Britain's injustice system part 2 - ASBOs

This the second in a series of posts highlighting how injustices can creep into our legal system despite Britain being signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights. The politically correct establishment enthusiastically supports the Convention as a safeguard against legal injustices. In practice, however, the Convention offers little protection since nearly every article allows a wide range of exemptions.

One judicial innovation introduced by New Labour were Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs). The motivation behind them was not unreasonable as many people were concerned about unruly behaviour, particularly by children and younger people, which appeared to be getting worse. The popular press highlighted the threat of 'hoodies' and 'feral' youths terrorising an increasingly intimidated public.

Previous to the introduction of ASBOs laws existed to regulate public nuisances of one kind or another, sometimes vaguely worded or expressed in archaic terms. A more modern attempt to address this kind of problem came with the Public Order Act 1986, which referred to 'words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress'. ASBOs were introduced as an extension of this principle, designed to be quick and efficient by 'nipping in the bud' individuals thought likely to develop repeated anti-social behaviour.

Before issuing an ASBO a magistrate must decide whether an individual has behaved in a manner ‘that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress’, and that the order is necessary to stop the behaviour recurring. Breaching the conditions of an order is a criminal offence, punishable by up to five years in prison. In practice, very few ASBO applications were refused by magistrates who were often happy to grant them based on nothing more than hearsay evidence of disgruntled neighbours.

Prime minister Tony Blair was a keen enthusiast of ASBOs seeing them as a useful armoury in his Respect agenda. The government White Paper Respect and Responsibility sought 'a cultural shift… to a society where we respect each other… a society where we have an understanding that the rights we all enjoy are based in turn on the respect and responsibilities we have to other people and to our community’.

ASBOs were introduced in 2002 and for the first few years relatively few were issued, lees than 200 a year, much lower than what the government had hoped for. As a result the Home Office appointed ASBO ambassadors whose remit was to encourage authorities to make greater use of their ASBO powers. From 2003 ASBOs could be handed down by the courts after a criminal conviction, which some argued was punishing people twice for the same offence. In 2006 a National Audit Office report noted that up to 50% of ASBOs were being breached. Reports in the media suggested that some ASBO recipients regarded them as a 'badge of honour', which boosted their 'street cred' with their peers. ASBOs reached a peak of over 4000 in 2005 but by the last year of the Labour government had fallen to about 1600.

Some authorities, keen on issuing ASBOs, soon found that the vagueness of the definition as to what constitutes 'anti-social behaviour' could allow them to push the boundaries of their use beyond what was originally intended, namely challenging low-level nuisance behaviour such as vandalism and abusive neighbours. Authorities discovered that ASBOs could be an effective tool for curtailing other activities that were thought to need controlling.

Opposition to ASBOs began to grow. Youth groups, civil liberties campaigners and concerned parents argued that ASBOs had the effect of ‘criminalizing the young’ as they could be served against children from the age of ten. The probation union, NAPO, called for a re-evaluation of ASBOs on the grounds that 'far too many people are being jailed where the original offence was itself non-imprisonable" and that a 'geographical lottery' exists with massive inconsistencies across the country.

In some cases ASBOs have been issued with arbitrary and absurd conditions attached. Examples of what activities individuals can be banned from doing include; crossing a street, riding a bike, entering a shopping centre, throwing snowballs, meeting friends, riding a push-scooter on the pavement, possession of matches or lighters, entering subways, travelling on the top deck of a bus, wearing a hoodie, entering their own house by the front door, possessing a mobile phone, reading a book in a public library, staring at women, feeding pigeons in their own garden, sitting at a bus stop and being seen wearing underwear in their own home.

None of the above activities are (as yet) illegal in Britain but any individual who breached their ASBO by carrying them out could have faced a five year prison term. This is the reason why ASBOs should be unacceptable, because they criminalise activities which are not themselves criminal and, as a result of which, people can then be sent to jail. They target people not criminal activity. ASBOs were abolished by the coalition government in 2012 only to be replaced by new measures which appear to be even worse in infringing individual liberties.

Ray Honeyford - Britain's first victim of PC hatred.

