Just when Gordon Brown thought it couldn't get any worse, it has. It's just
been announced that Leeds Magistrates Court has let hundreds of criminals
get away with their crimes by not passing on the details of people who
haven't turned up when their cases have been brought before the court. These
offenders include sex offenders. Because the details were'nt routinely
handed to the Police, they haven't been chasing up the missing criminals.
You couldn't make it up! It all dates back to 2005 when the government
changed the remit of Magistrates Courts, so their is clear political
culpability, it would seem. More details will be emerging soon, I gather.
You couldn't make it up....... All you need to do under Labour to avoid prosecution is not turn up.
ReplyDeleteIt beggars belief.
I didn't realise Gordon Brown worked at Leeds Magistrates Court Iain, or is this you shamelessly playing party politics?
ReplyDeleteHow many enquiries have this incompetent shower got enquiring at the moment?
ReplyDeleteNo doubt they will say 'firm action taken immediately'
Any illegal immigrant/s working at Leeds Magistrates Court Iain?
Reported in The Express today:
ReplyDeleteHMRC sending letters of apology to those whose details they lost REPEATING THE SAME DETAILS -- BEING SENT TO THE WRONG ADDRESSES OR CONTAINING MULTIPLE PEOPLE'S DETAILS!
Disagree with you Iain. This is an administrative error and I am surprised as I thought computers were now linked between the various criminal justice agencies. When I worked in the system all agencies including the police received a copy of the court results by computer printout and all bench warrants issued immediately. The Clerk to the Justices has overall responsibility for not only legal but administrative matters. They receive huge salaries and ultimately they are culpable. As well, I would have thought the raised police and CPS files required an outcome? I hope all responsible for the fiasco which may well have jeopardised public safety never mind the total disregard of any victims are dealt with severely.
ReplyDeleteWhat else did anyone expect in 1997 when the whole nation hummed along to "things can only get better" ?
ReplyDeleteSocialist governments, consisting of largely student radicals who have never had a real job, can't help but tinker and (even when the intentions are good) never, ever think through the consequences of their changes.. God help us if this lot are allowed to implement ID cards !
Good day to bury bad news ?
ReplyDeleteI suggest: not 'were'nt' but 'weren't.
ReplyDeleteThis does sound more like a local administrative cock-up rather than another all-pervasive NuLab disaster (much as I'd love to pin the blame on Broon).
ReplyDeleteMy local Magistrates' Court certainly has no hesitation in issuing warrants for the arrest of defendants who fail to show up.
On sky news they are saying that it is thought that this dates back to 1997 - just like most problems in this country.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't surprise me. Unpaid fines, running into millions, is another long-running scandal. The law-abiding middle classes pay their motoring fines, of course. But the real criminals rarely pay theirs and since they never have jobs (too busy thieving) you can never get the money off them.
ReplyDeleteLessons will be learned no doubt.
ReplyDeleteWhat with this and your latest Revenue & Customs tale, is there any truth in the rumour that you're adutioning to be the new Esther Rantzen?
ReplyDeleteAnd now over to Cyril for some hilarious vegetable shaped penises... Or perhaps, scaled down models of the Tory front bench.
Iain:
ReplyDeleteYou appear to have that last paragraph wrong as what's being reported is:
The alleged blunder was disclosed when officials at the newly created HM Courts Service took over from the Magistrates' Courts Committee, which was scrapped in 2005. The new body, which reports directly to the Ministry of Justice, reviewed the system and allegedly found failures to issue arrest warrants dating back over a number of years.
The problems appear to relate to the period up to 2003 and the policy change you mention appears to be what has uncovered the problem.
Are the Brownites firing a shot across Jack Straws bows?
ReplyDeleteWell said Travis Bickle.
ReplyDeleteNone of this useless bunch of muppets has ever had a real job.
They can spin and legislate and opine and condemn the arse off a donkey. But.. Piss-up? Brewery? Fat chance!
We must endure Gordon Clown and his cabinet of pixies until the wheels fall off and another election comes along. Can't wait.
The tragedy is that I have a house and 2 kids and a mortgage and a hard job and I really don't see anything remotely funny coming along before that election and the look on Mr Bean's face the day after.
If this happened under a Tory administration you would be the first to cry "administrative error".
