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David Davis - No case to answer - other than his deceit, dishonesty and lack of understanding - and total lack of any solutions to retain our Freedoms

I promised you a response to David "Freedom" Davis's free exposure on BBC4's "You and Yours" last week... but it wasn't worth responding too...now he is on BBC4 "Any Questions" with Dimblebore on Friday waffling away.

So far the man with the broken nose and swollen ego appears to be making three rather odd, ill informed points which neither make sense or a policy.

1. 42 days detention without charge

He is of course right to keep someone locked up without charging them is in breach of habeas corpus whose origins lie distantly in Magna Carta. The phrase means roughly, "bring forth the body" and was encoded in statute as long ago as Habeas Corpus Act 1679 and is a safeguard for the individual
freedom against arbitrary state action but not against statute.

Until the Terrorism Act 2000 criminal suspects had to be charged within 24 hours of detention or bereleased. Section 41 of the 2000 Act allowed detention for 48 hours with an extension to 7 days with the approval of a judge if they were suspected of being a terrorist. This period was extended to 14 days by the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and to 28 days by the Terrorism Act 2006.... which David Davis and the Conservative Opoposition voted for on the 2nd reading as they have for the previous acts which have beached the rights previously enshrined in statute and common law. and custom nd practice.

Therefore the pugilist's much publicised objection is based upon a pretence which conceals a lie.

His bleating at best calls simply for a maintenance of the status quo, depriving people of liberty for 28 days whilst Plod scurreis round searching for evidence which is hardly a call for maintenance of ancient rights and liberties that he seeks to pass off.

2. CCTV cameras

CCT cameras, their installation on private premises or public places and the use, provision, sale, copyright of images and data obtained are not controlled not by statute but by a very comprehensive 24 page Code of Practice laid down and revised in line with changes in type, function and use (for example"man-cams beloved by Police TV shows) by the Information Commissioner.

For example Freedom's champion complains images are frequently useless as evidence - in fact a recently published study said only 3% of criminal convictiions were aided by CCTV images ...well if he took the trouble to look at Section 7 he would see that .."It is important that a CCTV system produces images that are of a suitable quality for the purpose for which the system was installed. If identification is
necessary, then poor quality images which do not help to identify individuals may undermine the purpose for installing the system." Clear, simple, straightforward and in use for over a decade.

He gives as evidence the problems of non existent images relating to the public murder of Charles de Menezes - absence of images as evidence does not necessarily mean absence of images. The IPCC were illegally withheld from the crime scene for 5 days by the Metropoitan Police Commissioner whilst evidence was lost, mislaid, destroyed and police officers (and maybe people involved in the murder who were not police officers and therefore not covered by IPCC legilsation) sat down and wrote up notes together - a practice called "singing from the same hymn sheet" , which may ensure a coherent view but not necessarily truthful assmbly of evidence.

It is worth noting here that the cringeing Home Office Permanent Secretary who accepted Sir Iain Blair's bullying was none other than Sir John Gieve. The man who left the Home Office with accounts that the auditor would not pass, a Minister calling it not fit for purpose ...for him to go on and sit idly by or take his holidays whilst Northern Wreck went down the toilet along with (at the last reckoning £19.7 Bn of taxpayers funds)... n ot to mention his role in Blinkett' expenses fiddling, visa fidlling for his mistresses servant etc, etc.,

3. DNA evidence and databases

When Mr Steptoe induced the fertilisation and implantation of Miss Brown, there was no law, so what he did was not illegal, medical and biological science advances had outrun statute. Legislation subsequently followed in the form of Human Embryology and Fertilisiation Bills, supervisory bodies etc., to regulate the business of in vitro fertilisation.

The role of and use of DNA in providing DNA evidence in criminal cases is in currently in approximately the same state, and consequently leads to confusion in the public's mind.

