The Hierarchy Of Data Loss Importance

HMRC lose discs containing the details of 25 million child benefit claimants – big payout for sacrificial lamb, yet losses continue unabated.

EDS lose a hard drive containing 5,000 prison staff members (putting them potentially at risk) yet fail to tell anyone for a year – an inquiry is ordered.

PA Consulting lose prisoners’ data – immediate sacking for the company and a review into its other contracts.

NuLabour – only concerned over some data losses. The ones that might impact on their dwindling voter pool…

Post Of The Month

Read it here...

The Mask Slips…

From the front page of the paper copy of the London ‘Metro’ (no e-copy available), referring to the widely-condemned decision by Telford and Wrekin Council to issue instructions to stop and question (and if necessary eject) anyone walking in Telford Town Park without a child, an unnamed council spokesman is quoted:

But a council spokesman said: ‘We do reserve the right to ask people what they are doing in the park.

Otherwise it’s a free-for-all where they can come and do what they want.’

Make no mistake – this is what really irks the petty little gauleiters that have slowly but surely taken over our councils. And they are winning in their efforts to ensure that we no longer have the right to come and go and do as we please. Plus, we’re paying their salaries and inflated pensions while they do it.

Are they mad? Or are we…?

One Flew Over Out Of The Cuckoo's Nest

The BBC’s ‘Today’ has picked up on yesterday’s sickening discovery of just how well psychiatric hospitals contain the risk to the public of the inmates they house.

There were at least 116 escapes from medium and low secure psychiatric hospitals and escorting staff last year, a BBC investigation has found.

Some of the units held patients who had committed serious and violent crimes.

Yet they still met the requirements to be housed in these establishments. Sounds a little odd, doesn’t it, in a country where the morbid fear of ‘risk’ can shut down a bar over its staircase ...?

And doesn’t the ‘at least’ worry anyone? Either they’ve escaped, or they’ve not! Or is it that some institutions don’t have accurate records of who they are warehousing in the first place!

Four patients remain at large. That compares with just five escapes from prisons and escorting staff in 2007.

Four…? That’s the official figure, naturally. Perhaps they haven’t escaped at all. Perhaps they are posing as staff…?

I seems the Hayes has form, too:

Two other cases which have raised security concerns at the Hayes, included an incident in which patient Tamer Mahmood was taken to St Werburghs City Farm - a place popular with families and schoolchildren.

The farm said it was not informed he was on the sex offenders register and despite being accompanied by staff Mahmood absconded for 17 hours.

You take a sex offender to a petting farm?

Why, in the name of God…?

The Hayes Hospital admitted they may have been wrong not to inform the farm of the patient's criminal history on this occasion. Even so they said they might in future withhold such information depending on individual circumstances.

They need to be told what their priorities are - and safety of the public comes first, particularly if they wish to sup from the public teat – which shouldn't include covering their blushes when yet another dangerous loon skips to freedom.

Earlier in March another patient from the Hayes, who was allowed a pint at a local pub every week under supervision, became aggressive.

Following these three incidents Carol Povey, head of adult services at the National Autistic Society, was asked whether security should be stepped up, but said this was not necessarily the best course of action.

What was…? Hugs ‘n cuddles? It seems the lunatics really are running the institution!

"The Hayes is not a prison. It is a hospital which specialises in working with people with autistic spectrum disorders. Our primary aim is therapeutic, to help people grow in their independence," he said.

"People who live here are here because they've been assessed.

"There has been an incident which was absolutely tragic, but we're working with complex people. We try to get the balance between therapy and security and it's extremely difficult to do that."

Oh, spare me! What was the 14 year old, a ‘less-complex person’, and so of less importance that the ‘right’ of your precious inmate to watch all the porn & horror he could get his hands on?

A clue to how widespread those skewed priorities are is displayed here:

One senior nurse from a medium secure unit who has worked in the field for more than 10 years expressed his concerns about security.

"One of the units I worked in recently was not fit for purpose.

"We said to our trust that we wanted to have bars put on windows that patients could possibly escape from and managers didn't do it because they said it was aesthetically unpleasing and could stifle the therapeutic nature of the unit and they didn't have the finances - until three people broke out and then they had the finances to sort it out."

If hospitals such as this one consider that their priorities are the comfort and self-esteem of the patients, regardless of the danger they pose, then they are not the right places for anyone deemed a danger, and any patients deemed to pose a danger should be transferred to high-security hospitals forthwith. If there aren’t enough, build more. Immediately.

And yes, if that means that prisons have to take up the slack for the duration, so be it. The safety of the public is paramount.

Alternatively, these caring professionals can opt to take home a dangerous mental patient each, to stay with their family until the new secure units are built. It seems only fair they take the same risks as the rest of us...

