Eureka ... Just found this ...

 

 

It does work. Unfortunately posts quoted are still visible but it's a start. If anyone wants to block me I hope the above guidance will help enrich your browsing experience. I'm hoping it will help salvage mine.

 

 

Personally, I'd much rather you kept it to yourself, not seeing a need to block replies to anything I post.

I sympathise with your feelings on this, Lynda & rarely have a pop myself despite being sorely tempted at times, but any forum member that posts unsubstantiated criticisms must expect that someone's going to take him to task at some point.

 

I'd suggest the adage "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen" would be well heeded, preferably Before posting...

 

And No, that's not aimed at you, Lynda - Honest!

 

 

I totally agree.....see...you are safe lol......Im not against people being taken to task, I LOVE a good argument/discussion.

 

My point is that we should try to do that without insulting each other or, in other words, if I was having a real go at someone on here and then realised they were getting really upset, justly or unjustly, I would back off rather than really upset someone.

 

Personally speaking, I am really thick skinned....I could even laugh at 'you know who' when he was around and trying to have a go at me......but others arent.

 

People can be as rough as they like with me (verbally ) I will take it and answer until I get bored , then walk away from the keyboard before the insults have a chance to start.

 

But I totally see where you are coming from, I just think we could be less rough with each other at times........see you at Bristol I hope......

 

Lynda

Is it really worth "challenging someone robustly" when it so obviously causes upset and ill feeling ?

 

We all have strong feelings about various topics but sometimes its true that responses and language can be just a bit "rough".

 

103Alex1 was being particularly spiteful towards the police and nearly all of what he was saying was without any foundation and lacked evidence. I accept that it was his opinion and that he has every right to hold and express those opinions, but when they are damaging and insulting towards an entire profession made up of tens of thousands of people, it is fair to challenge his remarks. He surely can't expect to be able to run to the garden gate, shout, "all coppers are b@st@rds" and the disappear into the sanctuary of his bedroom and hide under the duvet.

 

I do think that the people who constantly chip away at the integrity of the police, collectively, do great long term damage. The present situation sees the odds stacked massively in favour of criminals and this has come about, in part, because of the corrupt behaviour of a few individual officers, and mostly because those isolated cases have been exploited and used to undermine the police as a whole. The chipping away effect.

 

103Alex1 was criticising the police for taking action against cycle theft in one breath: Ho very er sporting of you . Looked like a perfectly normal guy from the photo. In terms of "detection" logic levels the analogy which springs to mind is that of Inspector Clouseau lol. and then rubbishing them for not taking action in the next: When I see some proper positive results from those who the public are paying to make a proper difference in the right ways I might change my overall views. He was also suggesting that the entire police service was corrupt.

 

I sensed that it was my invitation to 103Alex1 to provide some form of evidence that really upset him, rather than my comments. He was of course unable to do this because he had none, and I suspect that this embarrassed him. It was at this point that he effectively ran away and blocked me, but the harsh comments probably didn't help either.

 

To answer your question as to whether it is worth causing upset over the issue: You are right, it isn't worth it.

 

I am pleased to see that he is still posting on the forum, I wouldn't like to have seen him leave over this, non bike, related issue. It's done now, blown over hopefully.

Edited May 30, 201312 yr by 50 Hertz

 

I am pleased to see that he is still posting on the forum, I wouldn't like to have seen him leave over this, non bike, related issue. It's done now, blown over hopefully.

 

I think you may be over estimating the effect of your words.... and certainly under estimating 103alex1 if you thought for one minute that he might leave the forum over this spat ......thankfully

 

I always think its not always 'what' people say but 'how' they say it that makes a difference.

 

And just to reiterate.....I personally think the majority of our Police are doing a great job......thankfully

 

Lynda

The present situation sees the odds stacked massively in favour of criminals

 

While I have sympathy for your views about the great majority of the police, I strongly disagree with this statement. This propaganda is regularly promoted by the police and some government elements as an excuse for the many actions in the reverse direction which have been corrupting our once excellent legal system.

 

In fact there are now some areas of criminal law where guilt is assumed rather than innocence and defendants are required to prove innocence rather than the prosecution required to prove guilt. Add to that a system which ensures that innocent persons mistakenly imprisoned serve much longer sentences than the truly guilty and we have a corrupted justice system.

