Going to the Dogs

2003-01-28T14:17:00.000Z

Fire service centralised

The Fire Service is to be placed under central government control, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has announced in Parliament.

Currently the Fire Service is controlled in each area by the relevant local authority. The government plans to place control over pay, shift work patterns, training, and the location of fire stations in Mr Prescott's office. This could include Scotland and Wales, despite their devolved administrations.

This example of centralisation of power has appeared in response to an ongoing pay strike by the Fire Brigades Union. The government characterises the FBU pay claim as a demand for a 40% pay rise; the FBU says it just wants to return to the relative status firefighters enjoyed 20 years ago.

2003-01-27T22:34:00.000Z

Tories call to limit directors' pay

Tory MP Archie Norman has published a Bill that would limit companies' severance payments to outgoing directors. Directors often negotiate contractual severance entitlements worth a year's salary or more, as a combination of their relative job insecurity and their strong bargaining position as key employees. Norman's Bill would allow Boards to wriggle out of contractual obligations by alleging unsatisfactory performance.

2003-01-27T22:23:00.000Z

Britain could abandon Human Rights

Tony Blair has threatened to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights. The government objects to Article 3, which prohibits deporting asylum seekers to countries where they face torture or execution.

2003-01-23T16:39:00.000Z

Right-to-buy restricted

The Right-to-Buy scheme, under which millions of local authority tenants have escaped public housing and bought their own home, is to be restricted in an attempt to prevent profits by property speculators. The discount to market value tenants are allowed when buying their home is to be cut from £38,000 to £16,000.

Further planned restrictions include increasing to five years the length of time a tenant must occupy their home before gaining the right to buy, and increasing to five years the length of time for which the former tenant stands to forfeit the discount if they sell the property.

More draconian restrictions on resale are expected in rural areas, to protect the quantity of public housing.

2003-01-21T12:52:00.000Z

"Ban big chocolate"

A leading nutritionist has called on the government to ban big chocolate bars and outlaw super-sized packets of crisps. Speaking to the Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine, Professor Malcolm Law likened such measures to controls on tobacco products imposed forty years ago. Details in the Evening Standard and more at the BBC.

2003-01-20T16:16:00.000Z

Lecturer sacked over toy gun

A college lecturer has been sacked for allowing a student to bring a toy gun into college for a photography project, reports The Times. Doncaster College terminated Richard Browning in response to Home Secretary David Blunkett's recent attacks on replica firearms.

2003-01-09T15:50:00.000Z

Replica handguns to be banned

The Home Secretary has announced legislation to make it illegal to possess a replica handgun. It is expected that an exception will be made for the theatrical profession, so that The Bill won't have to be set in Paris - a concession that was not granted to the British Olympic pistol team, who have to train abroad. The government's position on children's toy guns is currently unclear. Potentially, the decision to prosecute toys could become a matter of prosecutorial discretion.

2003-01-02T18:22:00.000Z

Sony bowdlerise The Getaway

Sony have bowed to pressure from BT to cut scenes in their hit video game The Getaway that portray a gangster committing violent crimes in a stolen BT uniform. Killjoys at BT considered the game harmed their corporate image.

2002-12-30T22:26:00.000Z

Civil asset forfeiture in the UK

The Proceeds of Crime Act came into force on 30th December 2002, giving police and customs officers powers to confiscate property permanently on mere suspicion that it was gained illegally.

The new powers include the right to confiscate property where no criminal prosecution is possible, for example due to lack of evidence. Confiscation proceedings would be made permanent through a trial in the civil courts, in order to use the lower standard of proof there.

Civil courts use the test of "the balance of probabilities". This is appropriate in the usual types of cases in civil disputes such as debt: where the property in dispute belongs to either one party or the other, the court awards it to the one who, on balance, is probably in the right. Criminal cases, where defendants stand to be penalised by the state as punishment, are traditionally tested to be proved "beyond reasonable doubt". The essence of the government's case is that it is too difficult to prove a case "beyond reasonable doubt" when dealing with organised crime, so the standard of proof should be lower.