DNA is unique to individuals, in criminal cases , small amounts left from a drinking glass, fingerprint, sweat is used to make copmparison with known samples from suspects. This technique requires sophisticated handling and lab techniques and provides for certain so called "locii" to be compared - just as a limited set of measurements froma face can form a pattern and provide automtic methods of identification - the process now being used in new passports. (Go here for excellent description of the technique)

Whilst not widely used , it has been responsible for a remarkable clear up rate, especially in rape cases where semen samples have been retained to be compared with all male entrants into the currently held databases. The effect of this clear up rate will eventually diminish, and indeed many criminals are aware how powerful the technique is and take precautions aginst leaving DNA at crime scenes.

This technique would of course have prevented such cases as the Police deliberately "fitting up" Stefan Kisko if it had been available - it would have certainly stopped the Yorkshire Ripper in his tracks and comsequently saved lives of sevreal women.

There can therefore be no reasonable objection by any male to having their samples run against historical rape cases - it is also difficult to see how central maintenance of locus data can be questioned.

DNA samples can however yield more information - a constant concern is genetic screening for insurance purposes, employment and marriage. Particularly because in the UK samples are held and their results by private companies. Sharing such data is not under statutory control and is routinely shared with criminal justice organisations withing Europe and probably the US.

Lord Patel has alread shown how data exchnages between the EU and the US are being forced on citizens ouside legislative control.

Neanderthal Davis (see X ray) merely wants to inflame fears, create concerns and thereby sanctify himself as a torchbearer of Freedom. He has no answers , only a few ill formed , ill informed questions.

What is needed, and soon, is UK wide legislation that ;

1. Repeals provisions of all the appropriate Acts to return the position to that prior to the 2000 Terrorism Act for detention of all suspects terrorist or otherwise.

2. Uses Current Guidelines on CCTV to be translated into statutory powers.

3. Codifies the collection and handling and storage of DNA samples for any purpose, procedures for testing, and the control and distribution of information extracted from them on the lines of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology legislation ,with any bodies having a majority of post held by people outside the criminal justice system.

4. Codifies the ownership of personal data, its storage, its location (for example few people understand that the UK fingerprint database is actually located in the USA), its destruction, how it may and may not be shared and personal access to individual records and procedures for amending / destroying records.

Hey it's a start ... and for a blonde with big tits its not a bad one.

PS :David , I apologise for breaking into your SAS records to get your X rays, shows you how such information can be bought from bent coppers bad apples.

War Criminal Jack Straw - wronging an ancient RIGHT -- More hasty and ill judgded criminal leglsation on the statue book before Santa comes

Well here IS a surprise. Justice Minister Maria Eagle (never voted against the Government) is reported by the BBC saying that as a result of the succesful Davis appeal which rules out the use of anonymous witnesses except where provided for by current legislation : "We're looking very urgently at the implications of the judgement. "

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "I certainly accept, and I said some time ago, that there is a problem here that we need to solve."

"We are working now... to look at what we need to do to put this right."

The justice secretary, war criminal Jack Straw, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he could put anonymous evidence on a statutory footing before December's Queen's speech.

"I'm looking at this as we speak," he said. "Ever since this judgment on Wednesday this has been my major preoccupation - to ensure that we are able to change the law as quickly as possible."

""We are working now... to look at what we need to do to put this right." said kebab chomping Jacqi Smith ...Oh no she isn't. The Government want to chang / mangle / destroy the common law that has survive for centuries to provide cover for the scret stitch up between the CPS and the Police, in defiance of the Common Law by allowing witnesses not only the cover of screens, but also anonymity, voice modulation and secrecy about their names, occupations, addresses. Thus denying the defendant the chance to truly test the accusers evidence and reasons for it.

Shock and Horror, scream the headlines .... a £6 million murder trial was halted at the Old Bailey today .

Common law and uncommon practices

So cocky had the Police and CPS become , it now is apparent , about misleading juries by preventing proper cross examination of witnesses... making the job of obtaining evidence by the Police and case preparation by the CPS lawyers much easier, that there are now 44 trials halted in their tracks, and a substantial number who will as a result of the Davis judgement, be subject to appeal .. and then a possible re-trial.

