You Know What Really Improves Reoffending Rates? Keeping ‘Em Behind Bars!

Trish Phillips, from HMP Norwich’s independent monitoring board (IMB), described the figure as “very depressing”, but she said the prison was focusing on finding prisoners homes and a job after they left the Knox Road jail.

She said: “There is much more of an emphasis on resettlement and trying to get offenders some sort of job and trying to deal with the problem that might have got them in to prison in the first place.

“They are far less likely to reoffend if stabilised.”

Bonus plus point: if you keep 'em behind bars, you get fewer stories like this:

Bosanko, 31, has killed two people and committed a host of other crimes over a 13-year period of mayhem but has served only a series of short spells in prison. He was accused of 'laughing at the law' by the father of one of his victims after he was jailed again at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday – for three years for burglary – and told he could be free in just 18 months.

Who’s surprised? Not me!

Mr Shalloe, 63, a plumber, added: …'Three years is not good enough for the likes of him – it’s like a slap on the wrist.

'The court system is skewed and this latest stretch is obviously no deterrent for him. He thinks he can do whatever he wants.'

Well…he can.

H/T: Stephen Lockwood via email

How’s That Sauce, Gander? Pretty Tasty, I’ll Bet!

A children's play centre has barred fathers from attending with their children…

*yawn*

… and is now facing an investigation by equality watchdogs.

*wakes up* Oh!

Emma Cross, of Manchester-based law firm Pannone and a specialist in discrimination law, said: ‘Under the Equality Act it can be lawful to limit your services to one gender or religious group, but you must be able to “objectively justify” what you have done.

‘To my mind it would be difficult for the centre to show it has met this test when it could have offered women-only sessions or days of the week instead.’

*rubs hands together, gets popcorn*

So, what's the response in the community? It must welcome it, surely?

Councillor Habib Rehman, a Muslim father-of-four, said it was a ‘worrying situation’. He added: ‘There’s something wrong when a dad can’t take his kids to a play centre.’

Ruksana Ayub, a Muslim mother-of-one, said while Muslim women may feel ‘more able to relax’ in a setting where they don’t ‘feel they have to cover up’, she thought it ‘quite shocking in this day and age that men aren’t allowed in’.

Another resident, who only gave her name as Gemma, said: ‘I have four boys, luckily all under the age of nine, but if one of them was older, I wouldn’t be able to take any of them.

'It’s not fair to leave one of them out.’

Well, well, well! Wonders will never cease!

And, as Quiet Man points out, had this been any other sort of group, one might expect the Guardianistas to be up in arms. Instead, nothing.

It remains, of course, to see if anything is done, or if these are just empty threats.

Fool Me Once, Shame On You...

...fool me twice, shame on me!

Emma Saxon, 23, from Sheffield, was jailed for eight months after telling police she had been raped in a BMW car in a supermarket car park.

The victim of her slur Martin Blood spent 14 hours in a police cell and suffered the indignity of an intimate medical examination while the police spent 90 hours investigating before finally concluding it was a hoax.

Well, can't be too careful, got to treat every false claim as if it was real, how could they know differ...

Oh. Hang on:

Sheffield Crown Court heard Saxon, 23, was given a community penalty in 2007 after a similar false allegation against a former boyfriend.

But....maybe this claim was initially more plausible?

Guess again:

Bev Tait, prosecuting, said a man rang the police saying Saxon had been raped in the car at a Sheffield supermarket ten minutes beforehand by a man called Martin.

An incident team swung into action and police traced the car driver within 20 minutes.

Officers went to his address but found the car engine cold in the driveway and a dry patch where the car was standing although it had been raining heavily.

Despite their suspicions about the allegation police arrested Mr Blood and as well as being kept in a cell for 14 hours and being examined by a doctor his car was thoroughly searched.

Saxon was taken to the police station and also examined by a doctor but refused to take part in a video interview.

Ms Tait said it took a month for six police officers and a detective inspector to finally ascertain that the allegation was groundless.

/facepalm

The usual excuses are trotted out:

Rebecca Stevens, for Saxon, said she lived in supported council rented accommodation and had suffered with learning difficulties.

Does she really? It seems it's everyone else around her who does the suffering...

