When he was eight years old, in 1951, Churchill's cabinet debated immigration into the UK.
David Maxwell-Fyfe, the home secretary, reported that the total of "coloured people" in Britain had risen from 7,000 before the second world war to 40,000 at the time of writing, with 3,666 of those unemployed, and 1,870 on national assistance, or benefits.
It's almost impossible for anyone growing up today to imagine what a peaceful and orderly (and staid) place post-war Britain was. The American anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer, in his 1955 "Exploring English Character", compared the post-war English with their early Victorian forebears of 120 years previously* :
If you had told Mr Mannington-Bowes' parents that, sixty years later, their child would be beaten to death, in Ealing, by a mob of strangers bent on looting and arson, they would have thought you were mad.
"One of the most lawless populations in the world has turned into one of the most law-abiding; ...a fiercely and ruthlessly acquisitive society has turned into a mildly distributive society; general corruption in government has been replaced by an extraordinarily high level of honesty... in public life today the English are certainly among the most peaceful, gentle, courteous and orderly populations that the civilized world has ever seen. ... you hardly ever see a fight in a bar (a not uncommon spectacle in most of the rest of Europe or in the U.S.A.)... football crowds are as orderly as church meetings.."
They'd have thought you were mad if you predicted that he'd be fined in the local magistrates court - "for confronting youths for urinating outside his home".
This was England. The law was on the side of the law-abiding, and people were killed in riots in far-away countries, not here.
UPDATE - I would be interested to see a report of his trial and conviction, and who the magistrate was. I trust it wasn't this one. I don't want to come over all Polly Toynbee, and the people who beat him to death ARE savages, but the wholesale criminality (mixed with plenty of assaults just for the fun of it) is a product of an assault on the principles of criminal justice that's been going on for fifty years. Fifty years of mass immigration may arguably have been a necessary condition for his murder, but certainly not a sufficient one - and as I've said many a time and oft, there are plenty of native youth who'll beat a man to death for being a good citizen.
As I argued here and here, something in the water of post-Cultural Revolution UK seems to turn the children and grandchildren of previously law-abiding people into bad boys and girls. What could it be ? This Polly Toynbee column - or a read of the Magistrate's blog - may hold an answer.
* to be fair, the peacefulness of the English puzzled him greatly, John Bull being traditionally a pugnacious sort of chap, always ready to scrap when offended by a foreigner of any description.
"I imagine you both are thoroughly ashamed of what you have done."
"A massive surge in crimes committed by pensioners has sparked a 'grey crime wave' and seen the number of offences carried out by over 65s rise almost 50% in the last five years. OAPs have been charged with a variety of crimes which include carrying knives and guns, theft, fraud, shoplifting, drink-driving and sexual offences.Crime's a young person's - usually a young man's - game. Peak offending rates are I believe in the 15-21 years. But a small proportion of criminals will continue as they get older - especially in fields like selling stolen goods where contacts and trust are important.
Cambridgeshire Constabulary today revealed that crimes have risen by a staggering 47 per cent for the age group since 2007."
"We all know Grendon's the prison of the future; loving and understanding and getting to know the prisoners is now official policy, not only of the Home Office but of the Prison Officers' Association as well. If you say you don't approve of it, down it'll go in your record; and when you come up for consideration for promotion, you'll find you've been unaccountably passed by."
"They said I was a product of my environment and upbringing. That made me feel it wasn't my fault, so the last person that I looked at was me and that's the first place I needed to look."
Residents on a quiet suburban street were stunned when police found an arsenal of weapons including guns, missiles, grenades and rocket launchers.
Armed officers and an Army bomb squad uncovered more than 30 firearms in an early-morning raid on a semi-detached house in Worcester.
People watched in disbelief as police also carried out stocks of shells and ammunition.
The owner of the property, gun club chairman Graham Lane, 65, was arrested on suspicion of possessing an illegal firearm and bailed. Neighbours said they had seen him wheeling a cannon out of the house. Yesterday he insisted all the weapons are fully licensed and only used for historical battle re-enactments.I see. Could it be perhaps that the chairman of a gun club might own guns?
Hundreds of guns have been found in a semi-detached house in one of the Metropolitan Police's biggest ever weapons seizures.The owner of said guns, dealer and historic weapons expert Mick Shepherd, spent ten months on remand before being acquitted on all charges. As far as I know, he's still not been compensated for those months inside and the Met still haven't returned all his property. As you might expect, he's not too chuffed about it and has a very low opinion of the Met and Operation Trident. According to the comments left on my blog post, the media had been alerted to the raid and a Sky News helicopter was overhead as they went in. The front page of the London Evening Standard screamed of the ‘Biggest haul of illegal guns in Met history’. The Mirror called it an ‘Arsenal of Murder’, and newspapers were briefed that the raid was linked to four North London murders.