ReplyDeleteAnd you wonder why people call you a blatant hypocrite.
and now confirmed that Wendy Alexander accepted an illegal donation in her Leadership Campaign for Scottish Labour Partty...
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7119230.stm
The court case from the current funding row has been allocated.
ReplyDeleteLeeds crown court apparently instead of the Old Bailey
"so there is clear political culpability.."
ReplyDeleteI can never understand why other users on this blog still use the quaint expression 'socialist'?
ReplyDeleteit just seems so old fashioned and out-dated. It's an expression that your great-aunt in Devon might use while she chats to her friends at a WI meeting.
New Labour aren't remotely socialist.
The expression sounds silly in 2007.
The New Labour approach:
ReplyDeleteSomething goes well, a New Labour success, something goes wrong an administrative error.
The economic crash is starting like some kind of slow motion horror film and instead of doing their jobs this NuLiebour gang are busy playing that old commisar game of 'keep your head down' and 'cover your arse' and 'it wernt me guv andja cant prove nuffing'!
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is going to happen when things get realy tough and the downturn bites hard?
Is there anybody in control of the good ship UK PLC as it plows into the 'economic iceberg'?
Oh yes, maybe the EU will rush to our aid? maybe they will send some economic advisors as part of the bail out/rescue plan?
Yak40 said...
ReplyDeleteLessons will be learned no doubt.
November 29, 2007 2:06 PM
( Can`t top that)
Does this mean that Harriet will run the Labour Party Inquiry in Leeds?
ReplyDeleteShe won't have to turn up so she can get off scot free.
Let's draw a line under it and move on.
ReplyDeletecanvas [3.56 PM] We use the word 'socialist' because it accurately describes the mindset of that section of the Labour Party whose spiritual home is the Durham Miners Gala, circa 1947.
ReplyDeleteNew Labour has done its best to camoflage them, but with only limited success. Like the incredible shrinking man THEY STILL EXIST!
I'd like to laugh.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to.
This is daft - everty slip up by any agency around the country can't be blamed on the 'Government'
ReplyDeleteI thought Michael Howard made that clear enough with his refusal to take the blame for the failings of the prison Service - he was actually quite right, but its a pity Tories have such a short memory!
"...Oh yes, maybe the EU will rush to our aid?........." Poohbear 4.04 pm
ReplyDeleteAnd install a provisional government with Neill Kinnock as 'High Representative'. Dusk to dawn curfew, of course, with EU troops on the street briefed to shoot first and ask questions later. There would be an amnesty for handing in PCs for ten days after which those found in possession would be sent inti internal exile. Former bloggers to be rounded up and imprisoned in one time British Army barracks. High Profile ones like you Iain, and probably Guido, will be held in the Tower, it's handy for Tower Green, or the moat if they decide to do it that way.
Consideration would be given to restoring (people's) democracy but only after progress with correcting the existing population imbalance had been speeded up to ensure appropriate outcomes.
Forgive the facetious humour. It couldn't actually happen of course. Of course?
@canvas:
ReplyDeleteCalling NuLab socialist is indeed a bit silly, isn't it... almost as bad as, I don't know, calling the Conservatives "Tories", isn't it, seeing as how they haven't been the Tory party since 1834.
Oh, wait...
Canvas and Trumpeter, I admit they are no longer socialist, but are not hardcore communists. There's the all-controlling nomenklatura, the thought police and thought fascism - do not think a disapproved thought (all dolled up as "political correctness"), there is the gross interference in private families; there is the NHS used as a weapon of control - as in, "we can't allow smoking and we can't allow people to take in too much fatty food and we can't allow people to eat too much sugar because we are responsible guardians of the public purse". There is the intentional dilution of national identity and the indigenes' connection to one another with absolutely pointless mass immigration from an alien society with beliefs which oppose our own.
ReplyDeleteYou are right,Canvas. Socialism really is dead.
".....Socialism really is dead...."
ReplyDeleteVerity,
Would that it were! Still needs a stake through the heart I fear. Meanwhile it will continue to impoverish the very people it claims to serve. Best keep the garlic handy!
How much else is lurking in the woodwork?
ReplyDeleteWould Brown do a Blair and take advantage of the opportunity to 'bury' other bad news?
Surely not!!!
Socialists do still exist.
ReplyDelete