IPCC Try Another Tack

I do promise that the last post will be coming soon. In the meantime this story caught my attention.

In August 2010 two Kent police officers were called to detain 52 year old Colin Holt, who had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Holt was allegedly restrained by the officers and allegedly died of positional asphyxia.

Two years later, on the 7th September 2012, Rene Barclay of the Crown Prosecution Service announced that the two Kent police officers are to be prosecuted. He said " It is alleged that on 30 August 2010, whilst acting as a police officer, namely as a police constable, PC Leigh and PC Bowdery misconducted themselves in that, without lawful justification or excuse, they wilfully neglected to take reasonable and proper care of Colin Holt, a person in police detention."

This matter will now be going to trial and it is important that nothing more is said about the details of this case which might prejudice any trial.

The case does raise some important issues. Once again these officers, and Holt's family, have had to wait two years before the outcome of the investigation and a prosecution decision. The pace of Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigations is outrageously slow.

The most concerning aspect of this case is the charge. In the case of Tomlinson/Harper the charge was one of manslaughter. In that case a jury acquitted PC Harper. He will face a disciplinary hearing for breaches of force policy and procedure and may lose his job.

If it is believed that officer's are responsible for a death then why isn't the charge manslaughter? Have the IPCC and CPS decided that the public, who make up juries, are too reluctant to convict police officers of manslaughter when carrying out a job in difficult circumstances? Have they now decided to charge this offence for breaches of policy and procedure, that would normally, and in any other role, be dealt with by internal discipline procedures.

The IPCC are anxious to show, a small but vociferous minority,  that they are independent. To do that they are desperate to build a list of convictions of police officers. If you look at the CPS guidance on the prosecution of the offence of Misconduct in Public Office (contrary to common law) it clearly states that the charge should not be preferred if there is evidence of a statutory offence. So the preferring of the charge suggests there is no evidence of manslaughter or any other substantive offence.

The charge of Misconduct in Public office is a serious one and is indictable only and carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. The charge is being used more and more frequently to deal with misconduct issues by police officers. The offence  is committed when:

• a public officer acting as such
• wilfully neglects to perform his duty and/or wilfully misconducts himself
• to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder
• without reasonable excuse or justification

It will be interesting to see if the IPCC and CPS new tactic succeeds in increasing their prosecution tally.

In the meantime, Tom Winsor will be taking over as Chief HMIC and he and the Home Secretary will be going ahead with their program of cutting pay and pensions and implementing their perception that the role of a police officer is no different to any other job.  Except, of course, they won't give us the right to take industrial action like any other job. They still expect us turn out for work any time to sort out the latest riot or public event. If there is a whiff of you doing something wrong or making a mistake you can expect the IPCC to pour all over it for two years and prosecute you for Misconduct in Public Office if they think there is half a chance of taking a police officers scalp.

Police officers are now treating the role as just another job. Why shouldn't they? Why would anyone want to go the extra mile or take any risks when there is no support and utter contempt from your masters. When this attitude becomes endemic you will see the difference. I shall be glad to be out of it.

Justice System Fails Again

MP Eric Joyce

There has been a lot said already regarding the behaviour and sentencing of Labour MP Eric Joyce. Mr Joyce went into the Strangers Bar in the House of Commons. He was drunk. He was abusive and then attacked a number of people in the bar, headbutting at least two of them. He caused injury to more than one of them. When the police attended he resisted arrest and had to be forcibly restrained. He was charged with four counts of common assault, the lowest charge that can be put with regard to a criminal assault.

As we know, Mr Joyce has been fined £3000. He has to pay compensation of £1400 to his victims. He has to complete 12 months community work. He has a weekend curfew and he is banned from licensed premises for three months. In the circumstances the judge did pretty much all they could taking account of the charges.

Mr Joyce has announced that he has no intention of standing down as an MP and will continue in that role until the next election. Quite rightly commentators have expressed their outrage that Mr Joyce has not gone to prison and that he will remain in his job as an MP. Imagine the furore if a police officer behaved in this way and was still allowed to keep their job. It appears that law makers are not required to have the same morals and ethics as law enforcers.  There is still one rule for those 'above stairs' and another for those 'below.'

