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The Search for Justice – politicalbetting.com
The Search for Justice – politicalbetting.com
Sarah Everard's killer Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer and things must change now to stop it happening again, inquiry says https://t.co/8T7w7TNwAE
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(Am I doing this right? Ed))
Couzens could speak almost fluent Russian. He also had chaotically poor and unmanaged finances and persistent indebtedness, a fact which alone should have prevented him being hired - because of the risk of blackmail and the stress it places on a person - and yet the Civil Nuclear Constabulary still hired him.
Then though one of his reasons for joining the Met was to become a detective he applied to become a Diplomatic Protection Squad member.
Did no-one in the police worry about such a person being a target for a hostile foreign state actor?
https://twitter.com/ABridgen/status/1765069935603306651?t=-eh1MBP7jsopiDIMHhn2hA&s=19
It seems as if John O'Looney is a real person:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/john-o-looney-piers-corbyn-anti-vaxxer-covid-vaccine-coronavirus-162233353.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFdsbVUNY4W9ejW8mpADE4nhnp4-AUUGbHe8DLNs3_aLL2yUQA4C6qiW9FyWj54UX48qu8_nUy9RKc67V-NSrt3mwTq_58xiAbWsRfv42gicrmFPpC0xiM9TBRxmEvNHDB7lcarQ_yG18WUZWUruh-_vab_rfZRQtKMcwP735g1R
J'accuse! Et je n'aime pas!
Worrying is stressful after all.
Still, I'm sure lessons have been learned. In the sense of the cliche phrase when no actual lessons are learned of course.
Rapists are likely to have avoided justice because the Metropolitan Police has been routinely failing to record basic details about sex offenders and their victims, despite repeatedly being told by regulators that its methods are failing women and girls.
Scotland Yard has been forced by The Times to disclose a highly critical internal report detailing its failures to prevent violence against women and girls after a 14-month legal battle.
These key details, which may help to identify similarities between offences and better link suspects to crimes, could have helped investigators bring violent criminals to justice by establishing patterns of offending.
The 2022 document commissioned after the murder of Sarah Everard shows that for 356 serious sexual offences reported the previous year — 7 per cent of all crimes recorded — officers did not record detailed information about the reported sex offence which could have helped to identify any trends or linked attacks.
Officers regularly failed to properly record details of suspects, which meant they could not easily be identified by other investigators. In thousands of cases the relationship between victim and offender was not recorded on police computer systems.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/met-police-report-failed-sex-offenders-basic-details-wmtml2h9m
Last year, I attended a Crown Office training weekend and Angiolini was a guest speaker. Sher was also on my table. Both her courtesy at the table and her speech gave me a very different impression and, I must say, a much more favourable one. She is a very serious and intelligent person. She is, so far, unique in retaining the post of Lord Advocate when there was a change of administration and I began to appreciate why. It would be very unfortunate if this perceptive report ended up gathering the same dust as all the others.
For example
ABC News - Investigation opened after Seattle officer heard joking about pedestrian's death
https://abcnews.go.com/US/seattle-officer-joking-pedestrian-death/story?id=103130361
After discussing whether she was in the crosswalk and how far she was thrown, [SPD Officer] Auderer [who investigated the incident shortly after it occured] says, "But she is dead," and laughs several seconds later.
Toward the end of the 2 1/2-minute video, Auderer says, "Yeah, just write a check," followed by laughter.
"Eleven thousand dollars. She was 26, anyway," he said, misstating Kandula's age. "She had limited value."
SSI - Note that Officer Auderer is (or at least was back then) the vice president of the Seattle Police Guild (union).
Sometimes it worked out for him (London, first half of his premiership) sometimes it didn't (latter part of his Premiership, Foreign Office).
I have a beautiful model from Seattle in my bedroom right now.
When the accused was under investigation for a series of offences from a series of relationships the complainer was visited by a female officer and had no problem telling her what had happened. The Initial Briefing report of this Officer, however, was presented as a prior inconsistent statement by her and the change of position was used by the defence (understandably) as evidence that the inquiry which had produced the charges was something of a witch hunt.
It was a deeply frustrating experience which frankly made me wonder how many other prosecutions, actual and potential, this officer had blighted.
I do not want lessons to be learned. I want several senior people to lose their jobs, and be unable to ever work in the police service, ever again. In any shape or form.