2002-12-21T16:57:00.000Z

Police demand drug-tests on pub-goers and publicans

Police in South Staffordshire are demanding on-the-spot drug tests from pub-goers and clubbers, using new technology. As results are now obtainable in seconds, everyone entering a pub is asked for a sample swab, and refuseniks fall under immediate suspicion. Refusal to comply by publicans will be held against them when they apply for renewal of their license.

2002-12-20T22:11:00.000Z

Burglars won't be jailed

Burglars will no longer normally receive jail sentences under new guidelines set down by Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice. Ignoring recommendations from the Sentencing Advisory Panel of 9-12 months for most non-violent burglaries, the Lord Chief Justice said the usual punishment should be community service.

Lord Woolf gave prison overcrowding as one reason for letting burglars roam free, and also expressed the opinion that for most first-time convicts prison doesn't work.

2002-12-18T11:00:00.000Z

RBS fined £750,000

Royal Bank of Scotland has been fined £750,000 for failing to get full ID verification when opening 100 new bank accounts. The Financial Services Authority imposed the fine after the bank reported itself, and co-operated fully withan FSA investigation. There was no suggestion that the account-holders did anything wrong.

Banks require detailed proof of both indentity and address to prevent money laundering and tax evasion. Failure to comply is treated extremely seriously by organs of the State, because control of money is the heart of the power in most areas. And there's nothing the State hates more than losing out on a bit of tax.

2002-12-18T10:16:00.000Z

Employers liable for Xmas parties

The Trade Union Congress warned employers that they are liable for "sexually inappropriate comments or advances between colleagues" at Xmas parties, or even in informal drinks after work. Sexual harassment at work is a serious matter, but where does the employer's responsibility end? And what is the inevitable effect of such nannying: the gradual death of the Xmas party, just as we've seen the gradual extinction of school bonfire and firework parties?

"Compensation culture gone mad" is an expression that shouldn't be applied to the size of awards: the pitiful awards in the UK for serious injuries are terrible. Instead, use it when people seek compensation for whatever minor or major ill from whoever happens to have money, regardless of their real culpability.

2002-12-16T10:57:00.000Z

ISPs swamped by censorship demands

Internet Service Providers have been inundated with "notice and take-down orders" served under the European E-commerce directive.

Reuters covers the full story.

2002-12-13T13:26:00.000Z

War heroes taxation was theft: official

Thousands of war veterans who should have received armed forces pensions tax-free were wrongly taxed because civil servants disagreed with the law. The investigation ordered by the Ministry of Defence has found the wrong-doing extended over many decades.

In the 1950s civil servants declined to alert Navy veterans to the tax-free status of their pensions because plans were in train to change the law and remove the privilege: consequently, tax was wrongly deducted for years. As late as the 1990s, there was a "deep-rooted culture" in which it was thought it "did not matter" if pensioners were robbed of their entitlements.

Malpractice by the War Department in this respect went back as far as 1919, the report found. Tax repayments were continually withheld from many legitimate claimants, and in any case were wholly inadequate. A tax refund would pay no more than the rate in a National Savings Account, and could amount to a multi-decade interest-free loan to the government.

2002-12-13T13:15:00.000Z

Smacking illegal

A group of private Christian schools lost its appeal asking for the right to use corporal punishment with parental consent. The upheld government claims that it was illegal in all schools, even inpendent schools, under the 1996 Education Act. Previously the group had one a case in the European Court of Human Rights declaring that smacking was not in breach of the Human Rights Act.

Judges in the Court of Appeal said that children could be sent home from school for reasonable physical chastisement by their parents. The appelants had claimed that swiftness was important in constructive discipline.

2002-12-12T22:10:00.000Z

Parents to be fined for truancy

Education Minister Charles Clarke announced today that Head Teachers will be given the power to fine parents whose children fail to attend school.