H/T: Mark Wadsworth via email and Obo The Clown via Twitter

Ex Libris: ‘Dragonsbane’

Bandits often lay in wait in the ruins of the old town at the fourways – Jenny Waynest thought there were three of them this morning.

She was not sure any more whether it was magic which told her this, or simply the woodcraftiness and instinct for the presence of danger that anyone developed who had survived to adulthood in the Winterlands. But as she drew rein short of the first broken walls, where she knew she would strill be concealed by the combination of autumn fog and early morning gloom beneath the thicker trees of the forest, she noted automatically that the horse droppings in the sunken clay of the roadbed were fresh, untouched by the frost that edged the leaves around them.

I’m pretty sure I remember buying this paperback on a visit to ‘Forbidden Planet’ in London.

It was the cover that drew me.


Someone - maybe the artist - said of the cover in an interview that it was the ambiguity that struck you most; is the dragon killing the woman, or saving her?

Because this is not your usual tale of sword and sorcery, or ravaging unthinking beast vs honourable knight. It's far more gritty, and far more realistic of the presumed realities of living with large, carnivorous but majestic and above all, alien creatures, that you might expect.

I'd read other novels of hers before and she wrote three 'sequels' to this one, but they were strangely unsatisfying. Usually, if I like a book, I want to read more, but this I feel should have stopped at just this one. It was perfect as it was.

Fans of 'Game Of Thrones' might want to give it a try - it has the same mix of the fantastic and gritty, dirty reality that has made that series such a smash hit.

Oh, I Don’t Think So! ‘In Vino Veritas’, Remember?

Duncan McReddie, defending, said Taylor was disgusted by his 'horrible' behaviour and wanted to apologise.

He added that the defendant did not go to the flat to harm or steal, but admitted Taylor was 'evil when in drink'.

Or…just evil, full stop?

Taylor potentially could have been given a sentence of between 13 and 16 years.

However, the judge accepted he did not target the victims to rob or assault them, instead jailing him for five years.

Of which he’ll serve… half? Less?

What Sort Of ‘Community’ Is This?

Three takeaway workers ‘left for dead’ a man they thought had been disrespecting them, a jury was told.

Because takeaway salesman is clearly on a par, jobs-wise, with soldier, fireman, ambulance driver…

Burnley Crown Court heard how Asif Hussain, 39, was left unconscious and with serious injuries after Brothers Mohammed Nawaz, 44, Mohammed Javed, 41, along with Mohammed Arfan, 36, were said to have leapt from a car and set about him in the middle of Colne Road, Brierfield.

Ah. The names say it all.

The hearing was told how Mr Hussain suffered a fractured skull, extensive lacerations, severe bruising to his arms, legs and torso, a broken leg, puncture wounds and slash wounds to his legs.

He was said to have been battered repeatedly with a hammer, struck with a hockey stick and knifed.

Why is this charged as GBH with intent? Why not attempted murder?

The incident was said to have been motivated by a bid to save face in the community.

What sort of twisted, sick ‘community’ is it that you’d rather be known as someone capable of this sort of extra-legal violence?

MONA Behaving Badly..?

Eva Charalambous on being a woman in London:

This week Sophie Peeters, a film student from France released a video called Femme De La Rue. In the film Sophie walks around her local neighbourhood in Brussels. For most of the film she is wearing a knee length summer dress and cowboy boots, and sometimes she is wearing a cardigan and a scarf. A hidden camera films her progress.

She gets harassed. Repeatedly. Find that hard to believe? Well, there’s a wrinkle here:

Some controversy has flared up about the film, in particular because many of the men who harass Peeter’s in the film are of North African extraction, and Peeters is a white woman.

Ah. Now the penny drops. But don’t think what you are thinking!

But for those of you, who think that this sort of harassment is unique to the streets of Brussels or a racial matter, you are mistaken.

And Eva’s going to show you why:

I was shocked when I first saw the film but then I had to admit to myself that this was all too familiar. I have lived in London for most of my life, I am now 21 and for the last four years almost every day I have experienced harassment of this kind. When I was sixteen it was much the same as Peeters shows in her film… men asking me for my number or for a fuck, and the occasional a white van bibbing as they sped past.

Hmm, how can you tell they are bibbing at you, Eva?

Whilst travelling on the tube in rush hour, with barely any room to breathe, I am forced to endure middle aged men standing close, asking for my name and not giving up until I am forced to leave the train before I have reached my stop.