Ray Honeyford was the headmaster of a Bradford school in the early 1980s in which 90% of his pupils were of Asian origin. He came into conflict with an unholy yet predictable alliance between religious primitivists and hard left activists. Honeyford condemned the all powerful 'race relations lobby' within the local education authority, and the 'multicultural zealots' intent on closing down debate whenever the behaviour of ethnic minorities became problematical.

Honeyford was particularly scathing about what he termed 'Asian parents' regular habit of sending their children back to the Indian sub continent during term time to the obvious detriment of their education. He was also concerned that Asian parents were removing their daughters from drama, dance and sporting activities in contravention of his school's commitment to sexual equality, and he flagged up the problems faced by pupils whose first language was not English.

Matters came to a head at a local meeting of parents to discuss the educational disruption caused when children were removed from school during term time. An atmosphere of intimidation was orchestrated by some Asian 'community leaders' outraged that their cultural practices were being questioned by the school. As a result the education authority caved into the Asians' demands, and the practice of removing children during term time was allowed to continue, despite its possible illegality.

As a result of the publicity generated by this meeting local hard line leftist activists began a campaign to denigrate Honeyford for his alleged 'racial prejudice' and 'ignorant and counter productive' educational strategy 'that must give cause for concern'. Asian parents and political activists formed an action group that organised large-scale protests outside his school. Eventually, about half the pupils ceased to attend lessons, Honeyford received death threats and had to be given police protection. After several months of abuse and intimidation Ray Honeyford took early retirement and never worked as a teacher again.

In a magazine article from this period Honeyford didn't pull his punches against the malign forces confronting him. He identified the tactics that have since continued to grow whereby 'propaganda generated by multi racial zealots is now augmented by a growing bureaucracy of race in local authorities... (that) makes freedom of speech difficult to maintain.' Moreover, he rightly accused 'the race lobby' of 'managing to induce and maintain feelings of guilt in the well disposed majority, that decent people are not only afraid of voicing certain thoughts, they are uncertain even of their right to think those thoughts'.

Honeyford went on to condemn the opportunist and self righteous agenda of those teachers who 'have eagerly embraced the career enhancing possibilities of the new multi-racial orthodoxy in schools. Such people never proceed through rational argument, but rather by the tactic of impugning others' good will.' He correctly identified their agenda as 'far from helping to produce harmony, it is, in reality, operating to produce a sense of fragmentation and discord.' He denounced the reflex use of the term 'racism’ claiming that it 'functions not as a word with which to create insight, but as a slogan designed to suppress constructive thought.'

As a result of the vicious agenda of those ranged against him to subvert his authority, and to undermine and disrupt the running of his school, Ray Honeyford became Britain's first casualty of politically correct zealotry and hatred.

Malignant religious superstition

This blog would not normally concern itself with the kind of religious primitivism that is likely to be endemic in a place such as rural Pakistan. However, a case that was recently reported on the BBC Radio 4 The World Tonight programme warrants some analysis, as it has implications beyond its immediate locality, culture and tradition.

The case involves a fifteen year old youth who attended a sermon given by the local imam. The congregation was asked by the imam if there was anybody present who did not love the prophet Mohammed. One youth, mishearing the question, raised his hand. As a result the imam accused him of blasphemy in front of the congregation. Instead of taking the logical step of explaining that he had raised his hand in error because he had misheard the question, the youth returned home and took the drastic action of cutting off his own hand. The youth then returned to the imam to offer him the offending hand on a plate. He was hailed as a hero by the local population, and his father publicly declared that he was proud of his son's action.

It is clear from this incident that children in rural Pakistani villages, from an early age, are brainwashed into accepting, without any questioning, the tenets of Islam. The imam himself would have undergone the same indoctrination when he himself was a child, a process that has probably continued for countless generations. The fact that the youth's first reaction was to engage in this act of crazy self mutilation demonstrates the extent to which an individual can become enthralled to a prevailing religious superstition. The fact that the youth can be commended for such dysfunctional behaviour by his father and the rest of his village demonstrates the malign power that religion can impose over a whole community, where it has a monopoly over controlling the parameters of thought, beliefs and actions within a society.

