Harwood To Face Trial – Pilkingtons Let Down

Too little too late.  Harwood can barely get a fair trial now and what should be ‘on trial’ is how Ian Tomlinson’s family were treated so badly and why those in our justice system tend so readily to cover-up.  The same is really true in the Pilkington case.  It should not have taken this kind of enquiry to open up the problems and lead to the ‘new practices’.

When the IPCC investigators are ‘let loose’ they are pretty good, something I knew long ago.  The problem is getting them or other reliable investigators on the case – with the further problem is is necessary because ‘local resolution’ is a total con.

The prosecution of Harwood is only necessary, in my view, because the complaints system failed so badly and so quickly became a cover-up through misinformation and use of available bent practice.  He is now likely to be the fall guy for this.  The  DPP’s statement today is thin cover for his own incompetence.  In inquest produced no new evidence, merely the evidence that would have been collected had their been any willingness to do so.

My own preference is for a police force that prevents the culture that allows behaviour like this and quickly moves to remove those who fail decent standards through open review.

Both these cases involve deaths and are likely to be the tip of an iceberg – other cases suffer from the brush-off approach of the complaints system and lack of status of those victimised.  Consider the support of law for Giggs in trying to hide embarrassment, compared with the lack of support for those living near ‘problem families’, or Ian Tomlinson who just wanted to get home.

For each of such cases that fit media criteria, there are many more.  They should be publicly collated and the fact this is not happening only reinforces poor actual quality and waste.  My own solution would be to bring a cheap version of judicial review to bear.  Many of these problems would not exist at all if police performance statistics (as opposed to any procedures useful to practice) were taken out of the hands of senior officers and political manipulators.

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Tomlinson Enquiry Failing The Need

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/09/ian-tomlinson-death – the Grauniad.

Ian Tomlinson was killed two years ago because police officers failed to protect a vulnerable man.  They prevented him making his way home, and one of them clearly assaulted him in front of other officers.  The story is now ghastly, and pretty much all of our criminal justice system is tarnished.  Claims that there is no evidence of this, that and the other really only substantiate that no timely investigation was possible, and that only ‘chance’ video evidence has helped bring the grubby story to any light at all.

One can see that police have to be as free as we can make them from malevolent complaint, but here we have all the signs of various bureaucracies operating only to make no one responsible.  Whilst money is being consumed in this manner, we can only fear things can only get worse.

Harwood will almost certainly escape proper prosecution because a trial would bring others and the system itself under belated scrutiny.  And it is in these areas that the great matters of public concern lie.

Time To Root Out Corruption in Police Complaints

A jury has delivered a verdict of unlawful killing in the Ian Tomlinson case.  I doff my cap in the direction of the IPCC investigator who put such a good case togther.  Sadly, it was all too late, after skulduggery at the Yard, the bent pathology and duck-egg Hardwick at the IPCC, who initially denied there would be CCTV evidence.

Harwood should be put on trial for GBH with intent, but this piece of scum is the least of the problems.  He should have been sacked within weeks.  We have seen civilians (also scum) convicted for substantially less brutality.

I think it’s now time to make some examples of those involved in the skulduggery, and those officers who failed to stop Harwood, or at least arrest him on the spot.  Deterrence is the major reason for the legal system and it is hards to think we can achieve attitude change when one reads Gadget’s contributors and her/him at their worst.

There is no point allowing the same old votaries to investigate or make changes – this has repeatedly produced cover-up, and for police to evade real investigations when the evidence is available.  Decent cops deserve as much protection as we can give them, and there is a serious problem with false complaints.  I believe there are ways forward in this area and that many doing the real work of policing and investigating police incidents would welcome this.

I do not believe we have the best police in the world, though clearly not the worst.  And the police are not the major problem in our justice system either.  The debate needs to be opened-up.  We get poor service and some grow rich in providing it.

Incidentally, what kind of fuckwit thinks a jury of us lot can’t judge between a bent autopsy done by a discredited guy with a record of ‘helping police’ and decent evidence?  The kind we let become a votary is the kind.

Good luck to the Tomlinson family.  Sue the pants off the Met – I won’t begrudge my contribution.  The tedious work done showing “Harwood’s Progress” through CCTV deserves credit.  It is a matter of public interest to put Harwood on trial in order to get as much of the dirty linen into the public domain as possible.  Sadly, Scumboy was only a problem because we won’t address wider issues.