 

Barrister Barbara Hewson's recent protest at just one area of this corruption in action was timely to say the least, and the current exposure of our illegal long term detention of Afghans also reveals how defiled our administration now is.

I think you may be over estimating the effect of your words.... and certainly under estimating 103alex1 if you thought for one minute that he might leave the forum over this spat ......thankfully

 

My, estimation was based on a post within this thread made by 103Alex1 sometime between 23:00 and 23:49 yesterday evening. From memory, he said that as a result of my comments, he was considering leaving this forum and joining an alternative one. The post also contained a statement which indicated that he was going to report me to the forum owner and seek to have me suspended or even eddieo'd and that if this failed, he would leave the forum. He has now deleted his entire post, but I responded to his remarks at 23:49 with the following; Request a suspension or a ban for me if you wish, I would be upset to leave the forum, but I'd accept it if that was deemed appropriate. Also, I would hate to think that I had driven you away, you post some nice stuff which I like to read. But the things that you have written about the police aren't nice and they are unfair, so I will challenge you robustly over that.

 

I was not trying to over estimate the effect of my words, I was simply responding to a person who had said that they were going to leave the forum, by stating that I hoped that they did not leave. This remains the case.

Edited May 30, 201312 yr by 50 Hertz

While I have sympathy for your views about the great majority of the police, I strongly disagree with this statement. This propaganda is regularly promoted by the police and some government elements as an excuse for the many actions in the reverse direction which have been corrupting our once excellent legal system.

 

In fact there are now some areas of criminal law where guilt is assumed rather than innocence and defendants are required to prove innocence rather than the prosecution required to prove guilt. Add to that a system which ensures that innocent persons mistakenly imprisoned serve much longer sentences than the truly guilty and we have a corrupted justice system.

 

Barrister Barbara Hewson's recent protest at just one area of this corruption in action was timely to say the least, and the current exposure of our illegal long term detention of Afghans also reveals how defiled our administration now is.

 

I do believe that the law is overly protective towards the criminal. Sometime ago I worked with the police for quite a lengthy period of time and after initially being slightly mistrusting of police tactics, I was absolutely horrified how difficult it is to secure a conviction. I was not alone in this experience, several other people came and went into the same role as me and without exception, they were shocked and dismayed at what people can get away with.

 

I will just give you two examples:

 

1) University student deliberately knocked off his bike by two men in a van for the purpose of stealing the bike. When he resists, one hits him with a metal bar resulting in him being blinded in one eye. They put the bike in a van and drive off. There are no other witnesses and the van registration number is not taken.

 

As a result of intelligence, the police arrest a suspect. He refuses to answer any questions, as is his right. He is put on an identity parade. The victim stands directly in from of his alleged attacker and without hesitation says this is the man who attacked me. He is staring straight at him.

 

Because the victim had difficulty with transport, on the day of the ID parade, he was given a lift to the police station by a police officer. After dropping the victim off at the front counter, that police officer played no further part in the identification process. His involvement started when he picked him up at home and ended when he dropped him at the front counter.

 

That officer had been involved in the investigation at an earlier stage and because of that, he had technically breached PACE guidelines on identification procedures. The entire identification evidence was deemed inadmissible and because that was the only evidence, the victim had to see the man who blinded him in one eye go free.

 

2) An alarm activates at a secluded lorry compound at 03:00 am. A police helicopter attends and sees four men running through woodland adjacent to the compound and away from it. They are all detained and there are no other people in the area. There is a hole discovered in the perimeter fence close to where they were seen running. Some tolls are found discarded in the woodland and several lorries have had their fuel tanks drilled and the diesel decanted into barrels, which are still at the scene.

 

The 4 men refuse to cooperate with the police in any way and will not account for why they were running through woodland close to a recent offence in the middle of the night. Their clothing is seized and sent away for examination, but there is no forensic evidence to link them to inside the compound, so the are not charged and go free.

 

These are just two out of probably hundreds of similar cases that I alone am aware of. These cases cause me to believe that the odds are stacked in favour of the criminal and that justice is not being done and that the public are not being protected as a result.

