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8.45pm
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17 December 2012
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Does anybody here remember the Glasgow bin lorry crash just before last Christmas?
They got to a fatal accident inquiry quite quickly because the authorities decided not to prosecute the driver, saying that he did nothing wrong because he was unconscious at the time of the accident. However, the inquiry that this man had previously blacked out driving a bus, had a history of blackouts over decades, and had repeatedly lied in official forms, including to the licensing authority, which is a criminal offence.
Had he not lied, he would not have got the job as a driver, and 6 people would still be alive.
The judge clearly saw this, and asked for clarification of the legal position before the driver takes the stand. The authorities who should be prosecuting all copped out. One of the families affected, with the backing of another, has today said they will be trying for a private criminal prosecution.
I applaud them. With all that has already been heard during the inquiry into the accident, I see no way a jury could find the driver has no culpability. He didn’t intend to kill, which would make it manslaughter, but the inquiry has already made it clear he knew he’d had blackouts, consistently lied about his health, and his lies led to the deaths of six and many more injured. I believe a jury should decide if that makes him criminally culpable.
What a dreadful decision by the Scottish prosecutors, and what a brave decision by one of the families (the Scottish courts have only allowed a couple of private prosecutions in the last 100 years or so). I hope the Scottish courts will decide they do have a case that should be answered, and that if they don’t, that the UK Supreme Court will back them.
"I only said we were bigger than Rod... and now there's all this!" Ron Nasty
To @ Ron Nasty it's @ mja6758
The Beatles Bible 2020 non-Canon Poll Part One: 1958-1963 and Part Two: 1964-August 1966
11.09pm
17 October 2013
Offline 
@Wigwam_1, are you ok? How are things in Thailand now?
Yes……Fine.
In my time I’ve heard a few bombs go off in London….Regents Park bandstand and 7/7 and I wasn’t far away on the night when the two armed IRA men were being chased toward Balcombe Street by an unarmed ‘Bobby’………Seems it’s everywhere these days.
Targeting crowds like this is craven…..It’s designed to terrorise and it works because we all naturally inflate the levels of danger.
I want to make a point
When the ‘loveable freedom fighters of the IRA’ were trying to cower British people with regular bomb attacks….Often using money that had been collected in buckets in the bars of Boston and elsewhere in the United States……and innocents like those last night were caught up in the slaughter….It was hard to take. Not the bombing but the sympathy for it, the understanding and support of it from our close cousins. The IRA were already beaten but 9/11 was the final nail in the coffin. The loveable rogues…….lost their glamour and their money when America found itself the subject of terror.
What always seemed wrong to me was that in Britain we don’t have a death penalty…….And it didn’t seem right that the only people that weren’t potentially facing death every time they passed a litter bin……..were the bombers themselves…….And didn’t face a death sentence either had they been caught having killed dozens of men women and children.
The spineless politicians that brokered the peace deal means that many killers are free today, feted as legends and heroes……Must be tough for the families who lost children, wives or husbands.
Terrorism is here to stay……..Don’t change your life to avoid it, because you can’t.
There’s no place to hide……… A bandstand in a park…..a small street off the Marylebone Rd…….an office in a New York tower….a Marathon in Boston………A hotel in Mumbai…… A shrine in BKK………It’s everywhere like all dangers. And like all dangers it can be rationalised and come to terms with.
It will always be with us…….I think I finally understood that on 9/11 when half the planet covered their eyes in horror at the leapers hand-in-hand from the Tower choosing a quick cool death over the flames……and the other half cheered at the sight and danced in the street.
OK rant over…….Bet you’re sorry you asked now Ahh girl……..But thanks for you concern……It’s typical of your thoughtfulness.
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Ahhh Girl1.36am
Reviewers
17 December 2012
Offline @Wigwam said
What always seemed wrong to me was that in Britain we don’t have a death penalty…….
Sad to hear you’re in the same camp as Lord Denning, Wigwam, one of the UK’s pre-eminent judges of the IRA era. Before the Birmingham Six were cleared of any involvement in the IRA Birmingham pub bombings, he commented, “We shouldn’t have all these campaigns to get the Birmingham Six released if they’d been hanged. They’d have been forgotten and the whole community would have been satisfied.”
