Friday 21 January 2011

Kicking The Can Down The Road...

Paul Warboys is a nuisance. His crimes include the following:
…carrying out a persistent campaign of abuse against shoppers and traders.

A hearing at Colchester County Court heard the catalogue of abuse included spitting and swearing at shoppers, vandalising shops and indiscriminate assaults.

Rebekah Straughan, representing Colchester Council, said: “He has been identified by police as the number one public nuisance in the Colchester area and is a particular danger to women.
“The individual targets female members of the public, who are at risk of verbal abuse and random assaults.”
And this isn’t a case where there’s any room for doubt:
Judge Stephen Holt was handed statements made by ten members of the public, two police officers and a CCTV operator detailing Warboys’s unruly behaviour.
Judge Holt said: “There’s a very clear picture of intimidation, harassment and abusive behaviour by Mr Warboys, especially to women.

“It is persistent and regrettably in keeping with his past behaviour in other parts of the country.”
And how have they chosen to deal with this persistent nuisance?

Simple. They’ve banned him from Colchester Town Centre for life.
Tim Young, councillor responsible for community safety, said the order would give retailers and shoppers relief against “repeated and intense” nuisance.
Only if they are in Colchester Town Centre.
Following the hearing, Insp Paul Butcher, of Colchester police, said the injunction was a significant step forward in the fight against antisocial behaviour in the town.

He added: “This individual has been a threat, in particular to women, coming into the town centre and it now gives us the power to exclude him. The town is a safer and better place as a result.
Everywhere else? Meh. That’s their lookout….

8 comments:

PT said...

Everywhere else? There's only one way you.... sorry, no, that's wrong. There are only two ways you can stop him going anywhere at all, and unfortunately all the prisons are full, and we no longer do capital punishment

Anonymous said...

Sorry in the old days some strapping chap would have just stepped forward and twatted him.
Problem solved.
What have we come to ?

Dr Evil said...

24 hours in the town stocks might change his behaviour.....dammit, we don't do that anymore.

David Gillies said...

Simples.

Captain Haddock said...

"Sorry in the old days some strapping chap would have just stepped forward and twatted him.
Problem solved.
What have we come to" ?

Colchester is a Garrison Town & unfortunately, the vast majority of its Male poulation is tied up thousands of miles away, fighting a pointless war ..

Were they not, I suspect this wanker wouldn't still be drawing breath, let alone threatening or assaulting anyone ..

Zaphod said...

He will break the injunction, and end up in jail. He won't learn from that, either.

I'm guessing that he's the sort who used to be kept in an asylum, before they were abolished for humanitarian reasons. "Care in the community".

So he'll spend his life in and out of jail instead.

Shouldn't a just society have some form of incarceration which is not punishment, but a degree of control for those who are seriously disfunctional?

Come on, can somebody do better than a knee-jerk reaction? This guy is clearly a bloody nuisance, but he doesn't sound evil. I'm a bit sceptical about these "assaults". Maybe he's just embarrassing?

I'm worried about this whole concept of "anti-social behaviour". Some respectable people would accuse me (and you) of that.

JuliaM said...

"...in the old days some strapping chap would have just stepped forward and twatted him."

That can be dangerous. As a group of schoolboys found out just yesterday...

"I'm guessing that he's the sort who used to be kept in an asylum, before they were abolished for humanitarian reasons. "Care in the community"."

Yup, either that, or he has an 'untreatable' personality disorder, and so the mental health system washes its hands of him...

"This guy is clearly a bloody nuisance, but he doesn't sound evil. I'm a bit sceptical about these "assaults". Maybe he's just embarrassing?"

It's always a word to be cautious about, as these days, it can mean something other than physical contact.

I'm not sure that anyone should have to put up with even verbal abuse while trying to do their shopping, though...

Zaphod said...

The Libertarian idea seems to gloss over the existence of various types of unpleasant people. In Utopia, where would they go? It's a serious question, it bothers me. Some of them will not or cannot learn the simple and reasonable Libertarian rules.

Incarceration? Execution? Or exile? (They'll gang up, you know. And they may be tougher than us.)

It would reduce the scale of the problem if we felt that some verbal abuse while shopping could be ignored?

Ok, Utopia isn't here yet. But it needs thinking about.