LORD BROWN OF EATON-UNDER-HEYWOOD @ Para 66 of the Davis Appeal Judgment said ..." ..If, .... the government now think it right to legislate in this field, so be it. Meantime, however, the creeping emasculation of the common law principle must be not only halted but reversed. It is the integrity of the judicial process that is at stake here. This must be safeguarded and vindicated whatever the cost. "

LORD CARSWELL @ Para 51 quoted the consequences identified of anonymity spelled out by Judge Ackermann in the South African case of State v Leepile (5) 1986 (4) SA 187, 189:

"The consequences to the accused of such a wide direction are, inter alia, the following:

(a) No investigation could be conducted by the accused's legal representatives into the witness' background to ascertain whether he has a general reputation for untruthfulness, whether he has made previous inconsistent statements nor to investigate other matters which might be relevant to his credibility in general.

(b) It would make it more difficult to make enquiries to establish that the witness was not at places on the occasions mentioned by him.

(c) It would further heighten the witness' sense of impregnability and increase the temptation to falsify or exaggerate."

Which , when considering the credibility of witnesses who frequent nightclubs in the early hours and are involved in the fringes of drug dealing and criminality, or who may be paid police informers on paint ball expeditions of brown men with beards, or help brown men with beards buy allegedly bomb making chemicals etc., etc., must be taken into account by a jury.

This is Gemma Garrett s latest Speech in her race for the seat of Haltemprice and Haydon - catch up with her Blog She will be speaking about David Davis's limp performae on You and Yours BBC 4 today which you can hear here. In which the surprise Studio guet was Gary Hindle from the Royal United Seervices Institute, that fair minded bunch of Rigt Wing bastards and (fully paid up) members of the LadyDame Jane Pauline Baroness Neville Jones for whom 42 days is no longer near enough.

My second speech - I hope I'm getting better at this ... David Davis hasn't said a word yet ... except late night on the phone to Shami !!!!

It is not possible to determine exactly when society in the UK declared war on its children. It's very statisfactory progress has been illustrated by research undertaken by the Institute for Public Policy Research.

New research shows that Government targets means many thousands of youths are being criminalised for minor offences and anti-social behaviour without any impact on re-offending rates.

A great deal of this criticism relates to ASBO's introduced in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 by the Nu Labour "Tough on Crime and tough on the causes of Crime, " which were re-inforced by the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003. The biggest criminal justice-related charity in England and Wales, he National Care and Resettlement of Offenders has published 2 major reports the fir in2002 said they were a failure , costly and slow (and one third were breached within 9 months), and a second in December 2006 after an NAO report, "Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour" on ASBO's, criticising the haste in which courts applied them before alternative remedies had been tried and pointing out that 55% of them were breached.

This was of course, we now know a pattern we have seen for the past 10 years by this Government, rarely objected to by the Conservative Party , of seeking to address every perceived social problem with a legislative , and invariably punitive response response invariably at the expense of personal freedom, and requently as part of an element of the state to control behaviour, especially of minorities.

This has diverted police pursuing Government inspired targets away from preventing and investigating severe crime, which disrupt societies and lead to social breakdown, such as drug dealing, human trafficking and controlling the supply of alcohol.

A direct consequence is turning young people into lives of crime, increasingly re-inforced by custodial sentences and learning in what have for decades been called Universities of crime helping them along the road to a life of crime. being dumped into the forbidding and unyielding criminal justice system at an early age increases the likelihood of re-offending.

IPPR's research , much of it only made available by Freedom of Information requests ( the police are remarkably reluctant to share their information lest theycan be judged on the facts) shows that targets to bring offences to justice led to a disproportionate focus on minor offending by young people, despite no increase in offending in that period. The rsults since target were introduced in 2002 include :

1. A dramatic 25% in the numbers of under 18's entering the formal criminal justice system
2. For under 15's this figure has risen by 33%.
3. The level of crimes involved to induct people into the criminal justice system has fallen.

The consequences of these changes in policing - and the perpetual chasing of targets has been disatrous.

The Government wanted to cut youth custody by 10 % by 2007/08, it rose by 6%. While youth justice has received the largest increase in spending of all the main criminal justice agencies excluding probation - 45% in real terms since 2000-1 - more children have been criminalised and imprisoned, the study by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies found.