To my mind, there have been too many examples of what would have been death penalty cases that were long after found to be miscarriages of justice. That’s the problem with the death penalty, there’s not a lot to be done if the conviction is later accepted to be a miscarriage of justice. You can make some sort of amends if someone has been wrongly convicted, but once you’ve executed an innocent person, even if found innocent posthumously, there is no way back.
I am proud to live in a country that long ago abolished the barbarity of the death penalty.
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Oudis"I only said we were bigger than Rod... and now there's all this!" Ron Nasty
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The Beatles Bible 2020 non-Canon Poll Part One: 1958-1963 and Part Two: 1964-August 1966
3.47am
17 October 2013
Offline Hear hear Lord Denning…….
Don’t feel sad for me ………. Feel sad for the people who put their Liberal conscience above the life of the victims.
The ordinary citizen is not a brute…or a sadist… He is compassionate when it’s called for and bends over-backwards to be fair..And ready to give a second chance.
But he knows the difference between right and wrong and mere legality…..He understands that wrongdoing should be met with different degrees of severity………But the punishment should fit the crime.
A bomber who blows the legs, arms and life out of innocent passengers on a subway……Or praying at a shrine deserves to forfeit his own life.
It’s a State’s first duty to protect it’s peaceful citizens……I fear in Britain the ordinary man cannot count on that protection.
A life sentence is just a lie we are meant to swallow…….. Since the abolishment of the death sentence in Britain over 70 killers have been released to kill again.
The death sentence deters and it ensures the killer doesn’t kill it again.
The standard of proof before a death sentence is meted out on a cold blooded killer must be the highest possible….. beyond doubt….not beyond reasonable doubt. There are such cases….But where there is even a show of doubt, life in prison should mean exactly that……Why lie to us that a life sentence means life when some are released after 9 years……? It just discredits the legal system.
I don’t feel proud that Britain has abolished the death penalty ….because it hasn’t.
………….It’s just that now it only applies to the victim.
4.30am
Reviewers
29 August 2013
Offline I’m with RN on this one. Far too many innocent people have been executed for me to even contemplate bringing back the death penalty – it is too easy for the powers that be to use it as a tool to terrorise the unwanted minority of the day.
It’s not any sort of “insert label here to make it look bad” conscience either – more that I don’t think the state should be going around killing people who have been wrongfully convicted. There are too few “certain” cases to warrant its return – even beyond wondering what it does to the psyche of all those who carry it out.
==> trcanberra and hongkonglady - Together even when not (married for those not in the know!) <==
5.20am
Reviewers
17 December 2012
Offline I agree with some of what you say, @Wigwam.
I am someone who believes “life sentences” should be pretty much that, apart from in rare cases.
However, your argument that the death penalty deters is untrue. If we take the example of the one Western democracy to still exercise the death penalty, the US, the statistics prove it. The murder rate is consistently between 20 and 40% higher in States that have the death penalty than in those that don’t. If the death penalty deters, why would those States who don’t execute have a consistently lower murder rate? The answer is simple, if the crime carries the death sentence then there is every reason to murder any witnesses.
Your argument seems to be, so what if we execute some innocent people along the way. To me, one innocent person executed is too many.
Applauding Lord Denning? His argument was that if the state had murdered these innocent people who’d been found guilty, British justice would not have been being viewed with distrust, because the case would have been forgotten after the public had got blood. What a dreadful world that would be.
You have to trust the state, and its various arms, a lot to believe that they never get it wrong, and often-times on purpose.
I am reminded of the case of Stefan Kiszko, who was convicted of the rape and murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed in 1975. Had the UK still had the death penalty at that time, it would have been a definite death penalty case, and his conviction would have seen him executed given the crime. However, the police withheld the evidence that proved it couldn’t possibly have been him because they wanted to show they’d got someone.
The evidence they withheld from the defence, that they had sperm samples from the killer on her underwear, and that Stefan Kiszko was totally sterile because of a medical condition, and was incapable of producing sperm. The police knew this, the prosecutors knew this, and the evidence was withheld.
He was convicted in 1976, and not cleared until 1992. 16 years in prison for a crime that he could not have committed, and 16 years that destroyed his mental and physical health. He only had a few months of the freedom he deserved, dying at the end of 1993.