*May not include lessons. May not include learning. May not include Will. May not include anything except pathetic excuses.
Avian flu makes me nervous ++ We need to be ready for it becoming more transmissible between humans.
Between 2020–2023, 26 countries reported >48 mammal species infected by H5N1. Geographic area and No. of species affected has increased.
/eid/article/30/3/23-1098_article
https://twitter.com/PeterHorby/status/1764596545620410662
"We reviewed information about mammals naturally infected by highly pathogenic avian influenza A virus subtype H5N1 during 2 periods: the current panzootic (2020–2023) and previous waves of infection (2003–2019). In the current panzootic, 26 countries have reported >48 mammal species infected by H5N1 virus; in some cases, the virus has affected thousands of individual animals. The geographic area and the number of species affected by the current event are considerably larger than in previous waves of infection. The most plausible source of mammal infection in both periods appears to be close contact with infected birds, including their ingestion. Some studies, especially in the current panzootic, suggest that mammal-to-mammal transmission might be responsible for some infections; some mutations found could help this avian pathogen replicate in mammals. H5N1 virus may be changing and adapting to infect mammals. Continuous surveillance is essential to mitigate the risk for a global pandemic."
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/3/23-1098_article
As a wise PBer said recently, after you have been served vintage champagne, several glasses of good claret, and a good cognac, who cares if the flight’s a bit ropey?
(I doubt any of this is true, but print the legend etc)
"Our survey. Three-quarters of Conservative members back defence spending over tax cuts in the Budget. | Conservative Home" https://conservativehome.com/2024/03/05/our-survey-three-quarters-of-conservative-members-back-defence-spending-over-tax-cuts-in-the-budget/
How would you prove that the police weren't riddled with rapists? At some level it will always have to be taken on trust. And trust, once broken, is very slow to rebuild.
I have though witnessed just how committed my colleagues are in dealing with just what we deal with....and which is becoming worse...
I don't even speak to my wife about what happens during my working day because it is so remorselessly depressing...drugs, mental health, self harming, homelessness, poverty, violence, and abuse.....rinse and repeat....
Someone brought up WFH as a productivity issue....I logged in a couple of weeks ago at 2.00 in the morning...and I could see that 3 of my colleagues (in a small team) were logged in.
If we get hit with more cuts I cannot see how our job is at all sustainable. I feel so sorry for the young social workers now just starting, all with student debts. And you have the likes of Hunt telling us that the problems with Councils is spending on diversity. I would imagine that at some point he will look himself in the mirror and feel utterly ashamed.
Will Hutton
@williamnhutton
·
1h
Anybody who seriously thinks the fate of the UK economy hangs on 2 p off National Insurance or 1 p off the standard rate of income tax needs medical help. The whole debate is pathetic- a condemnation of how the Westminster and media village are in thrall to Treasury bookkeeping
https://twitter.com/williamnhutton/status/1765108755987857567
Anyone who participates in accountability will not be allowed to have these kinds of jobs.
So public services become a Testudo of the useless, incompetent and wilfully blind.
We have incompetence and wilful blindness drawn from a wider range of social backgrounds, now
Alcohol is pretty much everyone’s favourite drug.
As @Leon says: delicious, reliable, soothing.
And that is, in good part, the problem.
It requires the right management techniques, equipment and team structure.
"Here's a laptop, go home" is to working from home what "have no stock" is to inventory control & management.
But she has stupidly ruled that out already.
'Byng's perceived failure to relieve the garrison at Minorca caused public outrage among fellow officers and the country at large.[26][27] Byng was brought home to be tried by court-martial for breach of the Articles of War which had been revised eleven years prior to mandate capital punishment for officers who did not do their utmost against the enemy, either in battle or pursuit.[28]
The revision followed an event in 1745 during the War of the Austrian Succession, when a young lieutenant named Baker Phillips had been court-martialled and shot after his ship was captured by the French. His captain had done nothing in order to prepare the vessel for action and was killed almost immediately by a broadside. Taking command, the inexperienced junior officer had been forced to surrender the ship when she could no longer be defended.[28] The negligent behaviour of Phillips's captain was noted by the subsequent court-martial and a recommendation for mercy was entered,[29] but Phillips's sentence was approved by the Lords Justices of Appeal.[30]
This sentence angered some in parliament, who felt that an officer of higher rank would likely have been spared or else given a lighter punishment and that Phillips had been executed because he had been a powerless junior officer and thus a useful scapegoat. The Articles of War were amended to become one law for all: the death penalty for any officer of any rank who did not do his utmost against the enemy in battle or pursuit.[28] '
As someone who has hired many, many people the thought of having to reply to every applicant would make me never bother with it. One of the jobs we put out there "Junior Investment Analyst -no degree required" had over 500 applications just from one partner. We used a machine learning sorting system to get through it, iirc by the end of the week there were something like 2000 applications across all partners.
