Ian Huntley

I read today that Ian Huntley is suing the prison service for £100,000 damages as a result of the attack on him whilst in prison. He is also claiming from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. The prison service said today it was ‘vigorously defending’ the claim. Nevertheless the whole exercise, whatever the result, could cost in the order of £1,000,000 plus in terms of lawyers and court costs.

It is time prisoners were charged for their board and lodging, and in his case protection,  This would be paid out of any earning or other income they get whilst in prison. For those for whom "Life means Life", all their assets should be confiscated as they clearly will never have a need for them.

This would put a stop to such madness!

Wikileaks and Garry McKinnon.

Each time Garry McKinnon is mentioned in the press, I wonder how it was that he was able to hack into the US Defence Computers, and why so much fuss is being made over something which, whilst illegal, scarcely did any significant harm. I have always felt that there was more to this "than meets the eye".
Today, we have the news that someone has leaked some 90,000 US military documents to Wikileaks covering events in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2009.

Now, if I'd had responsibility for computer security at the time of the Garry McKinnon incident, my main priority would not have been chasing the criminal but asking "Why on earth are our security systems so bad that someone with an ordinary home computer could conduct a sustained hacking exercise which took place over fourteen months and involving 96 computers in five US government departments, and which we only knew about because he left messages behind?". My next question would have been "If someone like this can hack into our computers, who else, with far superior resources, has also hacked into our computers but kept quiet about it?".

Today's news proves that nothing has changed. US government computer security seems as lax a ever and it would seem that nothing on their computers is secure from a determined hacker. Most developed countries have their own equivalents of our GCHQ with resources which are far superior to those used by Garry McKinnon, and there is no doubt in my mind that some of these countries will also have been accessing US government computers - why shouldn't they, Russia, China, Israel and many others would consider this to be a normal intelligence activity.

Which brings me back to my original thoughts - The fuss over Garry McKinnon and his extradition wasn't so much to punish him, but more of the nature of a smoke-screen to distract the media from asking questions as to how it happened, and protecting the individuals responsible for security.

If David Cameron wants to get one up on Obama over the recent treatment of the UK, he should issue a warning (albeit tongue in cheek) to all our government departments that they should be wary about sharing secrets with the US until GCHQ is satisfied with the security of the American government computer systems!
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New Identity for Jon Venables

According to today's Daily Telegraph,  The Ministry of Justice now accepts that Jon Venables will have to be given another new identity when he comes out of prison. This will apparently cost £250,000, with close supervision from Probation Officers costing another £1 million per year.

Why. Why, should the taxpayers have to fork out this sum which is far more than it would cost to keep him in prison?

Now, I am not one of those people who believe that children under a certain age don't know what they are doing. My 18 month old grandson certainly knows right from wrong within his environment, and personally, I cannot understand how any 10 year old brought up in the UK with exposure to television and the media, doesn't know that killing is wrong.

Nevertheless, I was prepared to accept the prevailing view that he perhaps wasn't aware of the seriousness of his crime, that rehabilitation was an appropriate course of action and that in due course he would have to be released and given a new identity.
However, he is now an adult, for whom the claim was presumably made that he had been rehabilitated, but notwithstanding this, he has committed further serious crimes. It is surely impossible to claim this time that he was not aware of what he was doing, and this being so, he should be forced to accept the consequences of his actions..

On this basis, why on earth should he be provided with another new identity at such enormous cost? I'm all for giving someone a second chance, but he's had his and I don't think there is any way we should pay for a third chance. If he feels that he will be unsafe out of prison, he should be given the option of staying in, which will cost considerably less than the probation costs of £1 million a year. It is his fault, and no-one else's that he is in his present predicament, so why should we pay?

And if you want to know why I don't believe in rehabilitation in this country, you should read some of Winston Smith's blogs. The most recent shows, to me, that if you are unable to apply any sanctions or punishment, it impossible to bring any discipline or order into the lives of those in care.  If Venables was "rehabilitated" in a similar manner, I'm not surprised at what happened.

Highly Paid Women

According to today's news, a third of women are earning more than  their men and are the main breadwinners.
Bearing in mind that a large number of women don't work (or only have part time jobs) because they prefer to stay at home and look after their family, it would seem that there are probably now equal numbers of men and women who are earning more than the partners.

Harriet, you are superfluous, we have equality !

Shock, Horror - Police Hours

The Headlines today "Shock, Horror, 'Just one in ten police out on patrol' ".

Frankly, I'm not surprised. As an engineer, I worked for ten years in an environment which required 24 hour a day cover, 7 days a week, every week.
Now, it is a straightforward fact that there are 168 hours in a week, something that seems to escape the notice of those who work normal office hours. My contract (which was designed for office workers) required me to attend for 40 hours each week, but I was allowed an hour each day as a lunch break, resulting in a net 35 hours work.

I don't know how many hours police officers are required to work, but I would assume that it would be somewhat similar. Thus to provide full cover in order to have one policeman available at any time, you will need five officers rostered throughout the week providing 175 hours of cover. This gives a slack of just seven hours to provide for overlap on shift changes. Nor does this figure allow for the absence of any officer on leave, sick-leave, training courses or attending court which probably increases the cover required by the equivalent of another person. So effectively six out of the ten policeman are required just to provide one on patrol at any one time.

"Police often work 12 hour shifts and have to be given rest days to make up for it". This of course is a form of jealousy which all shift workers experience, but if the full number of hours are being worked, what's the problem? For years, I worked nominal 12 hour shifts (often longer), with the result that I did an average of only three shifts a week over a five wek cycle. Allowing for nights and weekends, one frequently heard the comment from a day worker, "I haven't seen you for weeks, been on holiday?" Then some Admin type would decide to hold a meeting on one of your rest days and wondered why you complained. When I tried to arrange a training meeting for a Sunday, the cries of horror from the office workers were well worth hearing!

Yes, I have many complaints about the police, mainly with regards to their priorities, but only getting such an apparently low number on patrol is not one of them.

Tree Rats and the RSPCA

The Daily Mail reports that a man has just been fined £1500 for drowning a squirrel. HERE.
The ludicrous thing is that a fine of this magnitude is rarely handed out by magistrates courts for what most of us would consider serious crimes, clearly hurting a squirrel is far more serious than hurting one of your fellow beings. 
The prosecution was brought by the RSPCA who warned that "that many common methods of killing grey squirrels and other pests could now fall foul of the law, and said the only humane way to dispatch them would be to take them to a vet for a lethal injection - at a cost of up to £70."

Clearly, the RSPCA has now become an Animal Right Organisation, rather than  an animal protection organisation, and it is apparently is more interested in publicity than genuinely protecting animals. Grey squirrels are a pest, but it seems that we are not now permitted to kill pests unless it is done in such a manner that the animal might suffer in the course of its death.

What about rats? I've used a standard bait feeder with warfarin laced corn on and off for a number of years now; does this cause suffering to rats and are the RSPCA going to start prosecuting people who do this?

 

I wonder if this is what the people who put money in their collecting boxes really expect? Certainly they won't be getting a penny more out of me.

Australian General Election

I read that the new Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has decided to call a general election, having taken over from Kevin Rudd following a coup within the Australian Labour Party.
At least the Australians are getting a say, unlike this country under Brown.
I think there is a lot to be learnt from some of our ex-colonies as far a democracy is concerned, Australia, New Zealand and of course the United States!