Two police officers who took pictures of the bodies of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman have been jailed for two years and nine months each.
You're kidding..?
The women's mother, Mina Smallman, said the officers' actions were a 'betrayal of catastrophic proportions' and a 'sacrilegious act'.
The OED defines sacrilege as 'violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred'. I didn't realise these two women were so highly regarded...
Meanwhile, elsewhere:An actress who assaulted the manager of an upmarket fish and chip restaurant and returned two months later to attack the owner has avoided a jail term.
Jonathan Bryan, prosecuting, said Gatacre called Mr Ahmed a dirty Bangladeshi man’ during the incident. He said Gatacre was ‘screaming at the top of her lungs’ as she said: ‘You don’t belong here, this is my country. I can do what I like.’
I thought the courts frowned on this sort of thing? Yet actual, physical, racially aggravated assault gets no real sentence at all, while taking photos of people who are dead gets you near on three years in chokey...
Tried by social media. Tears and emotions are trumping facts and reality. They will appeal this as I'm not even clear that this is an offence.
ReplyDeleteAnother example of how the woke are screwing our country.
On the plus side I wonder how many people that these two put away under the same rules.
Melvin will be along in a minute telling the internet that they should have been hung drawn and quartered...but back in the real world this sentence is ridiculous. I've seen criminals do real damage and get probation and community service or even less.
ReplyDeleteI'm not defending these two idiots in any way. What they did was unbelievably stupid and makes all our jobs harder. It's completely taken the focus off the real crime here, two minorities brutally killed by yet another minority. Caught quickly and dealt with by the police in a professional way.
Although these PC's were not kids, both were in their probation period when they did this stupidity. Because of the awful training newbies now receive these bad eggs do not get weeded out at an early stage like they did in my early days. Supervisors are scared of supervising in case of a complaint.
Jaded.
I couldn't believe that one when I read it. Jail for being distasteful. When it comes to physical assaults, you really have to push it before you get jail time and that would only be if you caught the judge on a bad day.
ReplyDeletePrison really seems to be reserved only for those who hurt feelings, these days
What they did isn't a crime, and I'm not even sure that it is against a published code of conduct (who'd a thought you could do such a thing when Peel was around).
ReplyDeleteA frilly balaclava to mask a penis transplant would make a welcome Christmas gift for WC Jaded.
ReplyDeleteMisconduct in public office. A Common Law misdemeanour resurrected by the Independent Office for Police Conduct. It’s dragged out and used against police officers when they haven’t otherwise broken the law but have been “very naughty”. The penalty is unlimited, conviction could result in life imprisonment.
ReplyDeleteImagine a married Health Secretary having an adulterous affair who then gets caught on camera snogging a junior employee, no action taken. Substitute police officer for the Health Secretary and a civilian witness to a crime and the IOPC would be all over it.
Yes I was coming here to note the same thing as Sgt Hall above. I spent Monday evening astonished that being distasteful was apparently a jailable offence. But you have to dig deep into what they were actually charged with.
ReplyDeleteStill seems absurdly OTT for what was really just a sackable disciplinary matter. And I'm fairly certain the publicity surrounding the trial brought far more attention to the tasteless pictures causing far more casual distress than their initial private sharing did.
"Tried by social media. Tears and emotions are trumping facts and reality. "
ReplyDeleteAnd the pace is accelerating...
"...but back in the real world this sentence is ridiculous. I've seen criminals do real damage and get probation and community service or even less."
Agreed. *sighs*
"I couldn't believe that one when I read it. Jail for being distasteful."
Police officers today, everyone else tomorrow.
"What they did isn't a crime, and I'm not even sure that it is against a published code of conduct (who'd a thought you could do such a thing when Peel was around)."
They'd have been on safer ground concentrating on the potential for evidence tampering, I first thought...
"Imagine a married Health Secretary having an adulterous affair who then gets caught on camera snogging a junior employee, no action taken. Substitute police officer for the Health Secretary and a civilian witness to a crime and the IOPC would be all over it."
It's ridiculous. It doesn't advance the drive to professionalise the police one iota.
"Still seems absurdly OTT for what was really just a sackable disciplinary matter."
It seems that way, becausee it is. Public safety isn't served one jot by having these two take up prison space...