its the sort of left wing drivel i would expect of the observer and i'm by no means a right winger.......
We do these operations all the time in my little enclave of North London and where i work they are almost unanimously well recieved by the law abiding citizens as it makes them feel safer.Every time we've done one people have approached me asking for more of the same so in my experience "Danny" is in the monority.
"The man, whose name is Danny, quietly told the police that unless they had a very good reason, he would not be searched. One or two passengers hesitated, then joined him in refusing to go through the scanner. The police were clearly disgruntled, but couldn't do anything because Danny was right: they had to have reasonable grounds for suspecting he was carrying a knife in order to search him"
erm not when we do it as we use sec 60 requiring no grounds but we only search those in our target group of offenders young males 16-30.....
ANON
ANON is dreaming, the way the system works now nobody is 'law abiding', not even him.
Better vote UKIP at the next election, none of the big 3 are showing any signs of reversing this trend
Is Danny left-wing? On the left side of the ocean, he's not. The widespread belief these days that we may no longer pursue our lawful business without let or hindrance is profoundly left-wing hereabouts, and proof that these "neo" cons are a new species of "knee-jerk liberal."
To take one example, fencing off Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell (The Liberty Bell! O tempora! O mores!) is supposed to make us feel safer. But we're not any safer. The bombers will simply go where the fences ain't, and blow us up anyway. What the bureaucrats fail to realize is that, if a bomb were to explode at IH or the LB, it would not destroy those symbols, but only deepen their meaning. Only the loss of our own liberty can destroy them, and we're hellbent on losing it.
Danny is My Hero.
I think Notsossaure misunderstands. The Government are not proposing that the families of victims somehow influence sentencing. Murder trials hear from EVERYONE (accused, witnesses, friends of accused etc) other than those greatest affectd. The idea is to give them some kind of catharsis in the process as opposed to hearing their loved one described in abstract terms. Better they do it in a measured way to the court rather than in emotve terms to media outside. I am reminded of the mother who gave a very eloquent description a few months ago in the case when her daughter had been killed. I think the courts need to be reminded of the indivudual tragedies behind every death that they are dealing with rather than it just being another legalistice case. It's a heavy job being a judge and they should be able to look people in the eye and hear the effects of what they are dealing with.
Whilst I wouldn't describe myself as an Observer fan, the point about intrusion is nevertheless well made.
1984 may well have passed without Big Brother arriving, but are we really happy now that it has arrived? Do we really prefer to have our daily lives recorded by any quasi government busybody? Are we really going to be happier when everyone is spying on his/her neighbour and when any Johnny-come-lately can issue us with a fine?
Where do you draw the line? or have we already overstepped it?
Danny is also my hero.
I agree with npetrikov that if the police tried such a search over hear on this side of the pond (and I live in the northern bit everyone forgets about), there would be hell to pay.
Anonymous posted:
"erm not when we do it as we use sec 60 requiring no grounds but we only search those in our target group of offenders young males 16-30....."
Profiling? I'm sorry, everything in that statement is simply repugnant to me. Let me count the ways it violates fundadmental rights: presumption of innocence, prohibition of unjustified search and seizure, liberty and security of the person, particularly privacy.
If the police tried such a stunt over here there would be an immediate court challenge. I refer to lois.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/index.html, an online copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the Department of Justice Canada's website. In particular I refer to sections 7, 8 and 15. Seems a good basis for a Charter challenge in court. I suspect npetrikov would be able to cite a few amendments from the US Bill of Rights as well.
I don't think friends of the accused get much of a say in murder trials (unless they're giving evidence that might help the jury), anonymous 6:58; and I do understand the idea behind the proposal -- that's one of the reasons I don't like it.
I'm sorry this sounds hard, but the courts aren't in business to offer people catharsis or closure; that's what the funeral is for. The courts there to administer justice rather than to make people feel better. I'm afraid I just do not see how it's going to help anyone -- including the bereaved family -- for the bereaved to have a statutory right to explain their great grief and loss -- of which everyone's aware -- and then hear the judge say, 'You've got the court's deepest sympathy, but I'm afraid nothing you've said makes any difference to the fact I've got to sentence according to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and Parliament says the appropriate minimum term in a case like this is X years'.
How does that help the bereaved?
Wait until we are all obliged to carry RFID chipped Identity Cards...