Pump-action shotguns, M16 rifles, revolvers and antique firearms were among weapons seized during raids on three properties in Dartford, Kent.
Oh dear. I do hope someone at West Mercia isn't bearing a grudge on some unrelated matter. Alas, these things can happen - it wouldn't be the first time.
Speaking after being released from police custody, he said: “There are other matters ongoing with the police at the moment but I do not want to talk about them.”
"My father is absolutely no threat, not a nutter and has complete confidence that all of his weapons will be returned. It's just unfortunate that his hobby is guns and militaria instead of stamp collecting!
I believe it was a "tip off" from someone (who may have done this before to my father with no success and which hadn't been publicised). Due to the lack of result the first time around, it appears that they've tried again a few months later. Hopefully that person will now be prosecuted for wasting police time.
The bomb squad was called in for a WWII hand grenade which they had found..this was a great toy of mine when I was growing up...of course it was completly deactivated (like all of his collection)...he was going to make it into a table lighter, but didn't get around to it.
The cannon shells were filled with sand and not explosives. Dad didn't want them falling over on anyone whilst giving his cannon demonstrations..the Police were very disappointed to find out it was sand and not powder...
The way this has been sensationalised is very disturbing. My father takes his hobby and his Chairmanship very seriously and has never advertised the fact that he holds firearms due to safety and security reasons. Unfortunately, now thanks to the press, that's no longer the case and anyone and everyone could easily track down the house....that is far more of a safety and security threat than my father will ever be!"
To residents he was a gentle man, a kind neighbour and protective son, but to generations of unruly teenagers he was “Dopey Dave”, a vulnerable man they took pleasure in provoking into a fury.The police do seem to have done something :He collapsed and died from a suspected heart attack on Wednesday evening after confronting several shadowy figures in the front garden who were shouting at him. Last night police arrested a 18-year-old man on suspicion of manslaughter.
One neighbour suggested that “kids” had indulged in “bear-baiting”, effectively tormenting their chosen victim to death and that the bullying had been going on for much of his life.
Over the years his tormentors, some as young as 8, had called at the modest pebble-dashed home he shared with his brother Brian, 63, and mother Rose, 88, throwing eggs and bricks at the walls, kicking in his front door, breaking windows and demanding cigarettes and money. Residents have complained that not enough was done to tackle antisocial behaviour but Greater Manchester Police insisted that officers had gone out of their way to develop a personal relationship with the family and to prosecute offenders where possible.
Police insisted they had done everything possible to support Mr Askew, his wheelchair-bound mother, Rose, and brother Brian. They had been to the property in Hattersley, Greater Manchester, 10 times in the last year after reports of anti-social behaviour. One youth – currently in prison – has an ASBO for harassing the family.10 years of harassment - one ASBO and no-one fined or imprisoned. Is that the police, Crown Prosecution Service, the kids' social workers, magistrates, or a toxic combination? You can see how that tough approach worked out :
His poor mother. One 'youth' has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. Possibility of a conviction - zero IMHO. They're just trying to be seen to do something about that open stable door and a missing horse.It is thought Askew became agitated when two youths broke down a gate and entered his garden on Wednesday evening. Police were called at 9.40pm after the youths tampered with his mother's mobility scooter and a bin.
Officers arrived within nine minutes but discovered Askew collapsed in the garden.
I am sure that it came as no surprise to anyone in the system to hear that a number of projects are poorly managed and sloppily supervised. I have been writing on here for years about the dozens of times that governments have promised 'really tough' community punishments. On the whole it hasn't happened.We don't always see eye to eye, but, like Lib Con's Adam Ramsey he at least seems to realise that a large number of Blair's 'tough on crime' soundbites were 'for amusement only'.
Supervisors of offenders on unpaid work schemes are increasingly being subjected to threats, and verbal and physical abuse, with many complaining of feeling intimidated and afraid, according to a new survey.But ... I thought these were the guys who didn't need to go to prison - the nice chaps that Ken Clarke knew how to deal with !
The report, by the probation officers' union, Napo, details hundreds of incidents in London, Merseyside and Hertfordshire over recent months. In Hertfordshire, one offender told a male supervisor he was going to kill him and rape his four-year-old-daughter. Another slashed the car tyres of a female supervisor and told her: "I know here you live and I'm going to get you and your family."At least two supervisors have had to lock themselves in a vehicle to escape physical violence and one member of staff was left cut and bleeding after a stone was thrown at him by an offender.