Let us not forget that this must be considered against a background that the UK spends
proportionately more on law and order than any other country in the OECD, including the United States and major European Union members such as France, Germany and Spain.

In this Financial year this amounts to £22.7 billion. Nearly 66% is allocated to the police, who have seen growth inf dunding by 1% in real terms between 1997 and 2005. This has led to an overall increase in police numbers and probation service spening in that period up 160%.

This is not new, or recently discovered the Daily Telegraph reported almost exactly a year ago on 27th June on the Youth Justice Board Annual Report

-" Minor offences are disproportionately committed by young people; therefore as greater volumes of lower order offences are detected by the police,so the number of young people who offend and are brought to justice increases. ".

Their research includes a breakdown by region of increases in criminalisation of young people since 2002, which are as high as 98% in Cheshire and in England and Wales averages 27% compared with 11% rise in cautions and charges for adults. (see full chart for all Police areas) See here for how Chief Constables misunderstand how ASBO's work.

In 5th October 2007 Jacqui Smith appointed Louise Casey (and there are 2 ladies who won't be taking the Miss UK Title from me !) to report on Connecting Communities with the Fight Against Crime - this was long on "reflect(ing) the high priority the Government places on tackling the fear of crime" ... ie not on the much contested methods of calculating crime figures.

Anyway the combative Casey produced an excellent report last week (8 months .. that must be a record ) and probably her most encouraging Proposal was numbered 30 to match her dress size : Combined with a dramatic reduction in its approach to targets, monitoring, assessments and intervention, the Government should ensure that, in its place, an overriding measure of public confidence is used, with performance reported to the public at ward, local authority (Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnership), force and national levels.

To this she adds the very sensitive Proposal 23 and 24 which involve providing the public with more detailed information about action being taken to tackle crime.... opportunities to meet local police teams and influence their priorities, and details of crimes committed, with feedback on what sentences offenders have received. Further more the Government and/or the Statistics Authority should consider what more could be done to develop a more dynamic and interactive website that maps local crime information and allows the public to compare levels of crime and the performance of criminal justice services in their area.

A public, that is better informed is a public far better armed and far more capable of helping the Police undertake their tasks . - Catherine Archer the CEO of the West Yorkshire Police Authority which unfortunately doesn't cover this area where I am canvassing your votes , pointed out in a letter to the the Daily Telegraph on Saturday that they already have such a website - she says , "we have received nothing but positive feedback".

This is a superb example (which everyone should look at - examples are proved here by Lord Patel's excellent technical staff) of the sensible use of the internet to inform public debate, to integrate public officers by sharing their information with the public to re-inforce joint action - especially in the area of Youth crime and youthful Anti-social behaviour. Unsurprisingly the journal Criminal Justice Matters called their latest June issue "Criminal justice policy making too often 'an evidence-free zone' and Professor Simon Hallsworth, Government adviser on `gangs' and violence, dismisses policy on tackling Violent Crime as `flat earth crime science' and not an "evidence driven policy'.

Professor Rod Morgan, ex Youth Justice Board Chairman and former Chief Inspector of Probation in reflecting on his Government service says he was `incensed... by the incomprehension and arrogance regarding the research process which some administrators displayed.....in politically highest-profile policy areas, such as anti-social behaviour ... where there was little or no evidence base."

Ministers now faced with the collapse of their decade of failure are uncertain how to treat youth crime , is it a law and order issue or i it a matter of social policy. With the break up of the Home Office a little noticed a little-noticed change placed responsibility for youth justice removed from the Home Office and shared out between war criminal Jack Straw's Justice Ministry and the Children and Family Department, headed by Ed Balls.

The tsunami of initiatives has had very little impact - according to a heavily leaked Whitehall document this incoherent and muddled policy on youth crime has led (according to aleed Whitehall document) to 25% of under-18s having committed an offence and high re-offending rates remaining unchanged since the dawn of Nu Labour.