The real issue regarding this case is that Mr Joyce was never going to prison once the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had ensured, as usual, that the charges preferred were at the very bottom of the scale. They are an integral part of the justice system that tries to keep our prisons empty and ensure deterrence and consequences are obsolete.

Mr Joyce could and should have been charged with Affray. He could have been charged with Assault Causing Actual Bodily Harm, a more serious assault charge. He could and should have been charged with resisting arrest. Once the CPS had watered down the charges to four counts of common assault, Mr Joyce was never going to prison.

Failing Justice System, Failing Society

Over the last 50 years or so we have become victims of an experiment by liberal policy makers, exacerbated more lately by our attachment to Europe and the Human Rights Act. These naive policies, which have supposedly given individuals more freedoms, have in fact resulted in the majority having their freedoms eroded. In the case of crime, the decent law abiding majority are now fearful of leaving their homes and worried about becoming a victim every time they step out of their door.

Most sensible people understand the underlying issues we have in society but we seem to be completely impotent when it comes to addressing them. Until the 1960's behaviour in society was heavily influenced by peer pressure. It wasn't Utopia by any means, but somewhere the baby has got thrown out with the bathwater. The rights of the individual has now gone beyond all sensible boundaries and the impact on others is apparently of little consequence.

One factor affecting crime has been the breakdown of the family unit. Single parenthood and both working parents has meant less direction and control at home for young people. There are some very good single parents but we all know that many struggle to cope and their offspring are more likely to underachieve and fall into crime. We are not allowed to say this however. We have been brainwashed by the politically correct brigade that single parenthood is a personal choice and we should not criticise others choices no matter what it costs us.

All authority has been undermined by liberal policies. We are told how we should, or often shouldn't, discipline our children. Children need discipline and guidance but we have an ever growing number of feckless parents unwilling or incapable of bringing them up to behave decently. They breed away secure in the knowledge that the working taxpayer will pick up all the bills and society will be left to try and sort out the mess. Schools, children's homes, Youth Offending Team etc., have all been indoctrinated that children must be treated as adults. Treat them with respect and they will respect you. The reality of this has been that authorities are held in complete contempt by unruly and criminal young people. They behave as they like, safe in the knowledge that there will be no effective consequences for their behaviour.

This criminal justice system is now infested with these liberal policies. Successive Governments have allowed this to happen on the advice of civil servants and so called experts, academics with no real understanding of, or grass root experience of law and order. For decades now successive Governments have been easily persuaded to adopt these policies on the false premise that it costs less to do so. The policies have allowed an ever growing pool of persistent offenders to commit offences with impunity. Treating children as adults has just meant that many of them have never grown up and they become children in adults bodies with no idea of how to behave or of responsibility to society in general.

In 1986 the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) came into being. Until then, the police prosecuted for the Crown. The CPS was sold to the public on the basis that independence was needed in the process and a more professional service. The reality is that the CPS have targets to reduce the number of cases coming to Court. Cases are dropped or plea bargained to ensure that justice is is rarely done. Prosecutions are avoided wherever possible to save money, meaning even fewer offenders face any sort of justice.

You cannot become a Magistrate now unless you pass the liberal policy test that means victims are of no concern and your role in the criminal justice system is understanding the offender is the 'victim' and consequences and deterrent have no place when considering sentencing. Judges have likewise been brought under control by ensuring that only those who toe the line are appointed or progress. Both have their hands tied by the sentencing guidelines designed solely to save money by ensuring that no one goes to prison until they are so far down the road of criminality that there is no chance of reforming them anytime soon. When persistent offenders do get their first six week prison sentence it is of no effect whatsoever.

Unless it is a very serious offence, by which I mean murder, rape or manslaughter, young offenders will usually receive a reprimand  for a first offence and then a final warning for a second. On reaching adulthood they are eligible for a caution before finally being charged and put before a court. The average offender has six court appearances before they receive a custodial sentence. So the average offender is caught and processed by the police nine times before a custodial sentence is imposed. The police only detect around 6% of all crime (not recorded crime.) This means that the average offender will have committed up to 150 crimes before a custodial sentence is given. A first sentence will usually be just a few weeks. No time for any rehabilitation. Too little too late.

