Thursday 18 August 2011

Discrepancies…

Of all the horrific details of UKBA worker Miss High’s experience at the hands of Romanian gypsy squatters, this one is the worst.
After Miss High, 55, secured an eviction order the following day, the group proceeded to trash her house, leaving most of the rooms uninhabitable.
Yes, despite the Romanians being in clear possession of stolen property, entered by force and taken by deception, the response from the police was ‘Meh! Get a court order…’

Contrast that with the response you get when you have an altercation with another driver:
A pensioner with a heart condition was shocked to see 12 police officers, one armed with a taser and another handling a dog, outside his home after a heated confrontation with a motorist.
He’s 74. Clearly, a far more frightening prospect for our boys in blue…

And while the Romanians are allowed to go free, to beg, steal and squat somewhere else (would that someone could only give them Alexander Vasudevan's address!), the court pursues Mr Cruse with the full majesty of the law:
He waited for six months for the case to go to Gloucester Crown Court – where the Crown Prosecution Service insisted on a jury trial despite strong criticism from two judges.
Part of the reason why might be explained by this:
The prosecution had alleged Mr Cruse had bumped Trevor Meakin's car as he tried to get onto his driveway. It was alleged when Mr Meakin confronted him, he reversed and hit the car again before getting out a baseball bat and approaching him in a threatening manner.

When police arrived, Mr Meakin told them he would accept an apology from Mr Cruse, who refused to give one.
That’s why he got dragged to court. He challenged ‘the authorities’…
He said after the hearing: "The so-called baseball bat was a stick I had made into a rounders bat for a family picnic and it fell out of the car as I got out. The whole thing has been a storm in a teacup and I can't believe the way the police reacted to it – sending three cars and a dozen officers to tackle a pensioner like me."
I can easily believe the way the police reacted to it, sadly.
A CPS spokesman said there was sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and it was in the public interest. He said: "Given Mr Cruse did not accept our offer of a bind-over, we had no alternative but to go ahead with the prosecution." Gloucestershire police Chief Inspector Richard Burge said: "The 999 call stated a man was threatening someone with a baseball bat and vandalising a car, and as such we took it very seriously, as the public would expect."
The public would indeed expect you to take that sort of report seriously, but once you got there, they’d expect you to have a bit of common sense.

They’d also expect you to react instantly to riots, and prevent buildings being burned to the ground, shops looted, and men killed. Where were you then?

They’d expect women who returned to their legal homes to find foreign squatters in them not to have to sleep elsewhere and get a court order before they were turfed out. Where are you then?

14 comments:

MTG said...

I risk short changing a description of such public service with the expression plodmanship when English has no equivalent of the more fitting péteux.

SBC said...

"English has no equivalent of the more fitting péteux"

Ma franicaise est tres very fucking limited...enough to get me smokes, coffee and laid...not necessarily in that order..

I seem to remember-au contraire me if I'm wrong here-"péteux" means both 'coward' and 'smug shite'?

How apt.

Those Johnny Foreigners do have such a way with words.

Captain Haddock said...

There are a couple of things here which, for me, don't ring quite true ..

For instance, why weren't the squatters arrested for Criminal Damage ? ..

Whilst they might have been in possession of what, at first glance might have looked like a properly legal tenancy agreement .. that doesn't give then carte-blanche to trash the place ..

Or perhaps they should have been arrested for Theft ? ..

By drinking the lawful owner's wine, they certainly "permanently deprived" her of it (I seem to recall that the bloke who broke into Buck House & sat on the Queen's bed was charged with theft of 1/2 a bottle of wine) ..

And I'd be very interested to learn how the lawful owner of the property managed to secure a Court Order for eviction by the following day .. a process, which I understand can normally take months to achieve ?

MTG said...

@ SBC

"Those Johnny Foreigners do have such a way with words"

Indeed. In warmer climes, the faecal connotation which is additional to the literal meaning, lends the impact of an extra sense.

Sue said...

This sort of story really doesn't help racial harmony does it? It needs to be dealt with or eventually will lead to "vigilante" violence.

Ironically, Leytonstone police station which closed last year, has been taken over by squatters :)

http://bit.ly/c6MKF9

The law in this country is just so ridiculous, it deserves absolutely no respect.

Rob said...

The Laws' contempt for private property really illustrates the Left's death grip over us.

KenS said...

... returned to their legal homes to find foreign squatters in them ...

Is it "squatting" if the home is clearly already lived in? If it is, wouldn't any burglar caught in the act claim to be squatting?

dickiebo said...

I thought that by now, everybody knew; our police will go for the decent citizen every time, rather than do what they are supposed to do! And, yes, I now have first-hand experience of that!

MTG said...

"..our police will go for the decent citizen every time"

Not always, D.
Most of them have just enough sense to prioritise the wheelchair bound and zimmer frame user.

Ranter said...

Another consequence in the cuts in police training, 1970's vintage officers and some 1980's will remember that awful video about The Criminal Law Act 1977

Categories of individuals that are able to take reasonably direct action

A person who lives at domestic premises and is away, perhaps on holiday, when the squatters move in is called a 'displaced residential occupier'.
A person who is intending to live at the premises as an owner, under a leasehold agreement (but only so long as there is two years left) or most rental agreements (but not all) is called 'protected intending occupiers'.
A displaced residential occupier, a protected intending occupier or a person acting on their behalf can use reasonable force to secure entry to the property.

https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/q718.htm

The 'Ask the.police.uk' website used to be called the Police National Legal Database

SadButMadLad said...

Don't know anything about the case (squatter one), but if she only called the police and told them squatters had occupied her house then they would quite rightly say, get a court order because trespass is a civil matter. However if she phoned up and said that she was burgled with the thieves still on the premises and that they seemed to have guns then I suspect the police reaction might have been a bit more realistic.

There might have been a squatters notice up on the door (though I doubt it in this case as the gipsies claim they were renting) but if you pull it down and say "I didn't see one" - just like the squatters say "the door was already broken", then the police won't be the under the impression that the occupiers were squatters.

blueknight said...

The law was made at a time when squatting consisted of a few bearded hippies occupying some 'public' building that had been empty for years.
They weren't many Romanian Gypsies here at the time. Now we suffer 'European crime' and the laws must be toughened up to suit.

JuliaM said...

"There are a couple of things here which, for me, don't ring quite true .."

Indeed! Often the case with a story in the MSM.

"Ironically, Leytonstone police station which closed last year, has been taken over by squatters :)"

Ha ha ha!

"Is it "squatting" if the home is clearly already lived in? If it is, wouldn't any burglar caught in the act claim to be squatting?"

Well, it seems that the law does allow action by the police, as Ranter points out. Certainly this is one area the ConDems would be justified in looking at.

"I thought that by now, everybody knew; our police will go for the decent citizen every time, rather than do what they are supposed to do! "

It doers seem that way. But if she'd been a bit more creative with her crime report, as Sadbutmadlad points out,m she might have stirred them to action.

David Gillies said...

SBML has it right: phone 999 and say armed burglars are in your house.

But this sort of human refuse needs to be sorted out in a very severe fashion. It's like the rioters. Yes, perhaps getting banged up for nicking a bottle of wine is harsh, but the routine application of condign punishment is the only deterrent (it's not even the severity of sentencing really as much as it is the certainty of conviction.)