I am sad for you if you believe people like the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, Stefan Kriszko, and many others should have been executed.
You suggest 70 murderers have been released to murder again, and that the death penalty would stop that. I say tougher life sentences would solve that, and have shown 11 innocent people who would have been executed had the UK not abolished the death penalty, and could easily take that well over 70.
I will always feel sad for those who believe the death penalty is an answer, or a deterrent. It has been shown not to be time and again, and involves too many innocent people being executed. If the UK had murdered Stefan Kriszko, who does it protect?
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Matt Busby, trcanberra"I only said we were bigger than Rod... and now there's all this!" Ron Nasty
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The Beatles Bible 2020 non-Canon Poll Part One: 1958-1963 and Part Two: 1964-August 1966
5.58am
Reviewers
29 August 2013
Offline “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
I know it’s a bit of a dodgy argument – but I’ve been wanting to quote Tolkien for a while now and this is about the closest I have come to finding something relevant 🙂
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6.11am
Reviewers
Moderators
1 May 2011
Offline Derek Bentley shouldnt have been handed the death penalty but was. No matter what happens after the fact nothing brought him back. If you look back thru history you’ll find an alarming amount of occasions where folk who shouldn’t have been put to death were or if the death penalty existed would have been put to death only to be proved innocent years down the line.
There are some cases where the death penalty could be argued for but for me as long as there is a chance of being wrongly convicted (and corrupt practices and officials) then I wont be for it. I’m pleased to be in a country where it is not used as a deterrent.
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trcanberra, Oudis"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)
3.39am
17 October 2013
Offline What it is to have a conscience!
‘Thank god I hold the enlightened view on capital punishment, and live in a country where it doesn’t exist……..
……And I can sleep well in my bed knowing of the abominable tortures inflicted on children by Hindley and Brady……and yet I can still maintain that the lives of those two bestial murderers must remain inviolate’……Well good luck with that!
My opinion…..They deserved to die and good riddance!
More recent cases of the bodies of emaciated children with cigarette burns and other torture marks on their bodies. Children who for one reason or another slipped under the social care radar…….”It’s all the fault of the social workers….the Council….the Police it would never have happened if they’d been doing their job”
Well it just might also not have happened had the mother and step father considered during their torture sessions that one day they would face a rope around their vile necks.
Who can say if the Death penalty deters? I’m reminded that during the public hangings of thieves ……..pickpockets were working the crowds. But certainly murders and violent crime has risen dramatically since abolition.
I just think it should be there. It should be possible….To give the armed robber, or the violent thug, the child abuser some pause for thought.
It’s argued quite properly by my well meaning opponents here that mistakes can happen and abolitionists try to link this to the false premise that people like me are calling for the death penalty for all murderers, certainly not……(Before it was abolished only a minority of murderers were hanged)…….I’ve already said the burden of proof should be open and shut….without a shadow of doubt……Not merely beyond reasonable doubt.
I repeat it’s my belief that the death penalty ‘should exist’…….But not as it does now……when it only applies to the victims. That don’t seem right!
4.32am
Reviewers
29 August 2013
Offline I get the whole “without a shadow of a doubt thing” @Wigwam , but what about the numerous and persistent occurrences of the police or other authorities rigging the evidence to get a conviction?
==> trcanberra and hongkonglady - Together even when not (married for those not in the know!) <==
6.45am
17 October 2013
Offline I suppose if you have no trust in the judicial system in your country then you have a fair point.
…………Although knowing that they too could face a death sentence for falsifying evidence that lead directly to the execution of an innocent man it might seem less attractive for them to take that risk.
Whatever, I accept we won’t see eye to eye on this one.
4.11pm
Reviewers
29 August 2013
Offline Wigwam said
I suppose if you have no trust in the judicial system in your country then you have a fair point.
…………Although knowing that they too could face a death sentence for falsifying evidence that lead directly to the execution of an innocent man it might seem less attractive for them to take that risk.
Whatever, I accept we won’t see eye to eye on this one.
I personally wouldn’t trust the judicial system in any country as far as I could throw it.
It’s actually more attractive to them in the sort of heinous cases you mentioned previously as the public are baying for blood and it is all too easy to find some unattractive fall guy/girl to take the punishment.