There are lessons for British society to be learnt from this kind of incident. Although mainstream secular culture here has largely thrown off the kind of religious superstition that was still fairly widespread as recently as a couple of generations ago, in our own times a new secular religion known as political correctness has gradually been gaining ground in many British institutions. One aspect of this new belief system is its increasingly strong tendency to control and denounce any dissenting opinions to its ideology. To counter this threat to individual liberty it is crucially important that freedom of speech is preserved, and any attempts to undermine or reduce it are strongly resisted. So no subject should be off limits to public debate or investigation. Failure to do so could eventually result in the kind of madness that has overtaken this Pakistani village.

Britain's injustice system Part 1 – Defendant anonymity and statute of limitations

The British politically correct establishment enthusiastically supports the European Convention on Human Rights and the legislation and European Court which enforces its principles. There is of course nothing wrong in treating human rights seriously, indeed it is commendable. The question that needs to be addressed is what is the best vehicle to ensure that human rights are protected. During the many decades since Britain signed up to the European Convention many rights previously taken for granted have been eroded and this process seems to be accelerating. The European Convention rarely offers any protection against this encroachment of individual liberty. The reason for this is fairly straightforward, nearly every article in the Convention has a wide range of exemptions through which a Government with a determined agenda can ride roughshod over individual rights. This is the first in a series of posts examining how this unwelcome development has been carried out in practice. As a result of the furore following the accusations against Jimmy Savile the feminist controlled legal establishment has gone into overdrive in pursuing an agenda to control male sexuality. This is highlighted by the many investigations into aging celebrities and others for alleged sexual offences going back many decades. The time has come to reform the law on sexcrimes to restore a much needed balance that is fair to both sexes on what constitutes reasonable sexual behaviour.

One glaring double standard that needs to be remedied is that female accusers (now routinely termed 'victims') are granted anonymity whereas male defendants (now often described as 'offenders') face a barrage of destructive publicity in which their reputation and character is shredded and destroyed. There have been many calls for defendants to be also granted anonymity as was the case between 1976 and 1988. This was changed due to feminist pressure as it was thought that removing defendant anonymity would enable other women to 'come forward' with their own accusations. Superficially, in the interests of equality and fairness there appears to be some merit in granting anonymity to both accusers and defendants. However, the barrister Barbra Hewson has suggested that the names of both accuser and defendant should be made public as they are for non-sexual crimes. Hewson has courageously made some sensible suggestions on sexual offences reform which will be considered in future posts. Unlike her critics she uses logic and reason to back up her views and avoids the emotionalism which has been gradually infiltrating the legal process. Any woman subject to a sexual assault clearly has the right to expect the justice system to thoroughly investigate her claims and to prosecute the attacker. However, this does not mean that the legal process should be manipulated in order to waive the normal safeguards owed to those accused of a crime or, to incentivise accusers to come forward with complaints as a form of therapy or, in the current modish expression, to 'bring closure' to their feelings. If would-be complainants decide that going to court is not worth the trouble, that is a decision they are reasonably entitled to take and one which should be respected. It should not be seen as a failure of the criminal justice system or an attempt to silence women.

It is strongly in the interests of justice that those making accusations in court should be open to public scrutiny. There should be no shame, stigma or loss of reputation attached to women who are complainants in sexual assault cases, any more than there would be for all other crimes where there is no anonymity in court for accusers. Since there should be no shame, there can be no valid reason for the reluctance of women to appear in court without the cover of anonymity. Indeed granting anonymity in sexual assault cases only reinforces the outmoded societal view that there should be a stigma attached to the victims of this kind of crime. The sooner sexual assaults are treated in the same way as other crimes, the better it will for the defendant, the complainant and the justice system more generally.

Similarly, there should be no anonymity for defendants, since this would amount to secret trials. If someone has been charged with a crime it should be in the public domain if the interests of open justice are to be served. Justice should not only be done but should be seen to be done particularly where the state is potentially depriving individuals of their liberty. Evidence should be confined to the facts of the case being tried and matters irrelevant to this end should be excluded. Thus neither the accuser nor the defendant should have the indignity of their sexual history being revealed to the public gaze.