Questionned on the Today programme about the effect on parents who take children on holiday during term time, the Minister said that schools had the power to give parents permission to remove their children for up to 10 days per year. He indicated that any parent who had the temerity to keep their children away from school for longer would deserve a fine.

No comment has yet been heard from the teachers' unions. However, a Head Teacher who was suddenly required to act as prosecutor, judge and jury imposing penal sanctions over parents might reasonably expect an inflation-busting pay-rise in recompense for their three new jobs.

Update [2002-12-13]: The National Union of Teachers has said this "would create animosity and conflict, undermining the partnership between school and home which is essential", and the National Association of Head Teachers said "such a role could undermine the need to establish a constructive relationship with parents". However the Secondary Heads Association called it "a useful reserve power".

2002-12-04T10:58:00.000Z

Attack on Low-tar cigarette brands

British Secretary of State for Health Alan Milburn hit out at "misleading" low-tar cigarette brands, while announcing a general ban on tobacco advertising. He said "misleading doublespeak" over low-tar and mild brands "will go".

If smokers really are irrevocably addicted to cigarettes, as the government claims, one wonders how attacking their ability to switch to less harmful cigarette brands will help.

Advertising hoardings and all published media adverts will be banned from next spring, as part of a government effort to reduce smoking "for our own good". The government doesn't believe that advertising tobacco helps inform the public or maintain product quality through market competition: according to Mr Milburn "tobacco advertising is the recruiting sergeant, in particular for young people, to begin the tobacco habit".

Mr Milburn disregarded the results of an 80-year controlled experiment in which tobacco advertising was banned, leading to low product quality, high rates of smoking, and much greater health problems. The Soviet experiment is generally considered a failure.

2002-12-03T22:21:00.000Z

How serious is cannabis?

Andrew Marr, chief political correspondent to the BBC, announced his confusion about government drugs policy on the BBC News at Ten. On the one hand, the government has scrapped targets for reduction in drug use and downgraded cannabis to "Class C" (the least heavily penalised class of prohibited drug). On the other hand, possession of cannabis has been made for the first time a "serious arrestable offence", carrying with it a panoply of intrusive police powers. How, he asks, are parents to interpret these apparently conflicting policies?

Andrew Marr need not be so confused: the policies are entirely consistent with government practice and each other. The government has recognised medical advice that cannabis is far less medically damaging than hard drugs by reducing its classification level, while continuing its policy of creating draconian police powers to act against even relatively trivial transgressions.

2002-11-21T13:13:00.000Z

Shoppers spend like no tomorrow

Shoppers are engaged in a spending spree financed largely by borrowing, laments Reuters. They must have been reading this site.

2002-11-21T01:25:00.000Z

Foreign police on UK soil

Foreign police will be granted the full powers of the British constabulary while in England, under new government proposals to enter the Schengen Agreement. The Crime (International Co-operation) Bill will ensure that a foreign police officer will be "treated as if he were acting as a constable in the execution of his duty". This includes powers of stop and search and arrest, as well as the terrifying panoply of new powers recently announced.

Before the current government, the exclusive right to exercise coercive force over a citizen was the jealously guarded sovereign right of the British State. "Modernising reforms" that made the Crown the sole source of powers of arrest were enacted by Henry VII in the 1480s, to eradicate abuses by overlords who placed a desire for public order above the civil liberties of English citizens.

2002-11-20T22:11:00.000Z

"Prove you didn't rape her!"

The law on rape is to be changed to a presumption of guilt in an effort to secure more convictions. The government believes that juries acquit too many rapists because they can't be sure that the woman didn't consent to having sex, so it is legislating to make the man prove his innocence.

Under legislation planned for the next Parliamentry session, men accused of rape will have to prove they took all reasonable steps to establish that consent was given. Simply believing that the woman consented, however genuinely, will not be enough.

The new policy is intended to reverse the position women are in today: many women find that it is impossible to prove guilt when it's her word against his. In future, a man accused of rape will find it similarly difficult to prove his innocence.