...Police/Security forcing people to walk past a scanner to:
(a) locate and arrest wanted criminals;
(b) locate and arrest Fixed Penalty Notice defaulters, and people who haven't paid fines;
(c) locate and arrest anyone in breach of a Court order;
(d) locate and arrest anyone in breach of an exclusion order;
(e) conduct surveillance of other persons of interest;
(f) record who is in a particular location (for permanent storage on the National Identity Database, for intelligence mining purposes);
(g) locate and arrest enemies of the state;
(h) arrest anyone not carrying their card.
Brave New World...No Hiding Place
>"[Mass groundless searches] are almost unanimously well recieved by the law abiding citizens as it makes them feel safer."
Splendid work! Now, how much safer does it actually make them?
I say, section 60 should provide a real bonanza of successful detections tomorrow night, as you nick millions of sprogs for hiding their identity.
Well done Danny.... another great blow for freedom....? Er.. no.. but when his little boy is knifed outside (or at) school, he will be the first to bleat to the papers that the police (or somebody) should have DONE SOMETHING about yobs carrying knives. Done something that is, to somebody else, cos he is too middle class to be bothered by the police. Another metaphorical nose cut off to spite a face I think... I bet it inconvenienced him more to stop and explain why he was not going to walk through the scanner than it would have done to just walk straight through. Principles...I love 'em.
I'm confused; in what way would searching Danny (doubless a middle aged middle class Gruaniad toting beardy hippy) prevent your hypothetical Yoof from carrying a knife? I'm not very bright, so you'll have to break it down into simple terms, preferably using diagrams to explain how the act of failing to find a knife on Danny over here somehow also finds a knife on Duwayne over there.
Rogerborg
Presumably the point is that if middle class articulate Danny is not to be searched in a 'random' operation, then neither should Duwayne be. Exemption should not be on the grounds of being articulate or appearing respectable. Principled Danny will presumably encourage Duwayne to follow his example, an outcome of which may be that a knife may not be detected. If both are searched, one (or two!) may be. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Chuffer Dandridge; not doubt he would be saying that the police 'should have DONE SOMETHING about yobs carrying knives'. However, I think we'd take as read that in this context 'something' means 'something effective and proportionate', and I'm not sure that stopping everyone getting off the train at Blackpool of an evening qualifies.
Why not just bring back hanging - but for everybody, regardless of innocence or guilt? That would save the government a fortune on policing Joe Public, as he wouldn't be around anymore.
Makes sense to me ... (!!)
just to clarify.............
we do not stop "everybody" as to do so would be a tad inpractical even for us. I dont think "Danny" would have been stopped as like you say he would be a middle aged gruniad reader and unlikely to fit our profile of a knife weilding yob. What would be the point other than wasting everybody's time. Walking through a metal detector arch is NOT a search however stopping persons and wanding (with metal detectors b4 you get sarcastic)them down or searching pockets IS. Therefore "Danny" had he not been a chord wearing gaurdian reader would have walked through said arch and be on his way without so much us a "excuse me sir". Instead he decided to make a scene and no doubt ended up delaying himself and others including tying up a police officer --probably the sergeant --- aka ME to explain it all.
"Er.. no.. but when his little boy is knifed outside (or at) school, he will be the first to bleat to the papers that the police (or somebody) should have DONE SOMETHING about yobs carrying knives"
Could not agree more.
"Splendid work! Now, how much safer does it actually make them?"
Not really the point as re assurance is what it is all about. I'm sure statisically your chances of being knifed by the yoof is very small however the perception is that it is very likely. The idea is to reduce that fear and show that we are trying to do something about it. The numbers of people actually caught with a knife IS very small which ius suppose is either
1) no one is carrying them in the first place or
2) the fear of being caught with one as a result of the operation is working.
Either way we are being succesful.
"Profiling? I'm sorry, everything in that statement is simply repugnant to me. Let me count the ways it violates fundadmental rights: presumption of innocence, prohibition of unjustified search and seizure, liberty and security of the person, particularly privacy. "
erm we are not in Canada so your rules do not apply and nor should they as we are here not there. We would describe it as "intelligence led" as the stats will clearly show that the likly offenders are young males in the 16-28 year old age bracket. This stops unneccessary searches and targets the most likley offenders so i can't see your point. We do not want to waste time searching someone we do not think will be carrying something.....contrary to popular belief we actually want to catch bad guys and protect you "law abiding citizens" that form the vast majority of the public. I don't go to work every day and think "i know i'll go and harrass loads of innocent people today and get myself loads of complaints" .....what would be the point. I'll only search someone if i think i'll get a result and if i don't well i'll be polite and explain why i've done what i've done and give them a little bit of paper explaining how to make a complaint!
with appologies for the typo's.....i'm off to work to harrass the public and infinge their civil liberties as i'm now in a bad mood.
and anyway the courts just let them go..........................enough already!