 

I didn't want to mention the soldier who was murdered a few days ago. It is now clear that the security services had been harbouring suspicions about the alleged killers for some time. I would be willing to bet that there were security officers within MI5 who were frustrated to the back teeth by the fact that they couldn't take action against them because of protections, ill informed public opinion and potential allegations of racism. And I would also be willing to bet that the security services know of many more such characters who are equally as dangerous or more so. But we seem to be putting their protection ahead of keeping the wider community safe. All this will have come about because of people chipping away at the confidence we have in our authorities with unsubstantiated tales and poking their noses into business that they don't understand.

 

Unfortunately, there are some maniacs out there who want to kill and they don't care who they kill. If we want to stop them, all of us are going to have to be prepared give up a little bit of time and privacy.

 

If MI5, the police or whoever want to ask me some questions, that is fine, I have nothing to hide and I will cooperate. What's so wrong about cooperating?

Edited May 30, 201312 yr by 50 Hertz

He has been trained/gained his experience at some cost to the public purse, yet we are now going to pay him tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands to sit at home on his backside.

He won't be sitting at home on his backside. Like so many other retired cops, he'll have a nice little sideline going that he can turn into full-time work.

If MI5, the police or whoever want to ask me some questions, that is fine, I have nothing to hide and I will cooperate. What's so wrong about cooperating?

 

I've also worked with the police and my sister was for years until recently a Crown Court clerk.

 

What's wrong with co-operating is that expert police questioning techniques are regularly used on people who have no prior experience of police procedures. The methods used over many hours in some cases can and do lead to a huge range of replies by a suspect, parts of which can be selectively used to construct false implications of guilt. My advice to anyone accused is to always say nothing, since that is the only defence against such police tactics.

 

With regard to the cases you quoted, of course one can find many such instances where attempts to convict have failed, but they are as you've shown often due to police errors. That is after all their fault, since like anyone they should know the job they are paid for, handsomely in their case. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with these outcomes, for a long standing principle of our legal system is this:

 

"Better a dozen guilty men go free than one innocent person be imprisoned".

 

This excellent principle has a cost as any protection has, and that cost we must accept in the name of decency. However, this is just one of the areas that I'm protesting about, since that principle has increasingly been ignored. One (now ex) Home Secretary actually had the nerve to say that he didn't care how many innocent people were in prison just as long as not one abuser remained on the streets. That was a truly appalling thing to say, people must be in prison for a horrible offence they haven't committed just in order to trap every one of the guilty. It doesn't even work anyway, no-one can ever be sure that all the guilty are trapped, whatever the crime.

 

You've shown clearly that you don't care about convicting the innocent, for example how do you know with certainty those running men were guilty? You don't, and the fact that it was likely isn't enough to convict with certainty. This widespread public attitude that people should be convicted on suspicion alone has to be opposed to prevent still more of the false imprisonments that have become so common in recent decades. The balance should return to where it was for hundreds of years, that any doubt should benefit the accused.

 

And now to show how wrong you are in implying that too many of the guilty go free, consider this fact:

 

In the time that the population of Britain has grown by 15%, the prison population has grown by 700%

 

Not exactly an indication that there's much failure to convict, is it?

.

Edited May 30, 201312 yr by flecc

What's wrong with co-operating is that expert police questioning techniques are regularly used on people who have no prior experience of police procedures. The methods used over many hours in some cases can and do lead to a huge range of replies by a suspect, parts of which can be selectively used to construct false implications of guilt. My advice to anyone accused is to always say nothing, since that is the only defence against such police tactics.

 

I think that the use of audio recorded and video recorded interviews puts in place adequate safeguards against selectively taking the suspects response to questions out of context.

 

"Better a dozen guilty men go free than one innocent person be imprisoned".

 

I agree with that.

 

 

You've shown clearly that you don't care about convicting the innocent, for example how do you know with certainty those running men were guilty? You don't, and the fact that it was likely isn't enough to convict with certainty.

 

Ouch! Careful, I'll block you.

 

I think there is some pretty strong circumstantial evidence, but you are right, probably insufficient evidence to convict. I still think there should be some obligation for the suspects to account for their movements when detained under such circumstances.

 

As for case (1), the police did screw that one up, but I don't think that the consequences of the mistake were in the spirit of what CODE D (I think) is meant to prevent. A bad outcome for all concerned except the suspect and their lawyer.

 

In the time that the population of Britain has grown by 15%, the prison population has grown by 700%

 

Not exactly an indication that there's much failure to convict, is it?

.

 

Thats interesting. Who's statistic is that by the way?