No sex please, you're drunk

Another reform in the Sexual Offences Bill will be to remove women's right to consent to sex if they are intoxicated or asleep. Statutory rape (sex that is deemed to be rape even though both parties say they consent) currently only applies to sex with children.

It is not yet clear how drunk a woman has to be before sex with her becomes statutory rape, but it appears that the relevent factor will be her actual level of intoxication rather than the belief or understanding of the man. If so, an encounter where both parties are drunk or drugged would constitute rape despite both parties being too drunk to remember that "Yes means no".

"Gimme the money"

Prosecutions are of course unlikely without the woman's support, even if it can be shown that she was drunk. However, if the woman subsequently regrets having sex, she will be able to bring a charge of rape by saying that her willing participation isn't legally relevent. This could occur not just following an immediate complaint; a complaint (and subsequent charges) might not be made until the later breakdown of the relationship, even years after the event. One wonders whether the threat of this will become a significant factor in acrimonious divorce proceedings.

2002-11-19T14:22:00.000Z

Police to fingerprint general public

Police are to be given powers to fingerprint members of the general public under forthcoming legislation. Currently fingerprints can only be taken from suspects charged with a crime: allowing police to compel fingerprints from those not charged will enable them to build up a national fingerprint database of the general public.

2002-11-19T14:16:00.000Z

Arrest without charge to rise to 36 hours

The length of time citizens can be held under arrest by police without even being charged with an offence is to rise to 36 hours under under new legislation, reports the Daily Telegraph. Currently police must charge or release suspects after 24 hours in captivity.

The increased length of imprisonment for those "helping police with their enquiries" is to be used against those suspected of relatively low-level crimes (like mugging), not just the most serious offences (like murder).

2002-11-17T17:40:00.000Z

Private Finance Initiative costs £1billion - in lawyer's fees

The off-balance-sheet accounting scam that is PFI has cost £1billion since 1997 in fees to lawyers, accountants and management consultants. The left-wing Labour Research Department looked at more than 50 PFI projects, and found that each new hospital costs £3million for the lawyers &co., while the London Underground has sucked up £400million of taxpayer's money.

2002-11-17T17:29:00.000Z

Helmets for footballers

Neurologists are calling upon the Football Association to make footballers wear protective headgear, following a coroner's decision that former England international Jeff Astle was killed by dementia caused by head the ball.

2002-11-17T17:24:00.000Z

Regulation doubles holes in the road

The number of applications to dig roles in the road nearly doubled this year in Westminster, as contractors skip around regulations designed to reduce them. New legislation allows local councils to fine contractors if they are late completing road works; the contractors solution is to dig more, smaller holes that can be filled in if work falls behind schedule. Gaps between work on each hole increases congestion and damages the road.

2002-11-17T17:17:00.000Z

Judge needs grandchild license

A High Court judge needed a license from the local Council to take his granddaughter abroad. Despite having the consent of both of the 13-year-old's parents, Buckinghamshire County Council officers insisted on him completing several forms and presenting himself for interview. The license was required because the girl was to attend a European film studio, where she is acting in a forthcoming film.

2002-11-14T14:35:00.000Z

Wrongly jailed for 25 years

A man wrongly convicted of murder has been freed after 25 years in jail. The police detective who fabricated his confession was jailed for corruption and perverting the course of justice in 1983. This didn't prompt a review of the safety of his conviction, and ten years later Home Office refused to refer the case for appeal in 1993.

Richard Brown, now 44, had been told in 1988 he could be freed on parole on condition that he admitted his guilt. He continued to protest his innocence, and standing by this principle cost him another 14 years.

At his trial critical forsensic evidence was withheld from the defence: a fibre from the victims coat was found on the jacket of the alternative suspect, but the defence were never told.

Without a real confession, and with key forensic evidence against the prosecution, it seems probable that Mr Brown was wholly innocent of the crime. Lord Justice Rose admitted that a jury might have acquitted had they been told the whole truth.