The public are frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the justice system in protecting them but don't focus their anger on Government, partly because they don't understand how appalling the justice system has become, but also because they have been brainwashed that prison doesn't work. They have been told that community penalties are more effective when clearly they are not. Re-offending rates for community penalties are higher than prison. Most importantly though, persistent offenders cannot commit crimes, and increase their tally of victims, when locked away . Taking account of the fact that only 6% of crime is detected the actual re offending rates for persistent offenders are almost 100% whether they are sentenced to prison or community penalty. Prison only fails if we don't lock people up soon enough or for long enough to protect the decent law abiding majority.

50 years ago crime levels were 10% of what they are now. It wasn't perfect but it was a far safer country than it is now. You could leave your house safe in the knowledge that when you returned to it there was little chance that it might have been burgled. That is now ten times times more likely. You could walk down the street knowing that the chance of being robbed was almost non existent. Now you are 20 times more likely to be a victim of a street robbery. We are one of the pariahs of Europe. Crime in the UK is double the European average. America and South Africa are portrayed in the press as violent countries. The reality is that you are far more likely to be a victim of violent crime here than in those countries.

Governments and the justice system have completely failed to protect the public from persistent offenders. By ensuring that these criminals almost never face any meaningful consequences it is actually rewarding their behaviour. Worse still, we have all been brainwashed that it is not the offenders fault. They are the victims of their upbringing and society in general. The message is that their offending is our fault and so the public should suffer the guilt and consequences of their behaviour. Offenders see that  crime does pay very well, so the number of offenders is increasing and the cost of tackling it is now prohibitive. We have been abandoned to the persistent offenders. Successive Governments have given up protecting us. We are told to protect ourselves. We should invest in alarm systems, better locks, CCTV. We shouldn't walk down dark streets at night or use our mobile phones in public. We should hide our valuables from sight. If we don't, then when we become a victim of crime it is our fault for being so stupid when we know persistent offenders are hovering like vultures waiting for their next prey. Taking these preventative measures simply ensures that someone else will become the next victim instead of you. Next time it might be you instead of someone else. We are also told that our fear of crime is imaginary, that crime is nowhere near as bad as we think. Government, Local Authorities and the police have invested enormous resources trying to convince us that our fear of what we see and feel every day is imaginary. This is inexcusable tosh.

In general, the police have kept plugging away, arresting offenders and doing all they can to get them into the system and hopefully, one day, some sort of effective penalty. There are signs now that police morale is failing as a result of the persistent failure of the rest of the justice system. This should be of major concern as the police are the only part of the system currently of any effect. They are the only reason our current prison capacity is full despite the best efforts of Government and every other part of the system to keep them empty.


Decent law abiding members of the public are rightly fed up with our justice system. They see motorists being given hefty fines and points on their licence which has significant consequences for them, while thieves, robbers and burglars walk away laughing with no consequences at all. Persistent offenders treat the police, like the rest of the justice system, with contempt. Decent members of the public are losing confidence in the police, as we are the public facing part of the failing system, whom they hold accountable. Some commentators suggest that more police officers are needed to tackle the current crime epidemic. I disagree. If the justice system properly incarcerated the persistent offenders that the police do catch and ensured there was some effective rehabilitation, crime could be cut by over 50%. This would then allow the police to focus on the remaining persistent offenders and allow the public to start enjoying a life without a genuine fear of crime.

We need to totally overhaul our justice system. For persistent offenders it is a laughing stock and rather than providing any consequence or deterrent it encourages them. Cautions, fines and community penalties have their place but once these have been tried and failed then persistent offenders need to be incarcerated to provide an effective punishment, rehabilitation and, most importantly, justice for victims and protection for the public at large. Persistent offenders need to understand that continuing to re offend will mean more of the same for a longer and longer period. CPS targets should focus on convicting the guilty. The sentencing guidelines and the liberal sentencing policies need consigning to the bin.