Many countries have a statute of limitations, after which specified time charges cannot be brought. It is right that British justice system continues to reject a statute of limitations since to introduce one would effectively allow criminals to escape justice. But it is equally unacceptable that crimes can be reported for the first time decades after they occurred. There appears to be only crime where this is not only allowed, but actively encouraged, and that is historic sexual assault cases. Any person reporting a burglary or a mugging years after the event would be given short thrift by the police. It is clearly unfair that men can face the threat of legal action hanging over them indefinitely in circumstances where no crime may have taken place.

If a crime has been committed it is reasonable to expect the victim to report it to the police as soon as possible. This allows them to begin their investigations while the evidence is still fresh. Sexual offences should not be an exception to this rule. So all sexual offences complaints should be reported to the police within one week of occurrence, unless the accuser has been physically restrained or abducted. These time limitations should only apply to the reporting, not the prosecution for which there should be no limit.

It is sometimes claimed by feminists that women often have 'sound valid reasons' why sexual assaults are not reported quickly. This kind of tawdry special pleading is entirely spurious, such excuses infantilise women, hamper police investigations, undermine the fairness of the justice system and provide a green light to those tempted to make false accusations. The only exception to prompt reporting should be for offences against children, where instead the child should be required to report any offence they have suffered by the time of their eighteenth birthday. Thus the younger they are when the offence took place the longer they will have to report it.

Eugenics pseudo science

The eugenicist Professor Robert Plomin recently featured on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Life Scientific. At the start of the programme he was introduced as a scientist who believed that every individual's intelligence is largely determined by their DNA. It is puzzling why some scientists make such wild claims based on theories for which there is no evidence. Plomin appears to be an egregious example of such a scientist, or more correctly, a pseudo-scientist.

Needless to say during the course of his unchallenging interview Plomin provided no evidence to back up his claim, relying instead on his studies into identical twins. The basis of eugenic claims relating to intelligence in identical twins was thoroughly debunked by the Institute of Science in Society. Strangely, whenever a theory is voiced that doesn't meet with the approval of the scientific establishment it is branded a 'superstition', but when a theory does have the approval of the scientific establishment it is claimed to be an 'established fact' (which, without evidence, it clearly is not). Plomin's claim that intelligence has a genetic or hereditary cause is a good example of this syndrome. During the programme both Plomin and his interviewer treated his theory as if it was self-evidently true.

Although it cannot be scientifically proven, Plomin is undoubtedly right when he claims that nature is likely to be a much stronger determinant of a person's intelligence than is nurture. However, what is impossible to accept (since there is no evidence) is that the level of intelligence of an individual has any connection with DNA, genes or heredity. It has been proven scientifically that physical characteristics have a genetic and heredity basis since there has been plenty of hard evidence to back this up. But absolutely no evidence has been discovered to justify the claim that mental or personal attributes have a genetic basis. Before the mapping of human genome geneticists (or more accurately eugenicists) claimed that single genes were the cause or source of mental or personal characteristics, including intelligence. But since the human genome has been mapped it has been discovered that no single gene, or even groups of genes, are the cause of mental or personal characteristics, or level of intelligence, as Plomin conceded during the programme. What the eugenicists now fall back on to justify their position is that the source of intelligence is somehow hidden away deep down in an individual's DNA, but that so far it has not been found, but eventually it will be after a lot more research. In pseudo science lack of evidence is never sufficient reason to abandon a pet theory. But on this issue Plomin and his ilk are chasing a will o' the wisp, since there is no possibility that that they will ever find any genetic basis for intelligence. Humans are far more than the product of chemical DNA, a viewpoint which scientists seeped in a mechanistic and materialistic outlook peddle unquestioningly. Ironically, Professor Plomin is living proof of the falsity of his theories on heredity, since he achieved eminence in his scientific field, despite coming from a relatively ordinary and humble background. It has to be faced that the professor and those who share his views are nothing more than eugenics pseudo-science hustlers.

Where now for UKIP?

It is undeniable that UKIP are currently in the doldrums. The party must have been very disappointed to have only one MP after the general election. Their national share of the vote at 13% was a big improvement on the previous election but was less than half what they achieved in the 2014 European election . In the recent Oldham by election they polled 23% of the vote, but were still a long way behind Labour and some way off mounting a serious challenge in the seat which some were predicting. Another cause for concern is the spat between the leader Nigel Farage and the party's only MP Douglas Carswell. Unfortunately UKIP have form on this, witness the unedifying slanging match amongst those at the top of the party immediately after the general election. So UKIP has to get its house in order if the party is to be seen by the electorate as a credible contender for government. Some pundits are suggesting that UKIP are no more than a protest vote, or that they are just a one issue party. So it is important that with the Euro referendum coming up they present themselves to the electorate as a serious political party, with attractive policies on a wide range of issues.