The situation has become so serious that a protection system has been set up for supervisors in the south-west of England.
An offender was instructed to work on a garden site and clear weeds. Later in the day the supervisor used the gents toilet, was not able to get out and it became apparent this was because the offender was holding the door shut. Eventually the supervisor managed to get out of the toilet. The offender told him it was a joke. He was told this sort of behaviour was not acceptable. The offender became very aggressive and started to shout at the supervisor saying ‘You don’t know what we do here. Don’t look at me like that, I am going to thump you now you ******* idiot. Are you going to breach me? You can’t do a ******* thing’.
"The offender was subsequently sent home".
Community service came into being in 1976. The idea was that as an alternative to custody offenders would complete up to 240 unpaid hours of work in the community. The thinking then was that the work would contribute toward rehabilitation, that it would not replace paid employment and that it would be of benefit to the community. Last year over 55,000 individuals were sentenced to unpaid work in the community. About a third were given individual placements, such as in a charity shop, the rest were given group work placements. However Napo has observed that groups that were originally supposed to be at a ratio of one supervisor to six offenders have grown; often over a dozen offenders now attend one group with the same number of supervisors. Staff have also complained that it is now rare to have a probation officer (or even a probation service officer, who has less training) on site. Indeed, placements are increasingly staff by sessional workers who are not contracted employees but are paid on an hourly rate. Often the only contact the offenders have with the service is through hourly-paid, sessional, supervisors who are paid on average £8.50 per hour and who often have full-time paid work elsewhere and use the unpaid work to supplement their income... sessional supervisors are increasingly reporting that they are scared on site and reluctant to report bad behaviour for fear of reprisals.
The most recent serious incident occurred on 31 July in Hackney where, as a 19-year-old offender was leaving the community service site at Brook House College in London E5, he was shot five times by an assailant using a handgun...It is thought quite possible that one of the offenders on the group phoned the assailant with relevant information. All the offenders on the placement have been interviewed by officers from Trident. This follows two other recent incidents in North London... Staff are now unable to send known gang members to do placements other than in the individual’s postal district. There are similar constraints on placements in other cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.
"I sent a letter to the Home Office on her behalf, urging them to let her and her son stay in the UK in safety."The main backers of her campaign, however, seem to have been a bunch calling themselves the Revolutionary Communist Group, a smallish spin-off from the old International Socialists most noted for their picketing of Jewish-owned shops.
You can see from this link the power of support from St George's, Abbey Hey. It's closed and up for sale.Eucharia said: "A lot of my family members have been killed. I do no want to die or lose my son. I want to live here with my son where I will be free from fear."
Campaigners supporting Eucharia and Timeyi held a day of action on Market Street in Manchester city centre and earlier this month staged a campaign meeting at St George's Church, Abbey Hey, to rally local support.
Under all this pressure, driven by Eucharia’s determination to fight for her and her son’s life and their right to stay in Britain, the Home Office have given in and granted them indefinite leave to remain. Without this campaign, Eucharia and Timeyi would have been deported long ago, facing the same fate as the 18,280 asylum seekers deported last year.Can't say the RCG are exactly hiding their agenda, can you ?
Throughout, Eucharia and Manchester RCG insisted that the campaign should be political, emphasising the link between racism in Britain and British imperialist exploitation abroad such as in Nigeria.
A woman saved from deportation by a high-profile campaign has been jailed for ten months after killing a child while driving without a licence. Four-year-old Caitlan Fitzhugh, of Coronation Street, Openshaw, was walking hand-in-hand on the pavement with her mum Stacey Strutt when she was hit by a Ford Transit van which mounted the kerb. The van careered into the youngster after being hit by a Ford Focus driven by heavily pregnant Eucharia Jakpa, who had no licence.
Andrew Nuttall, defending, said Mrs Jakpa felt ‘real and heartfelt remorse’, but had originally struggled ‘getting to grips’ with the fact she had taken a life. He admitted she had ‘behaved badly’ by seeking to blame the other driver. But he maintained that the ‘committed Christian’ had understanding of the ‘enormous pain’ felt by Caitlan’s family, since her husband and daughter had been killed in Nigeria.
Jakpa was only a provisional licence holder at the time of the crash and police say she has never provided details for her supervising driver. Two passengers who were in the car at the time ran off after the collision and have never been traced.Just an idea. The two who ran off couldn't have been the long-lost husband and daughter, could they ?