The riots last August were a wake up call. A warning of what is coming if we do not change the current failing system. The growing numbers of persistent offenders are becoming bolder in the current climate. Thankfully, the police have put a lot of resources into catching those responsible for the riots. For once, the Government, frightened by what they saw, demanded that the ludicrous sentencing guidelines be overridden. Many rioters have received their just desserts, to the consternation of the hand wringing liberals. This may give us some breathing space, but rioters aside, it is normal ineffective business in the justice system and so we can expect more serious disturbances on our streets.

We should use the recession as an opportunity to invest in prison building. Prisons should be reformed so that there are military style punishment elements moving on to education and learning prior to release. Sentences should be served fully and early release only considered for those that work hard, achieve and show genuine reform. All foreign criminals should serve a minimum punishment term and then be deported with no opportunity to return.

I understand that much of what I have said is heresy to some, including many brainwashed, ambitious, senior police officers. I honestly believe that unless we make changes our society will continue to decline on its present course. I for one am fed up with trying to defend the disgraceful justice system and conning the public that crime is lower than it really is.

Failing Justice?

'Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.' That was the thought of English jurist, judge and politician William Blackstone. It is quite right that the Crown have to prove a case beyond all reasonable doubt. One of the problems in our society is that reasonable has now stretched to any outlandish tale that despite its unlikelihood might possibly be feasible.

What this means is that hundreds of guilty people are walking away free and victims are not getting the justice they deserve. Why is it that the public when they are victims can see that offenders tales are pure bunkum but when you put them on a jury they become gullible putty in the hands of defence lawyers?

Here are brief examples of recent cases in my area where the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have decided that there is insufficient evidence to have any realistic chance of  a successful prosecution.

1. A van containing two men stops and the passenger gets out and threatens a pedestrian with a knife. The offender steals the pedestrians wallet and telephone and then gets back in the van, which drives away.  A witness sees the offence and takes the vans registration number. The police trace the van an hour later and arrest the driver. There is no sign of the passenger. In interview the driver states that his passenger asked him to stop so he could speak to a friend. He stated he had no idea that the passenger had robbed anyone. He refused to name the passenger. CPS decided there is insufficient evidence to prosecute.

2. A 16 year old youth gets off a bus. Nearby are a group of about 8 young men. The youth attempts to walk past the group but they surround him. He is punched to the ground and repeatedly kicked causing cuts and bruising. The victim knows one of the group by name, a 20 year old man who has 15 previous convictions, including violence. The victim cannot state that the named suspect was one whose fist or boot assaulted him. The suspect is arrested. He admits being one of the group. He states that he did not assault the youth nor did he see any of the group assault the youth. He will not name any of the group of suspects. Insufficient evidence to prosecute.

3. A car is stolen and then later abandoned. It is forensically examined and a thumb print of a suspect is found on the rear view mirror. The suspect is arrested. He initially makes no comment and then following disclosure of the thumb print he states that he was given a lift in the car by a friend. He states he had no idea that the car was stolen. He did not drive the vehicle. He may have touched the rear view mirror as he had some dirt in his eye. He refused to name the driver. Insufficient evidence to charge.

Police officers reading this will not be at all surprised and will have hundreds of similar stories to tell.

The police and the rest of the criminal justice system are vilified for failing to detect these crimes, failing victims and justice. We need to review the law to ensure that more offenders face justice for their crimes. Is it not time that we consider changing the law so that an inference of guilt should be made against those that refuse to support justice by failing to name suspects or offenders?

The Complainant

generally have a great dislike of dealing with complaints. The majority of those I receive are either spurious or malicious, seen by the complainant as a method of getting their process ticket revoked or in the misguided belief that the police will decide it's best we drop criminal charges as a result. I mean, they're evidently innocent if they've gone to the bother of making a complaint. Maybe the police will realise they got it wrong? Maybe the police will realise they got it right, but won't want the embarrassment of the complaint being mentioned at court? The police will say they're sorry and everything will be alright. It's that easy. It must be, or why would there be a complaints process?