Pointless, Petty Interference Of The Week

A 92-year-old school governor has been told he can no longer give chocolate to children at a Cornish school, because of a drive to promote healthy eating.

Naturally, the killjoys and box-tickers can’t have that…

Head teacher Randall Brook said the school had no choice because of government guidelines on healthy eating.

He said: "On one side we are educating children about the importance of healthy eating so we could not be seen to be providing chocolate which is obviously not healthy eating."

I guess Mr Brook has never heard the expression ‘a little of what you fancy does you good’. Let’s hope if there’s a Mrs Brook, she helps him understand that.

But it’s not just the teachers who are forelock-tugging, obsequious little suck-ups:

Pupils at the school appeared to be resigned to the new food regime.

"I don't miss it very much," said one as he tucked into his raisins.

*pat, pat* There’s a good little drone! And when you grow up, the government will be so proud of you…

Essex Police - /golfclap

An innocent couple were dramatically arrested by armed police who thought they were about to hold up a bank with a gun.

The ‘gun’..? Turned out to be a wheelbrace that some passer-by took to be a gun and phoned police, who followed them for a while before stopping them outside a bank, presumably believing they were about to rob it.

Another witness, Robert West, said: “I’d just pulled on to Ness Road and was following the Peugeot south towards Campfield Road when two police cars, with just their lights flashing, hurtled past.

“The Peugeot pulled across the road, into a kerbside parking bay, and the police jumped out of their cars, guns in hand.”

A shop owner, who asked not to be named, said: “The first I knew about it was when I heard lots of screaming and shouting.

“There were at least two police cars and three or four armed officers, pointing their guns.”

Well, there’s another two innocents on the DNA database for no good reason at all, eh? Job well done, officers! Keep it up, there’s lots more people in the country to go.

The couple were led away, questioned and released without charge within half-an-hour of the incident.

Essex Police spokeswoman Helen Cook said: “A member of the public reported seeing a firearm.

“We sent the armed response unit there and a couple were stopped and questioned.

“There was no firearm. It turned out they had a wheelbrace with them.”

Now, the newspaper may be paraphrasing for space, but note the complete lack of any apology there. Or embarrassment, for that matter.

Oh, well, I guess they’ve failed to live up to their values on this one, particularly the one that states ‘ safeguard the rights of all citizens, especially their fundamental human rights’.

No Doubt It Was ‘Against His Human Rights’ Not To Let Him….

Reading Crown Court heard the mentally-ill patient had been taken by Hayes Hospital staff to watch horror films.
…
The court heard that Harkin, who also suffers from autistic spectrum disorder, was allowed to build a vast collection of horror and pornographic DVDs while being detained.

It gets better:

Harkin, a schizophrenic who killed his stepbrother, was jailed indefinitely.

He was at the low-security Hayes Hospital, in the village of Pilning near Bristol, for repeatedly stabbing his six-month-old stepbrother to death in his cot.

His behaviour became increasingly disturbed and he eventually fled the institution on 2 February.

A low-security hospital? And he’s getting more and more disturbed? Well, clearly the thing to do is leave him there.

The Recorder of Cardiff, Nicholas Cooke QC, raised concerns over why Harkin, who had a history of absconding, was moved to a low-security unit.

He also questioned why staff waited nearly half an hour before informing police and why they had previously let him watch violent films.

Well, no need to be hasty, is there? He might come back on his own, after all. And what’s he going to do, anyway? Rape some schoolgirl?

Bet no-one loses their job over this...

Some Rewording Required…

Scientists who are preparing to 'switch on' the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, have received death threats from critics who fear it could destroy the Earth.

Ummm…..

Quote Of The Month

From Leg-Iron, on the topic of ‘diversity’:

The time has come to apply that equality rule by its original meaning. No quotas. If that means the entire civil service is staffed by Asian women, so be it. If they are best suited to the job then give them the job. Don't pass them over because there's a reformed drug addict just out of jail who happens to be a Falun Gong practitioner and your office doesn't have any of those. Employ people, don't collect them.

My Property, My Rules...

Via Mr Eugenides, a look at the latest attempt at nanny-statism in the government's consultation document on smoking::

"Question 12: Do you believe that more should be done by the Government to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke within private dwellings or in vehicles used primarily for private purposes? If so, what do you think could be done?"

Now, I don't smoke, but should I give a lift to a friend or relative who does, then what business is it of the government that I allow them to smoke in my car? And 'private dwellings'? That's up to the owner to set smoking policy, not Big Nanny!

Maybe this will be the straw that broke the camel's back, and finally forces people to see just what the state has in store for it's citizens chattel...?

I do hope so...