy, run-down back streets, rather than the grand frontages one is used to in scenes of Paris, it also had the illegal immigrants and down-trodden citizens and uncaring, self-serving authorities.  The police characters too all had the usual personal problems.  But it didn't seem to have the political message of the Martin Beck procedural.  What it did have though was a great premise - instead of the gloomy, bleak, wintry, nocturnal environment of The Killing or Shetland, the atmosphere was built up with intertwined stories of crooks, lawyers and police, and every one of them operating outside of the law with greater or lesser degrees of venality.  Maybe that was the political message ie real life in France is not the one promoted in all the superficial fashion and holiday magazines?  Anyway it was fascinating to watch at every level.

We were not invited to like the thuggish police officers that much.  Nor did I have much sympathy for the criminals, certainly not for the anarchists among them.  But, if the environment revealed in this series was indeed realistic, what a dystopia!  I guess there will be another series in due course.  Watch it!

ANTI-SOCIAL NETWORKING

Now here's an interesting thing.  Latest crime figures for the UK show a continual significant decrease in crime.  There are those who assume that the figures have been massaged in some way.  They may be right.  There are those who think that the way statistics are compiled has somehow been changed to give a more favourable complexion.  That may be true too.  And there are those who claim that the presentation is weaselly worded, that now only reported crime is recorded for example and that people do not now bother to report instances that have become commonplace or that minor instances are simply disregarded by the authorities.  I'm sure that there is some of that too.

But there are other factors at work here.  In a survey last year for example, those asked felt that crime in Britain had changed little over the previous year.  But when asked about crime in their local area, the reaction was different.  There they believed that the number of crimes was falling.  And this was the consistent answer each month over the whole year.

So what is going on?  Well, after giving my thoughts on children with smart phones and Internet connections, it seems that social networking sites may have other benefits.  Other than pornography that is.  I thought that this was an interesting theory.

Of course online aggression may itself be a crime.  But maybe we prefer it off the streets.

WHO CARES?

I have been trying to find something sensible to say about the recent spate of sex grooming cases here.  The first convictions in such a case were reported here.

 

For those of you that haven’t heard of these cases, men, mostly in the Midlands, have been systematically plying very young girls with drink and drugs and then taking advantage of them sexually and selling them for sex to friends and relatives.  There seem to be many such cases, but few culprits have been tried and convicted.  There was another conviction of an individual this morning on similar offences, so perhaps investigations are becoming more successful.

Everyone has been trying hard not to say that there is some racial element involved here, mostly because white far right groups have been trying to incite violence against immigrant communities on the back of the scandal.  But the fact is that almost all the men involved are Pakistanis (hence they are mostly found in the Midlands, a major Pakistani community) and almost all the girls involved are white.  A separate issue is that most of the girls live in care homes or are otherwise under care and are therefore particularly vulnerable.

I listened to a chilling account on the radio yesterday by one of the girls involved.  She was 13 when she decided to go into town one night ‘for a bit of fun’.  A Pakistani man stopped in his car and asked her whether she’d like a lift.  She agreed and, whilst he drove, she drank from a vodka mix drink he gave her.  When he eventually stopped, not in the town centre, but at his house, she was drunk and went inside with him.  He had sex with her and then took her home.  From then on she found herself locked into a relationship with him and was frequently picked up and passed around others for sex.

This account was given in such a matter of fact voice that, at each stage, you felt like screaming ‘but why did you do it?’  There was no explanation.  Of course these girls are the victims, but the men’s description of them as willing whores was not at all contradicted by this girl’s account or by others I have read.  Yes, they present themselves as victims, and they were abused and the men were acting against the law, but at no time is there any rationale for what the girls did.

How has this state of affairs come about?  One problem of course (if you accept the premise that there is a major Pakistani involvement) is the culture and practices of Pakistani Muslims, not only in their own country, but transported to UK by immigrants and maintained here by British born Pakistanis.  There are frequent stories in the media concerning crimes committed by Pakistani families, often where daughters do not marry the man chosen by the father.  One in today’s newspaper concerns a girl abducted by her family, despite being married, because she is expected to marry a cousin in Pakistan.  She was apparently betrothed without her knowledge when she was 15.  And it isn’t just the father that commits these acts; she was drugged by her sister and carried off by her mother and father.  In another case, a young Pakistani bride was kept locked in the house by her father in law and subjected to sexual abuse.  And there have been many worse cases where girls are murdered because they get involved with a man the father believes is unsuitable. It is shameful for Pakistani girls to be involved with an 'unsuitable' man.  But the way to overcome that seems to be for Pakistani men to turn to a non-Pakistani for sex.  That seems not to be shameful. 

The point is that, although these crimes take place in Britain, none of those involved seem to think that they are in fact crimes.  There is mixed comment from others in the community about whether such acts are normal in Pakistani culture, but anyway, plenty of members of the community believe they are.  The men convicted in the sex grooming case made it quite clear they didn’t think that they had done anything wrong.  And of course betrothals at a very early age (often to older men) help to sustain the thought that sex with young girls is OK.