So what should these polices be? Firstly, of course, is withdrawal from the European Union and the European Court Of Human Rights, allowing us to reclaim our national sovereignty, return the country to parliamentary democracy and restore the right to run our own affairs as a nation. Secondly, there will need to be severe restrictions on immigration, particularly of unskilled labour which has prevented the lowest paid workers from increasing their living standards. This is the true reason for the 'cost of living crisis' about which we have heard so much recently. Thirdly, UKIP will need to promote more vigorously their policy of reintroducing grammar schools, since they will enable intelligent children from disadvantaged backgrounds to better themselves, both culturally and through enhanced employment opportunities.

The above appear to be the policies for which UKIP are best known. It is to be hoped that in addition they will promise the repeal of the so called equality laws, which in practice compel employers to discriminate in favour of vocal minorities, against their likely better judgement. Similarly there should be a speedy removal of recent 'hate speech' legislation which is nothing more that a mechanism to stifle political debate, and which is incompatible with a nation founded on the liberty of the individual and free speech. There should also be an end to the obsession with meeting 'climate change' targets since they are based on nothing more than the leftist political hoax promoting non-existent global warming. UKIP should also distance themselves from the current nanny state outlook which attempts to micro manage citizens lifestyle choices on matters such as alcohol and supposedly unhealthy foods, which these days seems to include just about everything except vegetables. They should introduce marriage reform, by making divorce more difficult for couples with younger children and end the meaningless yet pernicious 'marriage' between people of the same sex. Finally measures should be taken to reign in the campaign by strident feminists (who are unrepresentative of most women) to use the law to stigmatise all men as potential sex offenders, rapists and/or paedophiles.

Headless Chickens

This blog fully supports the campaign of the Prince of Wales against the hideous and characterless buildings which have blighted British towns and cities since the war. They are part of an insidious agenda by cultural Marxists to destroy anything of beauty and to promote ugliness. However, Prince Charles is undermining his authority and credibility when he ludicrously described those who question the global warming orthodoxy as 'headless chickens'.

The Prince is baffled that in 'our modern world we have such blind trust in science and technology that we all accept what science tells us about everything until, that is, it comes to climate science.' This is a bit rich since he is on record warning us that 'companies developing genetically modified crops risk creating the biggest environmental disaster of all time', despite scientists taking the opposite view, concluding that GM crops are perfectly safe and, in the words of one expert, they deliver 'real environmental and economic benefits. Prince Charles is known to be a strong believer in the health benefits of homeopathy, despite the British Medical Association describing it as 'witchcraft' and the Government’s chief scientific adviser concluding that it is 'nonsense.' So much for his blind trust in science.

Prince Charles goes on to deplore the 'barrage of sheer intimidation, we are told by powerful groups of deniers that the scientists are wrong' This is the complete reverse of the real situation, since all the main political parties and the scientific establishment are united in a groupthink acceptance of the global warming hoax. What they all ignore is that the belief in man made climate change is not based on scientific evidence but on unproven and, so far, erroneous projections based on a dodgy theory.

The high watermark in slavish global warming scaremongering came during the period between the publication of the Stern Report and the broadcast of the Global Warming Swindle Channel 4 TV programme. The latter was virtually the first time that sceptical views on global warming were given an airing in the mainstream media. For their pains the producers found themselves on the receiving end of a barrage of abuse from those who had claimed that the 'science is settled.' It was during this period that parliament, to its shame passed the Climate Change Act 2008, opposed by only five MPs. Since then more and more ordinary people are beginning to rumble that the global warming hoax is politically, not scientifically, driven. Despite this sceptics are still relatively powerless and far from capable of 'intimidation' or forming a 'powerful group'. This however remains the position and strategy of the climate change scaremongers, but in time they will eventually get their comeuppance.