The result of the Byng affair was that senior officers felt their necks were on the line. The resulting “we always attack” attitude probably saved lives and won many battles.
https://x.com/iapolls2022/status/1765138976405409839
As for council spending, I recall one council leader retorting that virtually nothing is spent on diversity (not exactly a surprise when most other forms of expenditure have been hacked back so much to try to cope with social care that your typical upper tier authority transport department probably consists of little more than two blokes in a beat up old van, riding around filling a small selection of the myriad potholes with a bucket of black gloop,) and that spending on consultants is mainly a product of councils having to fight one another for various pots of cash that get doled out by Whitehall departments administering ministerial vanity projects.
.
Councils and their supposed profligacy are simply one more scapegoat to be used to mask the incompetence of central Government; the inconvenient truth is that all the well run councils are going down the toilet like the problem cases are, only at a slower rate. One would hope that the next administration would reform their finances and rescue them before they begin failing in really large numbers, but the likely reality is that Labour ministers will enjoy using them as human shields for their own total uselessness in the same manner as their Tory counterparts do at the moment. It's just that they'll doubtless choose to highlight the failure of Conservative shire councils rather than Labour urban ones when they want to score cheap points. It's as predictable as it is pathetic. These people are all the same, really.
Some academics give feedback to all interviewees, but not all - I normally say they can ask for if they like. If someone was particularly good and I would like to hire them in future I let them know.
ETA: As rottenborough says, we don't tend to look at applications until after the closing date, although we are able to. Shortlisting is always after the closing date.
I worked at a uni and had similar numbers applying for jobs but no need to give any feedback except for internal applications and then only after interview stage. I think at actual interview HR person made some notes on each interview and they were able to feed back when they told them the result.
However we were not given the applications and CVs until the day after the closing of applications so there was no advanced picking and no advantage to getting an application in early. This sounds bad policy if to me that your sisters place allows that.
Twenty years ago though and the world has changed.
(I know you don’t have a vote, but if you did, for whom would you vote?)
He's also confident Trump won't be re-elected and explains why. Worth a listen
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4MkZdVG2pZ3Pzir8wp0X7q?si=Kd2Ytj1-SC2eQAiJMCHYSA
Along with the old chestbut of not going looking for problems in case you find them.
But people and systems can be very good at saying the right things paying on lip service to appropriate standards, hence the absolute joke that 'lessons will be learned' has become. People know they should learn lessons, so they say they do, even when usually there's no will.
Just as the IICSA Final Report & its recommendations were ostentatiously ignored by the government. As we know - from yet another report - the Met's behaviour in relation to child abuse is as bad as its behaviour to women.
Some recent examples:
1. On 1 March a 29 year old doctor working in a Warwickshire hospital, who had pleaded guilty to 3 counts of making indecent images of children, was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment, suspended for 2 years. He was in possession of more than 50 images, over half in the most extreme category, some of children as young as 5. He also searched for such images.
February
2. A Derbyshire teacher aged 44, found guilty of two counts of rape of an under-age girl pupil he groomed while in a position of trust, was given a 1-year sentence, suspended for 2 years.
3. A 21 year old actor who downloaded 848 child abuse images, 165 in the worst category, was told this by the judge:
‘The images I have seen are sickening. Each of them is a real child being abused for the pleasure of someone like you watching. It is made worse because of the number of them – there were 848 indecent images – and it is made worse by the length of time you were doing it. You told the probation officer you do not have a sexual interest in children. I don’t accept that.’
Despite these strong words, he was given an 8 month sentence, suspended for 2 years. He had been downloading such images since he was 17.