Really? My inner sceptic is coming out to play, here…

Last week at 5pm two men in a car followed me down a street nearly a mile long. At first the driver started slowing down, asking me relatively harmless questions like “Will you marry me?” to which I responded in my usual manner- I looked at the ground and kept silent. Then he became progressively more aggressive. He started to pull up and get out of his car, asking me for s88. He did this four times in total. Luckily, a friend of mine called me on my mobile phone and I made her stay on the phone to me till I reached my destination, trying my best to ignore the man pursuing me down the street.

So….why no descriptions of the men?

I mean, you’ve shown how it’s not ‘unique to the streets of Brussels’, Eva, but you’ve studiously ignored the elephant in the room, haven’t you?

I guess we are entitled to draw our own conclusions as to why…

The RSPCA Shouldn’t Escape Their Share Of The Blame…

What to say about Paul James Brunsden and Stacey Louise Lockhurst, other than one hopes the Social Services are getting twitchy about letting them keep the baby, given his conviction and her 'pronounced learning disabilities'…

But let’s admit there’s a lot of blame to share around here:

RSPCA inspectors visited Lockhurst’s former home in Erith, in October 2010, when Jack was just 16 weeks old. They recommended the plastic box he was kept in be taken away and gave the pair advice on training. And noticing they were struggling, the inspectors suggested they hand over ownership.

But seven months later, they found Jack dead in the same crate, covered by a curtain.

Yes, you read that right. They were so concerned they left the animal there for seven months…!

And no, it wasn’t misguided sympathy with their ‘vulnerabilities’. Because vulnerable people are actually the RSPCA’s preferred prey:

A retired woman finally reunited with her dog ten months after it was seized by the RSPCA has revealed how her life was turned upside down by the animal charity.

It was mentioned in the comments to this case; it’s a real horror story. And should get just as many column inches as this case:

On June 22 last year three RSPCA inspectors with police reinforcement swooped on her home and took away her 13 cats, four cockerels and her dog, Sweetie, who she had taken in at the request of villagers.

"It was the start of the most frightening ten months of my life," Miss Langley said. "I've never been in trouble with the police and had never seen the inside of a courtroom."

Within days she was told the RSPCA had put down five of her cats.

Frightened Miss Langley contacted her vet, David Smith, who demanded to see the bodies.

Mr Smith of Lakeview Veterinary Centre – which operates in Hawkinge, Finglesham and Deal – said he had been left shocked by the way Miss Langley had been raided and asked the Royal Veterinary College to carry out an independent post-mortem examination on a ginger Tom and an adult female – which was pregnant with three kittens.

He said: "There appears to be no good reason why the RSPCA allowed these animals to be put to sleep. The RVC post mortems concluded the cats were healthy with no signs of incorrect feeding or problems with fleas or other illnesses."

So what is the RVC doing about censuring the vet who destroyed the cats for the RSPCA? My guess is nothing.

The vet said he believed Miss Langley had become overwhelmed by the responsibility in a house where poor building work had left her with water leaks and lack of lighting.

Mr Smith said: "The inside of her house may not have been in a condition that many people would choose to live, but the animals were happy. This lady needed help and support, not hauling through the courts."

Luckily for her, the courts – on this occasion – did the job they were supposed to do:

Miss Langley's court ordeal began in August when she was told she would face 13 charges of neglect and failing to look after her animals properly.

She was given legal aid to fight her case and was represented by Nigel Weller, a solicitor from East Sussex who has built a reputation fighting RSPCA court cases.

After three preliminary hearings, Miss Langley faced a three-day trial in March, but the RSPCA dropped 11 of the 13 charges. Miss Langley pleaded guilty to failing to get veterinary care quickly enough for two of her animals.

I’d be interested to know which two – clearly, not the five cats the RSPCA put down!

The animal charity pushed for court costs of £28,000, asking magistrates to make an order on the pensioner's home, and called for her to be banned from keeping animals.

But on Friday, April 20, magistrates ordered that Miss Langley's dog, cockerels and one cat should be returned.

She was given a conditional discharge with no fine or costs imposed.

Reading between the lines here, I suspect the magistrates were pretty scathing of the attempts by the RSPCA to hound this woman. Good for them!