Of course, there are occasions when we do get it wrong, and there is very little to do other than offer an apology. It won't change any such recurrence in the future. We still won't get to your call any earlier because we still won't have the officers. There still won't be a sergeant present to advise the young officer who made the wrong decision about how to deal with your matter, because the sergeant would have been back at the police station completing paperwork. I can't make the CPS change their mind about not charging the person who assaulted you, because that person went no comment in interview on the advice of their solicitor - which the CPS was really hoping they wouldn't do. Those damned defence solicitors, they've figured out how to defeat the Crown before the case even gets to court.

This is where I have to disagree with Nightjack's infamous post on complaints. You know, the one that The Times cited as being one of the few dubious reasons why they felt the need to reveal his identity. You see, the fact of the matter is that as a Detective Constable, he would never have had to take a complaint. The same is true for Detectives of any rank, as all complaints received over the front counter at the police station, or by letter or telephone, will be dealt with by a Uniform Inspector. How far a complaint actually proceeds depends on the Inspector recording it. It needs to be an experienced officer, someone who is able to get to the root cause - and as I said often a malicious or spurious cause - of the complaint, and to politely inform the complainant that the matter won't be proceeded with. Words of advice will always be given to the officer concerned, regardless of the veracity of the evidence provided. Sometimes even this does not occur, and the words of advice are directed back at the complainant, as in the following example.

The Station Reception Officer comes to speak to me in my office. Steve Slag is at the front counter and he wants to make a complaint about an officer. I know Steve Slag. I've dealt with him many times during my time in Utopia. I've seen him progress from being a petty shoplifter selling stolen frozen meat in local pubs for £5 a pop to buy his cannabis, to breaking into people's homes whilst they sleep and stealing their LCD televisions, selling them in local pubs for £50 a pop in order to buy his heroin. I've stopped and searched him a few times myself. He has always complained on those occasions of police harassment, which he bases on the fact that it's been over a week since he was last arrested.

"Hello Steve. I understand you're here to make a complaint about an officer?"

"Too f*cking right I am. It's PC 4422."

"Oh yeah, I know 4422, he's a fine officer. Very proactive."

"Too f*cking proactive. The c*nt's always arresting me."

"Okay, mind your language. I see you're upset, but you don't want to upset me. So he's always arresting you? Is it the manner in which he treats you whilst arresting you that you're complaining about? What is it he does to upset you?"

"Nuffink. It's just whenever I've been arrested the last 8 times, he's always f*cking there."

"It sounds to me like he's doing his job. What's happened when you've been arrested by him? Have the cases been dropped or have you been charged?"

"I've been charged."

"On all 8 occasions?"

"Yeah, but that's not the point. If other officers stop me they get on the radio to him and he'll come down and arrest me, even if he's had nuffink to do with it."

"Sounds to me as though he doesn't like you."

"That's not right. That's harassment and I want to make a complaint against the c*nt."

"It's not harassment and I'm not taking a complaint. However, I would like to offer you some advice if you're willing to listen to it."

"What's that?"

"Best you get out of my station before I call 4422 to come down and arrest you."



Hobbesellian Footnote: I don't want anyone who has read the above to leave with the impression that Inspector's will try their hardest to send a genuine complainant away. We know from what is presented to us in the first instance by the complainant what warrants further investigation, and what is malicious, as in the above semi-fictitional example. Nothing is so frustrating for an Inspector to know that one of his officers has behaved inappropriately - claims of bureaucracy, target-setting, government interference etc have no bearing on how an officer should conduct themself. For further clarification on Police Complaints and what actualy constitutes a complaint, please click on this link.

Immigration Detainees

T'was but a year ago that I was a sergeant on a very successful pro-active unit in the District of Dystopia - the antithesis of the Utopian City Dream. Whereas the Utopian City Council would enthusiastically refer to this district as 'being rich in diversity', we would call it the 'The Earth's Anus', because all of the sh*t from the rest of the world would invariably pass through it. As a punishment for having what was deemed to be a plumb job in the eyes of the Duties Office, I would often be posted in the custody suite at Dystopia in order to assist the response teams. I had no problem with performing the role of Custody Sergeant whatsoever, in fact, I enjoyed it . But I digress. In amongst dealing with the genuinely hardened criminals that came before me, the ones that caused me the most angst were those that were brought in for immigration offences.


