The Dead Can’t Enter A Plea Of Not Guilty
The media has already found Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith guilty, but under British law and in fact in a lot of countries, defendants are not guilty until proven to be guilty. Daniel Finkelstein had a long and measured opinion about this in The Times yesterday. He finishes with a plea that everybody has a fair trial and as he says, not being taken to court in their coffin.
But we all tend to be hard on the dead and their perceived crimes.
In a post yesterday, I was being very hard on the man, who decided to electrify the trains south from London using a third rail. I know design faults are not as serious as child abuse, but I’m not alone in condemning the dead.
The Leveson Enquiry
What a waste of time and money! If the law is broken, throw the book at them.
Anyway regulating the newspapers is a waste of time, as everything can be posted on the Internet without checking. And it will be!
Newspapers will just be used to wrap fish and chips.
A Day Without Violent Crime
New York is celebrating Monday, which was a day without violent crime. It’s reported here on the BBC.
I’m reminded of an episode in the Peter Seller’s film called The Wrong Arm of the Law. London is suffering a crime wave from an Australian gang, who impersonate police officers to do major crimes. So London’s two criminal masterminds, played by Sellers and Bernard Cribbins, decide to have a crime-free day to trap the Australian gang.
I hadn’t realised but this comedy was written in part by Galton and Simpson.
Payday Loans To Be Controlled
I feel that pay-day and short-term loan companies like Wonga are not the best of ideas. They’re not good for customers as their interest rates are just totally out of line and I think that their business model will come a cropper, as I outlined here.
The government has stated that the new Financial Conduct Authority will have the power to impose a limit on interest rates, as outlined in this article.
It sounds fine in practice, but what will happen to existing loans? And who will lend to those, who use the payday loan system?
It will also effectively kill off all these companies, so they’ll be more unemployed.
And how many criminals and thugs will move into the loan-sharking business?
So all in all, with the proposed alcohol price legislation, it’s been a very good day for criminals.
Frank Gardner On Risk Profiling
Frank Gardner has written an article about risk profiling software for the BBC web site. He writes it with respect to terrorism, but buried in the article is this piece.
He says South Korean Customs, which have bought the programme, report a 20% higher detection rate of illegal goods.
That is just good use of data mining software, to identify the source of illegality.
There are so many applications for this type of software, such as in healthcare, road safety, crime, product failures from televisions and vehicles to large projects, that generally all we will see is a much better lifestyle.
Only in a few areas will there be any cause for concern about human rights.
A Bank Robber Stuck In A Groove
Apparently, the same bank robber has robbed the same bank twice in five days. It’s here in the Manchester Evening News. this is a paragraph.
Detective Constable Jeanette Lamb, of Stockport CID, said: “The offender has struck at almost the same time of the morning, using a strikingly similar method and wearing an identical outfit so obviously we believe the same person to be responsible for both robberies.
He certainly seems to have found a modus operandi that works.
History Repeats Itself
One of the classic tales about Ted Kid Lewis, is that late one night, he was walking home through the East End, after a function and he was set upon by four thugs. As he despatched the last into the gutter, he produced his visiting card and dropped it on the attacker.
And now a group of thugs have tried to nick Amir Khan‘s Range Rover in Birmingham! It’s reported here in the Telegraph.
In this attack, the report says that there were about six thugs, but then Amir had his brother, Haroon, who is another boxer with him.
Apparently, the thugs didn’t make a complaint to the Police.
What Food Lover Would Smuggle American Cheese?
I like cheese and especially a nice good blue one, but why anybody would want to smuggle American cheese, I really don’t know? I suppose it could be a taste crime, like the sort of clothes beloved of golfers.
One question the article provokes in my mind, is does North America have designer cheese-makers? After all why not, as we had none thirty years ago and now they are everywhere.
Don’t Americans Know Guns Kill People?
This tragic case from the BBC web site, shows why I think those who own guns need either very intensive training or to be certified.
I remember once reading the US gun crime statistics and many of those killed were children and young people, shot by a friend or family member by accident.
I think even if a high-ranking politician was shot dead in a genuine accident, it wouldn’t cure Americans addiction to guns.
Ian Brady
The lead story on the BBC is Ian Brady. Why are the news media and the public so obsessed with this gruesome man?
He should just be left to rot in his cell. And when he does die, the story should be given little publicity.
I know it’s bad for the mother of his still undiscovered victim, but nothing will bring the victim back and it just makes it so much worse for all the others in the area, who lost a child to Brady or might have.
I speak as someone, who lost a son prematurely to pancreatic cancer. That is in many ways different. but I do feel guilty at times, that I didn’t do more to stop him smoking and get properly medically tested when his health started to go downhill. Now he’s gone, there’s just a big hole in my life!
Strangely, the case could be an argument against the death penalty. If Brady had been hung, there would now be no chance of recovering Keith Bennett’s body. On the other hand, Brady is now 74, so he’s been lucky in some ways to still be on this world.
The phone-in on BBC Radio 5 will probably about Ian Brady and/or the death penalty. I’m going out to do something more productive.
The Anonymous Widower 