What do the RSPCA do to head off this potential PR disaster?

The usual, of course. Wheel out the minion to try to excuse this!

The RSPCA said it had no plans to review its use of vets following criticism the five cats should not have been destroyed and maintained that it works with people who find difficulty looking after their animals .

Well…after a suitable period, say, seven months?

Spokeswoman Klare Kennett said: "We tried to help Miss Langley, but were turned away, so had no choice but to take the animals into our care."

Into your ‘care’ where they remained for five days, before being put down, despite being perfectly healthy?

She said the costs of £28,000 covered the charity's bill for bringing the case to court.

Well, now you’ll have to find that £28,000 somewhere else, won’t you?

Might I suggest they save themselves the money they clearly shell out to employ ‘spokespeople’ like you, who merely turn a PR crisis into a PR disaster?

Remember! Never, never, never, NEVER give money to this ‘charity’.

NHS-Approved Rent Seeking…

Gastric and weight-loss surgeon Andrew de Beaux questioned whether it was worth paying for treatments which may have little benefit for cancer patients in their last weeks of life.

Instead, he said, the money could be better spent on potentially life-changing weight-loss surgery.

Of the sort that de Beaux carries out, I presume? And would like to continue carrying out, maybe even increase his workload?

More than a quarter of adults in Scotland are obese, costing the health service more than £450million each year, according to a report last autumn.

De Beaux said: “If someone is in pain and needing palliative care, I would not be against that. ”

Oh, my..! How gracious of you!

“But I do have reservations about the fact that in oesophageal and gastric cancer we spend £20,000 to £30,000 on palliative care per patient and that gives them six to eight weeks of life.

“Is that money well spent when you have so many other conditions?”

Well, I’d guess to the patients who get that six to eight weeks to help them put their affairs in order, it must seem so.

After all, they can’t alleviate their cancer any other way, can they? They can’t diet their cancer away, unlike your patients…

He added that some expensive treatments for terminally ill patients have very little benefit but money is spent on them because it is an “emotive” situation.

Well, yes. Dying is often pretty emotive.

I imagine there’d even be people upset to see someone like you – insensitive and thoughtless as you are – shuffle off this mortal coil.

He added: “Being overweight causes terrible suffering. These people are having their lives shortened by their size while we treat other diseases. There are huge inequalities.”

I’m sure being overweight does cause ‘terrible suffering’.

But…it’s not really in the same bracket as a fatal disease that you don’t catch from stuffing your face with pies. Is it?

Act Your Age!

The court heard how Ahmadzai arrived in England as an unaccompanied minor in 2009. Croydon Council social workers deemed him to be 15 at the time, based on his appearance and behaviour.

Their assessment complied with legal guidance for local authorities when assessing a young person's age.

But it seems he wanted to be older (well, at 15 who doesn’t?):

Ahmadzai – whose asylum case is ongoing – did not argue the assessment at the time, and later applied for a driving licence as an 18-year-old, the court heard.

After all, there are no advantages to youth, are there?

Oh. Wait.

However, he did dispute his age after he was arrested for the riot charges and a judge at Camberwell Magistrates' Court deemed him 18, based on his appearance.

The defence gamely argued the toss:

Defending, John Blandford showed the judge a 40-page report from a paediatrician, putting Ahmadzai's age at 15 in November last year. The doctor conducted an interview with and physical assessment of Ahmadzai.

Ah, yes, well, he had a rather different need to appear to be a child, didn’t he?

"She states that he was rather shy and anxious," said Mr Hunter. "She concludes that he was a little over 15 at the time of the exam."

That contrasted with the social workers' assessment, which described Mr Ahmadzai as "assertive and articulate – positive body language, making eye contact, all indicating a certain level of maturity", said Mr Hunter.

Well, yes. Isn’t it strange that he presented two different personas when he wanted two different outcomes?

And now he’s reaping the ‘reward’ of that maturity:

The decision, made by Croydon magistrate Robert Hunter on Friday, upholds Croydon Council's assessment, and means Masoud Ahmadzai will be treated as an adult in court. That may affect the sort of evidence that can be admitted in any trial, the length of any sentence, and means the press can automatically report his name. Ahmadzai, of Woodside Road, Purley, has been remanded in custody until his next appearance, at Camberwell Magistrates' Court on August 24.

One to watch…