There are certain absolutes when dealing with immigration offenders, which are as follows:

1. The 6 foot 4 inch man standing before you, with a fully grown beard and muscles like bricks, when asked his age would reply 'I have 16 years of old, Mister Sir'. In the absence of the detainee having his passport with him, which he absolutely won't have and wouldn't know the location of (see point 2 below), the Immigration Services would have no option but to take his word for it, and arrange for social services to place him in care whilst they figure out what to do with him. Whilst the Immigration Services were figuring out what to do with him, the offender will have already figured out that his best bet is to disappear off the face of the earth (having now passed through its anus).

2. Should the Immigration Services be bothered to come and interview the detainee, which they usually don't (see point 3 below), they will come to you and inform you that they intend to search the detainee's home address so as to locate his passport. This is only applicable if the detainee has been arrested whilst walking the streets of Dystopia, having had the misfortune to be stopped and questioned by an inquisitive police officer. Either the address given by the detainee won't exist, or if it does, will have been answered by respectable Mr and Mrs Suburbia who have no idea who the detainee is. The outcome of this? The detainee can't be sent back to whatever country he has come from because the Immigration Services in other countries won't accept him without a passport. He'll be released with bail conditions to sign on at the local Immigration Office once a week whilst they figure out what to do with him, but he won't sign on even once, and will disappear.

3. The detainee will have been with you for 6 hours, and all attempts to convince the local Immigration Officer to attend will ultimately be met with this response, "Can you bail him to come to the office this Friday?" You'll inform the Immigration Officer that the detainee has been arrested after being caught holding onto the side of a lorry that travelled from Asia to Europe, that he has no address, and will undoubtedly vanish, only to be given the reply, "Well, I've no one to send. All of my officers are busy," (for 'busy' read 'Pete is on level 9 of Tetris and I've bet him £10 he can't beat my high score.')

4. If, by some fluke, the detainee is visited by an Immigration Officer and does have his deportation papers served upon him, you know that you and successive Custody Sergeants will spend the next 4 days repeatedly telephoning the Immigration Services to find out when they will collect the detainee. You'll be told each day that there are currently no spaces in any of the holding centres, before finally being told that you can give the detainee bail with conditions that he report to the local Immigration Office once a week. So I bail him, and wonder when he'll come to police notice for committing a criminal offence. The following article from The Times is just one of the many tragic examples of when they do...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5537140.ece

However, the most common characteristics of those detainees that are served with deportation papers and are actually sent back to their country of origin is the following: they would speak impeccable English; they would have lived in the UK for at least 9 years; they would have conformed with their reporting conditions, signing on at the local Immigration Office twice a week; they would have had respectable jobs, paying taxes without any recourse to public funds; they would have been honest about their age; and they would have handed over their passports; all in the mistaken belief that commonsense would prevail on the part of the Immigration Service and their value to the UK would be acknowledged. However, the Immigration Service, as with the CPS and Police, has targets to meet so that the Home Office can reel off annual statistics to show how efficient its agencies are under New Labour's tutelage.

It's no surprise that the head of these agencies is one and the same person, Ms Jacqui Smith, who evidently has a fixation with statistics. I can picture the conversation with her husband over dinner, "How are the statistics today, Jacqui?" "Great, the police have achieved 8 sanctioned detections today for people urinating in the street but have called them Public Order offences to make them sound like they were more serious. The CPS have successfully prosecuted 10 people for being drunk and disorderly, and have taken no further action over 42 Billy Burglars who may have got off with it at court. I've cut the prison population by 12% after releasing the remaining 1,204 Billy Burglars early, and I've sent 4% more of immigration offenders home who were stupid enough to be honest about their status in the UK. Oh, and I've fleeced the tax payer of 24% more through claiming £116,000 on that second home we don't even live in." "Wow, I can see you're getting horny. I've ordered a couple of sexy videos as a treat, all on the expense of the taxpayer of course." Oh my, you naughty boy, what are they?" "Old Bill's My Bitch Ho and Anally Screwing the Public."