I think we just need to have life imprisonment in these sorts of cases that actually means that and let the perpetrators rot in dank cells to contemplate their deeds. The Bali bombers are a case in point – what most of them are doing free again beggars belief.
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4.27pm
Reviewers
14 April 2010
Offline Ron Nasty said
I will always feel sad for those who believe the death penalty is an answer, or a deterrent.
Whether or not the death penalty should be abolished is not the issue. Instead, you should be sad over the fact that death – or any other form of punishment for that matter – is not a deterrent. That’s what scares the f**k out of me.
Wigwam said
I just think it should be there. It should be possible….To give the armed robber, or the violent thug, the child abuser some pause for thought.
Oh, how I wish that were true. I could be wrong about this and God , I wish I was; but I don’t think for one second that someone considering or carrying out a capital crime gives a s**t about the consequences.
I am always torn when it comes to this issue. If I thought it would reduce the amount of violent crimes, I would be all for it. The latest investigative sciences should tell me that we can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt whether or not someone is innocent or guilty. But, those same sciences in corrupt hands are useless.
It always makes me sick to my stomach when I say to myself, upon hearing the news that an execution was carried out, “I sure hope he/she did it”.
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7.06pm
17 October 2013
Offline In terms of deterrence you could and perhaps already should have argued the case that Thailand has the death penalty……..It didn’t in this case and doesn’t in many other cases deter……..
But because they never happened we will never know how many lives have been saved because the thought of a death sentence did deter.
Apart from the debate about deterrence…………I’d argue the need for retribution, which is different from revenge. Retribution i.e. simple justice.
Look at it on an international level, Israel doesn’t have the death penalty but insists that for any attack on it there is always a cost. It’s still a logical strategy.
Deep in our understanding lies a feeling that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is not without merit…….And that the punishment should fit the crime.
As it is some of the Bali bombers…….IRA bombers etc have had the death they brought to others rewarded with freedom and their own lives intact. If you want to pontificate that’s justice……I’d be interested in your argument.
10.24am
Reviewers
14 April 2010
Offline Wigwam said
But because they never happened we will never know how many lives have been saved because the thought of a death sentence did deter.
That is a great point – It makes me rethink my earlier thought of;
I don’t think for one second that someone considering or carrying out a capital crime gives a s**t about the consequences.
The points remain that 1) we will never know how many lives were saved, or 2) if any were saved.
This has been an interesting discussion with good points made on both sides. I’m proud to be part of a group that is repectful enough to keep it civil. Thank you.
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trcanberra, WigwamTo the fountain of perpetual mirth, let it roll for all its worth. And all the children boogie.
7.38pm
17 October 2013
Offline It’s only the threat of your ultimate sanction Zig that has deterred my from my grumpy old man extremes……5555!
12.14am
19 September 2010
Offline There was in interesting case in Indonesia recently – the Bali 9 I believe there were called. 9 people, including 2 Australians, were caught smuggling heroin into Indonesia. it was meant for Australia, and they were caught. They were recently executed, which they knew about when they committed the crime. My feelings are better expressed in this article than I can articulate, but my basic point is this; the justice system, the presumption of innocence over guilt, is such that has made the system one where it is better to let 10 guilty go free than let 1 innocent be found guilty. I agree with that, and anything that means 1 innocent person dies needs be abolished. Get rid of it.
As if it matters how a man falls down.'
'When the fall's all that's left, it matters a great deal.
1.28am
17 February 2015
Offline Worlds biggest anaconda snake found in the Philippines in negros island virgin forest river, it killed 752 human beings and thousands of animals, it is 135 feet long and 3 inches and about 3000 klgs
3.54am
Reviewers
Moderators
1 May 2011
Offline HongKongLady said
Worlds biggest anaconda snake found in the Philippines in negros island virgin forest river, it killed 752 human beings and thousands of animals, it is 135 feet long and 3 inches and about 3000 klgs
Did us stupid humans kill it?
"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)
4.19am
Reviewers
29 August 2013
Offline HongKongLady said
Worlds biggest anaconda snake found in the Philippines in negros island virgin forest river, it killed 752 human beings and thousands of animals, it is 135 feet long and 3 inches and about 3000 klgs
Looks like “news” from Facebook. Nice photo though 🙂
==> trcanberra and hongkonglady - Together even when not (married for those not in the know!) <==
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