4. A 43-year old man in Warrington convicted of 4 offences of attempting to communicate with a child, possession of child porn & extreme pornography was given an 18 months sentence, suspended for 2 years. Defence counsel argued in mitigation that: “He has perhaps had more than his fair share of problems in his life to overcome.” (This seems to have related to problems with alcohol though since he was also in full-time good employment, it is not entirely clear why these justified such a light sentence, especially as the judge commented that he was in denial about his activities, his sexual interest in children & had not truly shown remorse.) Never mind. He too left court.
5. A 39 year old Stoke man with 78 indecent images of children (described as “disgusting”) was convicted of 3 charges of making indecent images of children, possession of extreme pornography & prohibited images & given a 3-year community order because he had shown remorse despite, once again, the judge pointing out: “These are real children suffering disgraceful, horrible behaviour committed on them by adults.”
6. A 75 year old Dundee banker convicted of having thousands of child abuse images was given a suspended sentence though had his access to the internet restricted.
8. A 71 year old man in Worcester, convicted of having child abuse images for the second time was given a community order.
I could go on.
Which is why their "ooh look at our super tax cuts vote for us" spiel is so vomit inducing.
I think this story more or less sums up the government. A minister, picking up on some half arsed nonsense from one of its client right wing AstroTurf outfits, casually libels a couple of academics in the name of owning the Libz. And then when they sue her for defamation the taxpayer is somehow on the hook for the resulting damages. While she somehow keeps her job. Please, in the Name of God, can these clowns just go?
It takes years to catch these men and bring them to court: the average time in the cases listed above was 2 years. Probably the lack of prison places is one reason sentences are suspended. We don't want to fund the criminal justice system or the prison system properly. Nor do we know whether any of the classes on Why Sex Offences Are A Bad Thing they are required to go to work.
Help for the victims is patchy at best. Social workers as @tyson describes above are overstretched.
Still, 2p off NI, eh!
And to answer the question in my own header, as Tom Little KC said in the programme, the position for women since the time of Sarah's death has got worse. And not just because of the police.
Da fucq?
Nonsense
The idea that any kind of real consequence for failure and/or incompetence is unreasonable or disproportionate, for those of a high position is bizarrely widespread.
Fixed that for you
There are two possibilities: Labour is telling the truth and intends to implement more austerity rather than soaking the wealthy; or Labour intends to get elected on a total raft of lies, pretend that they were too thick to understand how bad things were before they got hold of the keys to the Treasury, and rip up their manifesto at some point in the first week after winning. Either course of action is liable to destroy any miniscule residuum of public faith in politicians, albeit for slightly different reasons (either the notion that Parliament doesn't give a shit about anyone but the rich, or that MPs lie about absolutely everything, having been definitively proven.) I'm not convinced that this will improve matters.
Heck even the people I know at the Treasury don't believe there is any money to cover tomorrow's tax cuts...
From the article:
"Donelan’s department said that it had paid the damages and legal costs when asked who had done so, adding: “This was subject to all the usual cross-government processes and aims to reduce the overall costs to the taxpayer that could result from protracted legal action.”
A No 10 source said Rishi Sunak had full confidence in Donelan, calling her “an excellent minister”."
Perhaps Sir John Major should become prime minister again?
In any event, they will most certainly will get a free pass in the early months using the line "now we have seen first hand the terrible state of public finances".
If you don't like that idea, don't vote for Labour, but the Tories are the unchallenged masters of breaching their own manifesto.
The sector he is looking at is always complaining that it can't get staff. Well I'm not surprised if that is how they treat applicants. So he is looking elsewhere and facing the "you don't have enough experience" roadblock.
Yes the polls are not looking great at the moment but we have eight months to go. So there remains much to play for.
Many of us feel physically sick at the thought of a Trump Presidency, and "the Republicans look to have the Presidential election in the bag" really isn't true. If the polls remain the same come the Autumn, yes a Dictatorship will look highly likely. So for the moment at least, enough of your trolling.
Someone calculated that “DEI officers” salaries account for 0.02% of Birmingham’s budget. As an example of “how they might cut spending”, it’s not even risible.
So off to bed.
Here's some photos of where I was today - complete with dog for scale.
I don’t see how it’s trolling at all.
Besides, remember Parkinson's Law of job adverts. If the demands and rewards are properly calibrated against each other, an optimal job advert should bring forth one applicant who can then be appointed without further ado.