ANON
"I'm sure statisically your chances of being knifed by the yoof is very small however the perception is that it is very likely."
Why not spend the money on convincing the public to Not Be So Stupid, rather than on measures that encourage their paranoia, then?
Preferably, this would include birching for any idiot who suggests that violent crime is other-than-negligible.
Can anyone cite case law for whether a detector arch constitutes a search?
our legal advice from council is...
the arch is NOT a search but to stop someone and wand them down or otherwise delay them search them would be.
I don't think there is any case law on the subject.
ANON
Anon, if you are representative of the type of police officers we have, then God help us.
So, if I understand correctly, in order to reassure the public that you are doing something, you tie up any number of officers to do what you YOURSELF describe as a public relations exercise.
You want to be seen to do something, when you admit you do nothing of the sort !
Quite incredible.
All the while, Danny's boy could be knifed at the school exit, where none of you tossers will be found, too busy that you are doing a pointless exercise at a train station.
You are probably one of those who also complains that you lack resources, so I wonder how much that scanner costs.
It seems to me that instead of reassuring, you do ACTUALLY give credence to those fears.
(Pascal - this breaks the blog's hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner policy, and goes too far in attacking another poster. Call it a yellow card - Ref.)
Edited By Siteowner
Well said Pascall.
Cant you people see, freedom is only to be given to criminals.
Everyone else must live in fear.
I propose we all quit, no nasty arrests and searches for the gurdian set to worry about.
Can you give us a precis of the arrests that you've made over the past year for possession of a (concealed) offensive weapon in public? I'm interested to know what sort of people you are successfully detectoring with your Wrong 'Un Rader.
Me? No we dont use them up here. Have to rely on our pointless stop search powers.
Anon:
With due respect to your force's counsel, I disagree with him/her completely. I can only call what was described in the Observer article as a search. When the police lead disembarking passengers towards a scanner for the purposes finding out whether they have metal objects on them which are presumed to be blades, that is a search. Especially so since they were using their implied authority as police officers to do so. I should think that Danny could find counsel to represent that view in court quite easily. Not that I have legal standing, but if I did I'd see your force in court.
Second, comparing Britain with Canada is actually good, and courts (especially the senior ones who consider fine points of law on appeal) do it all the time on both sides of the Pond. There are a few reasons:
1) Canada is the eldest Commonwealth country, so British law is embedded in our own. British criminal court rulings made before 1954 are binding precedent.
2) The preamble of our constitution, the British North America Act, 1867 states: "[with a] a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom". This tends to keep things close.
3) Since the Canadian judiciary and the British one share so much and think alike, they share decisions and arguments with each other all the time.
The difference is of course that Canada has a constitutionally-entrenched human rights charter backed up by a sumpremacy clause and Britain does not. Even so, the Charter articles I quoted codified legal precedents stretching back centuries and rooted firmly in English law. I can't see how the search described in the Observer article agrees the common law presumption of liberty which was notably described by Lord Denning MR in Southam v. Smout:
""The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail—its roof may shake—the wind may blow through it—the storm may enter—the rain may enter—but the King of England cannot enter—all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement." So be it—unless he has justification by law."
Change cottage to person, and you have exactly what Danny did. The kind of search he refused was an intolerable breach of liberty that cuts against the presumption of freedom that everyone ought to expect before the law.
PAscal
got any great ideas then?
You obviously live in an ivory tower of the perfect world....
you will actually find police officers at the exit gates of every secondary school on my borough at going home time every day.
The operations only last for a couple of hours max and are moved around the borough to make best use of the resources. In terms of making sure the public see us on the street i don't know what more we could do as the stations are used by over 1500 people an hour. They are also smack bang in the middle of our "hotspot" for knife enabled crime.
"You are probably one of those who also complains that you lack resources, so I wonder how much that scanner costs.
It seems to me that instead of reassuring, you do ACTUALLY give credence to those fears."
with the greatest of respect to the site owner
YOU are one of those tossers that constantly winge and wine about your rights and civil liberties but then complain when something happens to YOU or YOUR family that the old bill do nothing. At the risk of tempting fate you are a law abiding citizen so the chances of you being engaged in one of these and searched is minimal so you need not worry. We only do things within the law and we only do them with the best of intentions to make idiots like YOU feel safer and go about your business without being raped,stabbed,murdered,robbed or any other number of things that could happen to you when you step out of your ivory tower.