What to do?  Clearly there is a problem in the Pakistani community.  I assume that not all Pakistani people believe such practices should be condoned.  Yet, no one from the community came forward and reported the crimes to the authorities.  Community leaders must be instructed to do more to get across to their communities that such practices are unacceptable in Britain, if not everywhere.  But we should do more too.  I am all for multiculturalism, but immigrants and their families (at the time of immigration – many members of these communities were of course born here, which is why community leaders have to take responsibility now) must be made to understand what the laws and culture of Britain are.  Where there is a clash, the law of their chosen country (ie Britain) must prevail.  I hope that increased success by the police in stamping on this activity will help to bring home to others that it is wrong.  That is why working with community leaders must start now before others in the 'business' are pushed underground or deeper into the community.

But we must also do something about the victims and the potential victims.  If children are in care, if the home is called a ‘care home’, then it is the Director's responsibility to ensure that care is applied.  It just won’t do to allow young girls to go wandering off at night.  There is some suggestion that the homes knew the girls were being picked up in cars outside.  If this is true, the duty of care has certainly been lost somewhere and those responsible should be made to understand.  

Care homes are currently the subject of an inquiry, following this recent case, and that is as it should be.  But surely there is more to looking after young, vulnerable girls than just stopping them from going out at night.  Any father of teen-aged girls knows how difficult that is and knows what it’s like sitting up waiting nervously for them to come home.  But, before this moment, the girl will have been given a good deal of education and instruction and advice (probably scorned, but hopefully not forgotten).  I can’t forget the calm way that girl described her experiences, as though they were inevitable, or maybe that there was nothing else to do of an evening, or (can it be) that she didn’t know what was happening.  It is not clear to me that the care homes are offering anything like a parental duty of care, but nor do they seem to be providing education.  There may be something we should be doing to prevent so many girls ending up in care like this, but meanwhile, simply sticking them in a home is not in itself a solution to their problems.

There are many angles at which we as a society should be ensuring education is applied, not only to young people, but also to those of different cultures and to those in positions of authority.  But we seem to have failed to do so in every respect.  The most horrific feature in all this is that so many people seemed to know what was going on – other Pakistanis, families, friends of the girls, shopkeepers and neighbours, care home staff.  Yet no one seems to have cared quite enough to do anything about it.  Maybe we should now make it clear that we care.

GUILT EDGE

I am fascinated by recent developments which give a complex, multi-layered picture of what we understand by criminal culpability and how we deal with it.  At one time it was a clear, and praiseworthy, feature of British justice that one was innocent until proven guilty.  Once proven guilty, the whole weight of British justice would fall on your head.  Yet I also thought that one was accepted back into society once punished and rehabilitated.  But these days we seem to hold slightly different views of these things.

The first case that raised questions in my mind was (is) that of Abu Qatada.  For those that don't know the case, he has been imprisoned many times in the UK in recent years for inciting racial hatred.  He is a Jordanian, living in Britain somehow, almost universally reviled and not wanted here by anyone I think.  Yet somehow we seem unable to do anything about his presence.  He has now been convicted in absentia in Jordan of terrorism crimes and they wish him to be deported to Jordan for imprisonment.  But we seem unable to deport him either, thanks to the silly European Court.  He is currently at liberty on bail and pursuing appeals through the courts.  I don't understand what he is doing in this country, but, on the other hand, however horrible a man he is, he has been convicted of no criminal offence here.  We seem to be determined to get rid of him (once the courts have lumbered through the judicial process), but somehow his guilt here has built up mostly through the media and Government statements.  The European Courts may not be so silly.  But none the less, he is convicted in his own country and should not still be at large here.

Given the above case, the case of Christopher Tappin is even more curious.  He is wanted for trial in America for allegedly selling batteries to Iran (which might have been used on missiles).  He denies the charge, but, as with Jordan, we have an extradition agreement with the US which means that, in this case, as requested, we extradited Tappin to America.  What I find difficult about this case is that Tappin is likely to be kept in an American prison for up to 2 years while his case comes before the courts.  This although he is presumed innocent (presumably).  And in this case, for some reason, the European Court refused to become involved (perhaps his being European made him less interesting to them?).  He has now been released on bail pending trial on payment of $1m - quite a sum for an innocent foreigner.  Or does the question of aiding Iran's nuclear missile programme carry more weight than his innocence?

Of more immediate currency here is the continuing News of the World saga.  When Mr Murdoch was the most influential media mogul in Britain, politicians were falling over themselves to meet him at parties or to invite his henchmen to private meals.  Such contacts can be traced back over the last 4 Governments.  Yet, now his star is in the descendant, the current media MInister (and even the PM) are under attack for their closeness to him.  The Labour leader said of the Minister, 'It beggars belief that he is still in his job'.  But it's not entirely clear to me where his guilt lies.  His office sent e-mails keeping Murdoch informed of progress on media decisions affecting him.  That seems no worse than speaking to him at a party or telephoning him, as previous PM's have done.  But there we are, I guess the Minister will have to bow to pressure and leave his job eventually, whether he is guilty of anything or not. 