Your Government Wants You...

...to stop moaning about crime; to stop finding criminals not guilty; to pay convicted criminals money for being released early from prison (the Utopian Police Force can then get a further sanctioned detection when they've re-arrested them for re-burglarising you).

This government has transformed the police services of England and Wales from one that is accountable to the British public and whose success was measured by the support it received from that public, into one that is accountable to the Home Office and therefore only to the government. Traditionally, the police service was measured through the British Crime Survey, which allowed us (the police) to determine if the fear of crime was increasing or decreasing amongst the public.

However, the government felt that you are all a frighfully worrisome lot, who wrongly declared that the fear of crime was rising, despite the best efforts of the government to prove the contrary. So how did New Labour overcome these unfavourable statistics? Simple. Create another system whereby different statistics would be presented, demonstrating that crime was in fact reducing. In came the measuring of police performance through sanctioned detections. Much has been said about the pressures officers are under to administer these to hardened criminals, such as the boy who threw an egg at a window and who subsequently received a youth reprimand for criminal damage, so I will say no more. Nevertheless, more people who were being arrested were being charged, thanks to the determination of the government to stop police officers from using their discretionary powers in such matters.

It's a little known fact, but the government also wanted to do away with a crucial element of the British judicial system that has been adopted, and held in high regard, by nations throughout the world - the right to trial by jury. Mr Blair viewed the British public with utter contempt, believing you to be incapable of rational thought. Too many of you found that too many of the evidently guilty were, in your opinion, innocent. This put the Crown Prosecution Service in an unfavourable light and highlighted the possibility that defence barristers and solicitors are much better at their job than the Crown (although this is well known to be a fact amongst police officers). As you have probably deduced by now, this government adores statistics and you, the British pubilc, were messing their statistics up.

Not too many years ago, the charging decision lay with the Custody Sergeant. They would weigh up all of the evidence presented to them from the investigating officer, and should that evidence not be watertight, would frequently charge the suspect whilst muttering the words ,"We'll let the magistrate/jury decide". It is this component of our constitution - the right to a fair trial - that has been long accepted as being a fundamental human right. However, the right to a fair trial applies equally to the victims as well as the accused. This right is now being circumvented, because the investigating officer now goes direct to the CPS for 'charging 'advice' (for 'charging advice' please read 'No Further Action'). Bound by their own performance targets, unless the CPS is absolutely satisfied that a successful prosecution will ensue, they will not recommend a charge. So, if the suspect comes up with a really good excuse in interview (or invariably not a really good one, just an excuse) the CPS will not charge because you might find them innocent. You might have found them guilty, but we'll never know. Still, the number of convictions achieved at court now look excellent, all thanks to the government - the statistics prove it!

This government has, as in many areas of its policy, attempted to predict social change but has completely failed, largely because it consists of individuals who do not possess the necessary experience to facilitate it. Would you feel more comfortable knowing that a senior police officer recommended new legislation for reducing crime? Or would you prefer some individual who graduated from Oxford, and who thought a Council Estate was a make of car, to make these decisions? I've just realised that most of the Chief Constables fit into both of these categories, but you get my drift. To highlight the point I am making, consider the raft of legislation this government introduced since it came into power in 1997. 365 Acts of Parliament and 32,000 statutory instruments. There were 64,530 prisoners in 1999, now there are over 81,016. All very noble, but not one minister had the foresight to see that this would require more prisons. Remarkable.

I am sure that the government would argue that, nevertheless, more of the right people are being sent to prison. As a police officer, I and many victims can also tell you that more of the wrong people are also being released early due to prison overcrowding. Oh, and they are to be given more money upon early release to the tune of £100 and 6-month's rent paid (that's my tax money and the victim's tax money) to compensate them for the loss of security that they would have otherwise enjoyed at Her Majesty's Pleasure. Incidently, this is the same government that refused to back-date police officer's pay to the princely sum of £155 each. How's that for a statistic?