Sgt Jeff Hollick, from Greater Manchester Police, said: "Stacey may eventually recover from the physical injuries she suffered but there is no doubt the emotional scars left by the loss of her daughter will remain. Jakpa has never revealed to us whether she had a full licence holder guiding her and nor have the two passengers come forward of their own accord to explain their role, so Jakpa carries the full consequences of that collision on her shoulders."
As the forces of the law closed around the late Thomas Moat last Friday, the Magistrate pondered from the peaceful seclusion of West London whether the seemingly inexplicable recent tendency to violence of the North Countryman was just coincidence :
"Every assistant D.A. in the Bronx ... shared Captain Ahab's mania for the Great White Defendant . For a start, it was not pleasant to go through life telling yourself "What I do for a living is, I pack blacks and Latins off to jail" .. it made the boys uneasy, this eternal prosecution of the blacks and Latins."
Murderous rampages are mercifully rare, but perhaps it is no more than chance that the two recent killing sprees took place a long way from my patch.
The post mortem of the man killed by mystery gunmen in rush hour traffic outside his Cricklewood home yesterday is set to happen this afternoon. Neighbours said the victim was an Eastern European builder, aged in his 50s, who lived in Garth Road, next to the A41 Hendon Way. He was shot “multiple times”through the window of his black van as he pulled out of the road onto the busy 6-lane artery and pronounced dead at the scene.Nasty.
The third alleged victim of a man arrested over the shooting in Cricklewood on Thursday has been named. The man, 58, was found dead on Friday and named as Osman Grbic. He was found in a flat in Milton Avenue, East Ham with gunshot wounds. The suspect is also wanted over the shooting of two other men: Nezir Golaj, 45, of Garth Road, Cricklewood, who died of multiple gunshot wounds last Thursday, and the non fatal shooting of a 43-year-old man in Haringey.Hmm. Two in two days and a third injured.
A Kosovan man is set to appear in court today charged with three shootings in north and East London, including the murder of a Cricklewood builder. Hajdar Kasumaj, 50, of Firs Lane, Winchmore Hill will attend Westminster Magistrates Court today charged with murdering Nezir Golaj, 45, near his home in Garth Way on Thursday. He is also accused of murdering Osman Grbic, 58, in East Ham on Friday evening and the attempted murder of a 43-year-old in Wightman Road, Hornsey, the same day. Mr Kasumai is also charged with three counts of possessing a firearm, possessing a prohibited weapon, a silencer and ammunition without a license.
I'm just reading Misha Glenny's McMafia, on the vast corruption and gangsterism of the post-Soviet world and how globalisation has facilitated ever-expanding criminal networks.
North London seems as bad as Sarf these days. I'll leave you to read all about the dismembered love-triangle pensioner and the drug dealer's girlfriend.Behar Dika, from Cheyne Walk, Hendon, was last month found guilty of conspiracy to supply class A drugs and money laundering. Kingston Crown Court heard during the trial that Dika was the leader of a network that was supplying cocaine from three addresses, including in Second Avenue, Hendon, and laundering the cash through a bureaux de change in west London. False companies were established by two co-defendants and over a period of time they were able to take nearly £10million in cash to a legitimate bureau de change and trade the sterling for Euros in 500 denomination notes A statement from Scotland Yard said the bulk of this laundered money has never been traced, despite “extensive enquires”.
Following earlier information, police raided the home of Besnik Alla, 31, of Princes Parade, Golders Green Road, Golders Green, and uncovered more cocaine and cash. Albanian national Dika, 35, and his brother Elton Dika, 27, of no fixed address, were found to be directly linked to the drugs factories controlled by the network and to the money laundering operation. The older brother was found guilty last month of supplying cocaine and money laundering. He was jailed yesterday for a total of 18 years. Alla pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court on January 11 to conspiracy to supply a controlled class A drug and was sentenced to six years.Elton Dika pleaded guilty on April 21 to conspiracy to launder the proceeds of a conspiracy to supply class A drugs and received five years imprisonment.
