Wednesday 21 September 2011

Q: When Do The Police Start To Take ‘Internet Harassment Campaigns’ Seriously?

A: When they themselves are on the receiving end:
A police officer was harassed by a civilian member of the force via Facebook after his dogs died in his car.
Well, so what?

Insp Gadget’s blog is always full of police whinges and moans about having to deal with the pointless complaints of the underclass that ‘someone’s dissed them on the Internet, innit?’.

Why should this be different?
Peter Haywood, from Clifton, became an administrator on the Facebook group "Prosecute Mark Johnson for allowing two police dogs to be cooked alive in his private car."

The group, which has since been removed from the social networking site, attracted in excess of half-a-million members, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

Haywood posted abusive messages, encouraged abuse from others, gave details of PC Johnson's home address and his court appearances and posted photographs of him online.
The only thing that I can see that merits any kind of action – and that from the police disciplinary complaints team themselves, not the courts – is the publication of the officer’s home address.

Everything else...? Well, isn't he fair game for that?
The officer became aware of the Facebook site before his trial. He started to suffer from insomnia and also began making dummy runs from his address to make sure he was not being followed.

His wife became increasingly concerned and on May 10, last year, took an overdose.

She was given a panic alarm and described the experience as a "living nightmare".
You know how he could have avoided all this? He could have not left two dogs to die in his car through his own carelessness and incompetence.

That’s how I plan never to be the target of a ‘harassment campaign’. It’s working so far…
Judge Michael Stokes QC accepted that the extreme messages were not left on the site by Haywood.

He told him: "Some of yours are unpleasant if not nasty. You should have removed extreme messages but did not."
And if you didn’t, how is that suddenly a matter for the courts, and not for Facebook themselves?
Haywood received a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, 150 hours of unpaid work and an electronically-monitored three-month curfew.
Hmmm. Remind me, what did Johnson get for his crime?
PC Johnson was found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to his dogs after a trial in February 2010 and received a six-month conditional discharge.
Ah. Right. Welcome to the ‘justice’ system, where pointing out someone’s irresponsible and criminal conduct is now treated far more harshly than that conduct ever was.
After the case, Sergeant Jon Kerry said: "Haywood began a sustained campaign of harassment against the officer. His actions caused immense distress and fear for the officer and his family. Hate campaigns, cyber bullying and harassment are simply not acceptable. They will be investigated, with the perpetrator facing criminal charges."
‘Unless it’s between Shazneece and Tamsyn, in which case we’ll go on police blogs and bitch and whine about it…’

16 comments:

Hexe Froschbein said...

"PC Johnson was found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to his dogs after a trial in February 2010 and received a six-month conditional discharge."

Killing the dogs this way was a horrible oversight, but he should have never been in court for this in the first place, that's simply pointless and vindictive, plus it will not save any kid or dog from the same fate as no-one ever does this deliberately.

Unlike malicious harassment(interwebs or elsewhere), which is never an accident, but usually an ingrained habit of a psychopath. I'm pretty sure that this isn't his debut of hassling others to this degree...

SBC said...

First they went for the paedophiles and all the Daily Mail reading, 'right thinking' Blairites cheered as Censorship was brought in,then they enforced commercial law and copywrong and everyone cheered as those nice men from Niggeria went down...

So died Freedom Of Expression on the Net....


*apologies as ever to Niemoller

MTG said...

'When it suits them.'

There are few UK residents unaware of a State police who are a law unto themselves. The police blogger you name should interest Judge Michael Stokes as a regular 'law unto herself' and a designer of 'Internet harrassment campaigns.'

Many of the obscene and traducing messages to be found on Gadget may or may not have been placed by others (Gadget uses sock puppets and alters comments prior to publication) but applying this judgement, it can be said with certainty that encouragement given to and endorsement of, highly offensive comments on Gadget is established through their tolerance.

Angry Exile said...

They should take interweb harassment seriously when it's compulsory to have a Faecesbook account and impossible to turn the bloody thing off. Not before.

Fecklessbook said...

We have to remember that a good number of people out of the zillion who swiftly join ' facebook groups' to condemn others have led far from blameless lives themselves. There's even a chance some of them were actively involved in recent riots and associated thefts.

The only difference is that they haven't been found out yet.

Anonymous said...

I leak, you leak, he is prosecuted under the official secrets act?!? To break the law as an irregular verb? (Yes *Minister usw).

The Law -

Cop (or other pubic(sic) servant) breaks law. It's an "over-fucking-sight" and it's pointless and vindictive to prosecute.

Person not of previous good character breaks law - understandable as poverty made me do it guv.

MOP makes mistake contrary to law - chokey if no previous as obviously a baddun with no excuse.

Bullying -

Cop - part of the job, son. Even if it's not then full pension or at least full pay for a good long time.

Person not of previous good character - deserving of another chance as it's not their fault no matter how many previous times they've done it. Full benefits too.