Leaving court Mr Brown said "It has been like living in an abyss of hell. I would have fought this for the next 25 years if I had to.”

He continued "I feel I have been raped of my entire life and my humanity. The only thing I was left with at times was my self-belief; knowing I did not kill Annie Walsh."

The destruction of this innocent man's life acts as a grim warning against the government's policy of "rebalancing the criminal justice system" to make convictions easier, but even less safe.

2002-11-13T13:09:00.000Z

London motorists to be tracked each day

Mayor Ken Livingstone has admitted that the congestion charge will mean motorists will be closely followed by CCTV cameras on their journeys through London. Individual journey patterns will be recorded and analysed in an effort to catch charge-dodgers.

The congestion charge, centre-piece of the Mayor's transport policy, will impose a £5 daily charge on anyone driving in central London. Residents within the central zone and the disabled will be offered a discount rate. The new policy comes into force on Februrary 17th 2003.

Until now, the Mayor has loudly insisted that the new tax will not be used to infringe on privacy, and promised that journeys will not be traced. However, he has now admitted to The Times that individual journey patterns will be analysed to trap non-residents applying for the residential discount. Anyone applying for the discount will have to sign a waiver for their rights under the Data Protection Act, which would otherwise protect them from such an invasion of privacy.

2002-11-13T12:46:00.000Z

Criminal justice in Triple Jeopardy

In a triple whammy attack on civil liberties, the government today confirmed that the 800-year old law precluding double jeopardy is to be scrapped, and gossip ("hearsay evidence") is to become admissible in court, and juries will be told about previous convictions.

The announcements were made in the Queen's Speech, the formal announcement to Parliament of the government's legislative agenda for the coming year.

To protect against citizens facing endlessly repeated trials for the same offence, for 800 years the prosecution has been allowed only a single bite at the cherry. This forces prosecutors to try really hard to get it right first time, and protects innocent suspects from further legal harassment. This rule is known as the "double jeopardy rule" because it promises that "a citizen's life, liberty and property shall not twice be placed in jeopardy for the same offence".

The double jeopardy rule has been such an important part of British civil liberties that it has been adopted throughout the English-speaking world and the former British empire, and is one of the rights enshrined in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Gossip in court

The government also announced legislation to treat gossip as if it were proper evidence in court cases.

So-called "hearsay evidence" is where the witness testifies that someone told them a thing had happened. "Witness evidence", by contrast, means that the person that claims a thing happened must face the court and give their account. This provides a proper opportunity for cross-examination, and a real chance to assess the reliability of the witness and their story.

"Hearsay evidence" is banned in criminal trials to prevent people being convicted on the basis of gossip. Traditionally, it is thought that if the prosecution believe the gossip, the least they can do is present the proof that it is true. The introduction of "hearsay evidence" would relieve prosecutors of that burden.

Repeat convictions

New legislation has been announced to let prosecutors tell juries about the suspect's previous convictions. Previously, this information was withheld from the jury, as the jury is supposed to reach a verdict solely on the evidence about the crime in question.

The rule preventing prosecutors telling the jury about previous convictions is designed to prevent juries deciding that the suspect "probably" committed the offence, since he'd committed other similar offences in the past. It was thought that the reasoning "He's a thief, so he probably stole this too" isn't a safe basis for conviction, and that the prosecution ought to be made to prove their case before the citizen is thrown in gaol.

Once the jury has reached a verdict, the judge has always been told about previous convictions, so that more severe penalties can be imposed upon repeat offenders.

Another reason for withholding details of previous convictions from juries is for fear that they might not care so much about the standard of proof if they knew the accused had previous convictions, deciding that "even if he didn't do this crime he probably deserves it anyway".

The new legislation will allow prosecutors to tell juries about convictions for similar offences. The government wants to "rebalance the criminal justice system in favour of the victim". It doesn't explain how more unsafe convictions help the victim though, and seems to forget that convicting the innocent also means letting the guilty go free.