The other gang members sentenced yesterday are as follows: Xhovan Gripshi, 31, from Wembley, pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court on April 22 to allowing a premises to be used for the supply of class A drugs. Sentenced to two years nine months imprisonment. Fabiol Beqiri, 23, from Wembley, pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court on April 22 to conspiracy to launder the proceeds of a conspiracy to supply class A drugs. Sentenced to two years imprisonment. Abu Tarab Raja, 27, from Hounslow, pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court on January 29 to conspiracy to launder the proceeds of a conspiracy to supply class A drugs. Sentenced to six years imprisonment. Kanwaldeep Deol, 40, from Hayes, pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court on November 20, 2009, to conspiracy to supply a controlled class A drug. Sentenced to six years imprisonment. Jaspreet Singh Gill, 27, Hayes, pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court on the same date to conspiracy to supply controlled class A drugs and conspiracy to launder the proceeds of a conspiracy to supply class A drugs. Sentenced to a total of nine years. Emiljan Shega, 19, from Wembley, pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court, on the same date to conspiracy to supply a controlled class A drug. Sentenced to ten years imprisonment
Armed officers are seeking Moat, 38, who is believed to have fired on the young victim, named locally as Samantha Stobbart, through the living room window. A man believed to be in his late 20s or early 30s was also shot dead outside the property in Birtley, Gateshead. He has not yet been named by police. Miss Stobbart, 22, who has a young daughter named Chanel, is thought to have been shot in the stomach and is now in a critical condition in hospital. Moat has previously worked as a nightclub doorman and was released from jail on Thursday after serving time for assault.
His recognition in today's speech at King's College London that there are more people in prison than necessary is as welcome as it is overdue. His description of prison as often costly and ineffectual marks a return to late 1980s Conservative policy under Douglas Hurd, which saw that far from working, "imprisonment can often be an expensive way of making bad people worse."
Police said the uniformed motor patrol officer was carrying out a "static patrol" on a roundabout joining the A1 and A69 when he was attacked. He suffered a gun shot wound and was taken to Newcastle General Hospital.I suppose it's no surprise that Rob Allen is on board. I've just taken a look at Ian Duncan-Smith's Centre for Social Justice site. Who's on the Working Groups ?
Not only that, but according to the same Austrian report ...
Meanwhile, the discovery of Elisa's body has thrown up more speculation
The discovery was made only on Wednesday despite renovation work taking place on the church twice since her disappearance, prompting claims that her body may have been moved since she was killed.
Well, that would certainly help explain why she ended up in the roof, but what of our perjuring Dorsetshire Italian ? The police seem to think that the same person killed both people. I can't see a fornicating Italian priest heading to Bournemouth to eliminate a total stranger somehow, even after all the other recent Church revelations.
A local newspaper has also printed claims that Elisa was killed by a priest who worked in the Most Holy Trinity Church at the time she vanished, and died two years ago.
"It's impossible Father Mimì Sabia didn't know anything about what had happened in his church. The truth is that he got Elisa pregnant and killed her," La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno reported an unnamed local source as saying.
Another local priest, Father Marcello Cozzi, said: "There was an atmosphere of a conspiracy of silence in those years. I think someone wanted to help the killer evade capture."
Passing sentence, Judge Beckett told the two 15-year-olds that in determining the punishment part of their sentences he took account of their age, and the fact that the boy who struck the fatal blow had been doing well at school.
Sentencing Michael Bailey at Oxford Crown Court last week, Judge Julian Hall said he was not going to jail him because the amount of money stolen was 'very little'. He told him: 'One's first reaction is to be quite horrified but I have to stand back a little bit and put it into perspective, having in mind the total amount of money involved is very little and why you committed these offences. It does seem to me they were drugs-driven. I'm prepared to suspend the sentence of imprisonment you so richly deserve.'
At the same court last week pregnant Sabrina Burton was also let off the hook after she admitted stealing a poppy tin from a Londis shop in London Road on November 6. She also admitted stealing a MS charity box from Frog Orange in Windmill Road on the same day and attempting to steal another poppy tin from a shop on November 9. Judge Hall told her: 'It's the sort of case where everyone has a sense of outrage that you should do this - "how could anyone do something as mean as this?" - but I have to keep some sense of proportion. The monies taken were obviously fairly given for good causes, but they cannot have been huge amounts. I will give you a chance to put your life back in order. Your baby deserves it, if nothing else. It will do your baby the power of good if you keep off the drugs.'
A former pub landlord yesterday became the first person to be jailed in connection with the smoking ban.
Nick Hogan, 43, was sentenced to six months in prison for refusing to pay a fine imposed for flouting the legislation.
Alan Mittelstaedt, managing editor of Annenberg Digital News, which publishes Neon Tommy, said Khouri’s recent article in The Times is a prime example of how this partnership can work.
“It was as good of a story as a 15-year veteran at a newspaper could have done,” Mittelstaedt said.
Medical advances mask epidemic of violence by cutting murder rate
Roger Dobson
BMJ September 2002; 325: 615.
Since 1957 in the US, the per capita aggravated assault rate (which is, essentially, the rate of attempted murder) has gone up nearly sevenfold, while the per capita murder rate has less than doubled. Vast progress in medical technology since 1957 to include everything from mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, to the national "9-1-1" emergency telephone system, to medical technology advances is the reason for this disparity.