Finally, on a different level, there is, pre-Olympics, a debate about the British lifetime ban on drugs cheats.  When they are caught, drug-using athletes always become contrite and often set up campaigns to help prevent other athletes making the same mistakes they made.  All very commendable.  But does this enforced change of heart mean that they are rehabilitated and should be forgiven and invited back into the British team?  I'm not so sure.  For once the rapid rehabilitation fails to impress me.  Yet how does that square with my view that rehabilitation is the aim?  Are drug cheats in sport more guilty than say a murderer that has completed his sentence? 

Clearly there is more to innocence and guilt than I used to think.  Do media and political campaigns sway my views or do they simply help increase the sense of guilt in the accused?  Should we continue to want to be shot of Abu Qatada because he is a nasty man (according to whom?  I've never met him, have you?)?  And should the British Olympic team welcome back the drug cheats, because actually they are all nice people? 

Who is guilty of what here?

DRIVE FASTER POLICE

I was at first annoyed by what seemed a petty piece of petulance.  But then I was struck by the police explanation, ‘Cost is not a consideration in our decision to prosecute’.  So they will try to get a conviction whatever the cost.  Conviction rates are what are important.

The country is still laced with speed cameras.  What are they for?  I always assumed that they were there to slow drivers down on particularly difficult stretches of road.  There is a camera near us on the A3 where the road suddenly, after a long 70mph run, becomes 50 and there is a camera just after.  Locals know all about it and break hard as they approach (and usually then speed up a little again after they have passed).  I have never felt guilty about driving this way; after all, I slowed down to a ‘safe speed’ before the tricky bend.  And I wasn’t surprised to read in the newspaper that this was one of the most profitable speed cameras in Britain.  It is after all slightly unfair to have a 50mph sign without warning and then a sneaky camera just after it where motorists are still slowing down.  But that’s life.  The police have to make their money somehow.  Or so I thought.

The rationale for setting up speed cameras was something else.  Originally they were indeed described as a valuable means of cutting road deaths, since they would encourage drivers to slow down and avoid accidents.  One Chief Constable is on record as saying that ’it is beyond doubt that they prevent death and injury.’  One other official involved in setting up the network, talked of giving the motorist plenty of warning when approaching cameras to avoid accidents.  It is also worth saying that the location of speed cameras is shown on the latest road maps and GPS screens.  This prior warning is apparently perfectly legal, since it was determined that encouraging drivers to slow where they knew there were cameras was a prime objective.  The views of another Chief Constable were once quoted as being that cameras should be brightly painted.  ‘I have no time for the argument that cameras should be hidden,’ he said.  ‘I'm interested in prevention.’  Statistics have now shown however that in the first 5 years since their introduction, road deaths actually increased.  So why keep the cameras then?  Because they have become an extraordinary source of revenue.

I don’t know how much has been raised from speed cameras since they were installed, but I estimate that it is now approaching a quarter of a billion pounds. It is a great money making machine.  Or at least it was.  The Coalition Government has pledged to scrap public funding for these expensive pieces of equipment under the present round of budget cuts and some regions have already turned theirs off.    And ‘speed’ camera is a bit of a misnomer anyway, since around a million drivers have been prosecuted for other offences from driving in a bus lane to driving dangerously.  And it is now possible to identify, using speed cameras, cars with unpaid tax or other offences against them, or whether drivers are wearing seat belts.  There was even a proposal by the last government that speed cameras should be used to recognise good driving and help motorists earn points toward some sort of safety recognition through his insurance or other means.  But closer supervision of drivers and raking in the fines was clearly paramount.

But all that has changed again.  Mr Thompson took it upon himself, by flashing his lights, to slow oncoming traffic before they came to a speed trap round the corner.  This is a fairly common practice here and in several other countries.  But the police took a dim view of it; a second speed cop caught Mr Thompson warning drivers and prosecuted him.  He was convicted of wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of their duties.  As one observer put it, there can be no offence for trying to get motorists to drive more safely.  Presumably after Mr Thompson’s warning some drivers did slow down and the road was thus safer.  That can only have been obstructing the police if they actually wanted the cars to continue driving too fast.

But encouraging traffic to avoid a speed trap is now it seems an offence.  Speed traps are not for making the roads safer, nor yet for raising revenue, no, they are simply there to help the police keep up their prosecution rate.  So the next time we see the police statistics showing how many criminals they caught on our highways and byways, just remember, the police would rather spend money on gaining those convictions than having the roads made safe, since safer roads means fewer convictions and presumably too few convictions raises questions about the number of police.