We will never agree so get over it.
InLowerHamilton
I expressed the very concerns you are making to our "Service" (we are not a force and havn't been for over 10 years) and that was the councils advice.......i would love to see them in court with it being challenged but thats all i can go on as i (not having gone to public school) can only profer an opinion!
"Can you give us a precis of the arrests that you've made over the past year for possession of a (concealed) offensive weapon in public? I'm interested to know what sort of people you are successfully detectoring with your Wrong 'Un Rader."
difficult to say as i don't do every one of these but i am personally aware of at least 10 arrests for possesion of knives and quite a few more for various drugs and other offences. Perhaps you should make a FOIA request and find out.
Usually the offence is "points and blades" Sec 139 CJA and not "offensive weapon" for various fundamental legal reasons that i'm sure our armchair lawyer can expand on.
oh ....and i was on till 3am dealing with mask wearing, knife weilding robbers last night while you were all tucked up sleeping. I hope you feel SAFER.
Thanks - and I really do mean thanks - I do feel safer for knowing that you were out targetting Wrong 'Uns. I don't see how that's related to sear- sorry, scanning Danny though.
Suitably chastised Ref !
However, I live in an ivory tower and read the Guardian, so you understand I can lose my cool when I read such tosh (Oh, and I'm an idiot as well !).
To Anon, I don't pretend to tell you how to do your job, you are supposed to have been trained for that. However, I would call into question the level of your training (which, incidentally, is called into question by policemen themselves if a few blogs are to be believed).
But I do not have great hopes if you can tell us seriously that those operations are a public relations exercise, related to a problem which bears no relation in reality to the description we can find in tabloids.
Furthermore, I think that most criminals worth their salt would prefer to have a large number of police officers in one place, as I would guess that it frees up a lot more space for them. But thats me.
I would indeed complain if something happened to me or my family, especially if the police did not turn up. However, even living in an ivory tower, I realise that the police cannot be everywhere, and is not responsible for the all the ills of society. My ivory tower, by the way, was burgled last year (alongside my neighbour's who is a crown court judge), whilst my family was sleeping. The irony is that I have 2 german sheperds who were told off for being too noisy !
As a citizen, I try to rely on myself first, and it has worked pretty well until now. Because from experience, I certainly wouldn't rely on the police.
Also as a citizen, I do resent to be considered potentially guilty of something as soon as I step outside my house. The police is not entirely responsible for that, but it does not follow that you should feel empowered to do anything you please.
Maybe your civil liberties don't matter to you, they do matter to me.
Funny how in a country where the 2nd World War is mentioned all the time, people forget what the fight was about.
Anonymous at 11.01.06 - 8:45 am worries me with his pent up anger rage and aggression.
I do hope that he is not a real Policeman working on the streets of this country.
i am very real and yes do police a very tough metropolitan part of this country .
Please do not suggest i don't value civil liberties. I have spent many many and hour policing demonstrations defending one party from another just so they can both have their say. I am also EXTREMELY fair and take a very liberal line when i am working however i can not accept that it is wrong for us to use every lawful means at out disposal to catch bad guys and unless this tactic becomes unlawful then we should use it. If you want to challenge it be my guest. We don't make the law we just do our best to enforce and interpret that laid down by parliament and also by the higher courts so i make no appology for doing it.
Perhaps you should go and observe one of these things in action and then guage the opinion of people.....i think you will be surprised because i was.
ANAN
To ANAN/(ONAN?)
(aka Anonymous | 11.01.06 - 2:06 pm):
Further to my earlier post, I now acknowledge that you exist as a police officer policing a "very tough metropolitan part of this country".
I suggested nothing about your approach to civil liberties, please re-read my post.
I do not wish to challenge your tactics, please re-read my post.
I have seen these things in action, more than I ever wanted to (but that was not in my post).
My expressed concern was at your apparent "pent up anger rage and aggression".
Please try to keep it cool, man.
Hear hear, InLowerHamilton. The problem of the British, of course, is that they lack a Constitution, and have a government of men, not of laws. The British subject has no rights that his Parliament is bound to respect.
(That's an allusion to an infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision about the status of blacks in the United States before the Civil War.)
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