MOP - chokey again no excuse even if they didn't do it. Especially if in some way shape or form maybe, just maybe they may have facilitated it.

ONE LAW FOR ALL REGARDLESS OF RACE, CREED, COLOUR, RELIGION OR EMPLOYMENT STATUS (EVEN INCLUDING PUBLIC SERVANTS).

And then I woke up.

Gah! Don't drink and post - you know it makes sense.

Anonymous said...

MORSELS OFFERED BY TONIGHT'S ILLITERATE PLOD ON THE GADGET SHOW:

HenryBrubaker

....Im not sure its in the interests of british people to allow violent foriegn rapists to live within our community.However it seems the rapists interests are those that matter.

He was awarded costs as well. His mother claims its been a traumatic experience for him…….



on September 21, 2011 at 1:51 pm | Reply customer service representant
he also ‘works for a local council in London’. Nigerian, rapist, ilegal imigrant. the sad, sad result of all this diversity and positive discrimination b*llsh*t.



on September 21, 2011 at 4:43 pm | Reply Maroon Lid

customer service replacement & HenryBrubaker – From your comments I believe that you feel this chap should be deported. I don’t agree with you.

I think he shoulb be shot outright. A single bullet is far cheaper than airfare.

I think you need to think outside the box ……….



on September 21, 2011 at 4:59 pm | Reply sabrewulfe

May I suggest either a knife or piano wire?

Saves having to buy another bullit

(Thinking outside the box…but further away )

Anonymous said...

Perhaps if he raped your daughter or wife you might feel a little different? We have enough scum in this country without importing some.
Jaded

MTG said...

Permit me to explain how the system is intended to work, Jaded.
You, that's the police, investigate incidents and crime for purposes of establishing facts. In the course of doing so, evidence as may be uncovered and documented, forms the basis upon which proceedings against criminal suspects may be initiated by CPS. Stay with me, dear.

We, that's society as a whole, determine guilt or innocence in the most unbiased and fair fashion as men can devise and perfect. And we (not you) determine appropriate punishments; castigations and the fate of reputations.

JD said...

MTG

The problem is we, society, did decide to deport him. The Home Office issued a deportation order. It was the ECHR that blocked it. Personally I hope the police carry out the original order by quietly dumping him in an aircraft cargo hold.

JuliaM said...

"Killing the dogs this way was a horrible oversight.."

Criminal stupidity and cruelty, rather. And no, no-one ever does plan to do it. But would the police have accepted this excuse from a member of the public?

I suspect not.

"They should take interweb harassment seriously when it's compulsory to have a Faecesbook account and impossible to turn the bloody thing off. Not before."

Spot on!

"I leak, you leak, he is prosecuted under the official secrets act?!? "

Exactly!

"We have enough scum in this country without importing some."

Precisely. If we are going to support immigration, it's quite within our rights - our's, not Europe's - to say who can stay.

JuliaM said...

"MTG

The problem is we, society, did decide to deport him. The Home Office issued a deportation order. It was the ECHR that blocked it."


Ah. Actually, it took the HO TWO YEARS to get around to doing that, which gave the ECHR panel an 'out' to say he'd built up a life here in that time.

So it's not entirely and solely their fault. Our own civil service deserves a fair share of the blame.

I've got a post coming up at 'Orphans' about it.

Anonymous said...

Melvin, you are a patronising git.
Even as a police officer I am also a member of the public.As such I am entitled to an opinion.Stay with me dear.
If I think an illegal immigrant rapist should be deported then I will say so.I think you will find that the vast majority of the decent British public agree.There-I have fallen into your trap of speaking for the public.
Organisations like yours Melvin are increasingly defend the indefensible.
Until a member of an MP's family is raped by an illegal immigrant then i'm afraid nothing will change.Be careful out there.
Jaded
PS Both the idiot PC and the internet stalker are in the wrong.

Anonymous said...

A facebook argument between two idiots is one thing, an orchestrated campaign of hate towards someone else is entirely different.

I think you know that well enough but it won't stop you from playing your role.

John Pickworth said...

I'm not sure this is harassment to be fair...

Shouldn't these Facebook groups simply be looked upon as protest pages or a place where others are recording their outrage? I would hazard a guess that many newspaper comment pages on this story contained just as much venting of spleens and a few blog posts too.

Certainly a few of these group pages overstep the mark but then surely you should prosecute the individuals making comments which are libellous or threatening?

JuliaM said...

"A facebook argument between two idiots is one thing, an orchestrated campaign of hate towards someone else is entirely different."

You say po-tay-to, I say po=tah-to. Isn't this perilously close to 'discrimination is in the eye of the beholder'?

That hasn't caused us any problems, has it?

"Shouldn't these Facebook groups simply be looked upon as protest pages or a place where others are recording their outrage?"

Spot on!