The best Freedom we can have is Freedom of access to information ... join me in demanding that Freedom. Concealing the facts for decades has not produced a result, let the sun shine in on on our strets and what is happening on them.

PS I don't hold it against Jacqui for having had a spliff ... nor Louise telling a bunch of coppers ...

"I suppose you can't binge drink anymore because lots of people have said you can't do it. I don't know who bloody made that up, it's nonsense."
and adding for good measure some ministers might perform better if they; "turn up in the morning pissed":
"Doing things sober is no way to get things done,"
she added.

Freedom of the Streets, dearly bought and if Inspector Yates has anything to do with it , easily sold

Well here it is...Speech Number 1, I hope you like it.

Maybe it's Midsummer Madness but 2 news items epitomise the parallel universe that some folk live in ...witness - one policeman, one war criminal and Justice Minister , both well educated and experienced in rongdoing.

Commander Yates, that's the one who finally failed to nail the Cash for Coronets crowd and let that slimy turd Lord Lying Levy , the Karaoke King off the hook.

Commander Yates of the Yard is stamping his well shod little foot because Lord Rodger of Earls Ferry has put a spoke in the wheel, a spanner in the works of a dishonest legal scamm he worked out with "the agreement of the Crown Prosecution Service", (who should have known better) in which witnesses to violent crimes could present anonymised evidence , by their absence from court and the trickery of voice alteration technology.

The reason for this fit up, was the lack of success in nailing the increasing gun toting gangs and violent criminals on Inspector Knackers patch. As Knacker saw it, this was the failure of the law not Knacker and the reason was witnesses reluctance to face the accused in court.

(Lord Patel has to admit , that if he frequented the dens of iniquity in the early hours of the morning where these violent crimes take place and witnessed a murder he would suddenly be enveloped in an instant case of total amnesia - if only because of having to explain his presence in the Black Mamba Club in downtown Dalston in the early hours to 'er indoors, who is probably more frightening than any Uzi cruisin' schmoozing gangsta. )

The problem is that the witnesses natural concern of the unpleasant consequences of grassin' up gangstas in public is due to the equal and understandable breakdown in street policing over the last 2 decades.

It was therefore Lord Rodger of Earls Ferry and his pals duty, to remind Inspector Yates and his Ilk that the hard won freedoms dating back to Magna Carta mean that the accused must have the opportunity to identify and face their accusers in court. It is also a salutary reminder to the Knacker and the CPS that improving the success rate cannot be won simply by breaking the law.
Now Commander Yates (and the Justice Minister and War criminal Jack Straw) paint an alarming and alarmist picture - Yates says, "the community's confidence in our ability has never been higher".

So alarming that we must, says Yates, produce "emergency legislation" to overthrow centuries of law and also the judgements of Lord Rodger of Earls Ferry and his pals.

Well a word in you shell like Commander Yates. There is precious little "confidence in (your) ability" in this neck of the woods.

The Police have deserted the streets - a process that started with the Panda car - 50 drunken youths rampaged on the school playing fields behind Patel Towers (he's kindly putting me up for the duration - or putting up with me as he says - oh! he is a laugh) at 1am a few weeks ago leaving one with his ear torn off and now on a life support system.

Starting at 9 am on Monday morning outside the main Post Office as Giros are collected, he can watch the dealers swoop in direct site of both the courts and the Police Station and underneath CCTV cameras and all week long to Saturday night outside the main supermarkets, as they call in to collect their schnapps and vodka to start the night off and a few happy pills to help the night along ...to rip someone's ear off..... etc., etc.,

Most folks hereabouts have little concern about gun toting gangstas, they mainly shoot each other and their kin and steer well clear of their mating grounds...and they will applaud any legal legerdemain to put them inside for a long stretch.

Most folks hereabouts however do need the streets. Streets which have been abandoned by the Police.

Speech Number one by Gemma Garrett at Haltemprice and Howden. See the blog

Welcome to the Official Record of Gemma Garret's Speeches

Lord Patel has been appointed Official Speechwriter to Miss Gemma Garret, prospective MP for Haltemprice and Howden.