Reasons to leave the UK 1, 2, 3.

Post by **caller** » Fri May 04, 2007 6:07 am

No relevance to LOS apart from this being one of this posters reasons to want to leave the UK.

The modern world of international crime (terrorism) doesn't have neat black and white solutions that fit into a criminal justice system.

In other words, evidence can be obtained via 3rd party sources and other methods that are not acceptable to a court of law.

So we in the UK are left in limbo. We know we have murderous thugs seeking to commit their acts on the home population, but not enough to convict in a UK court of law. The Govt. was in a quandry and dug itself out of it, or so it had thought.

Then what happened in the attached became a reality and for the first time, sensible broadsheets, including the Guardian (the chattering classes Sun - I hate that rag) were in agreement the law is an ass.

The fact the law is an ass is the main reason the UK has found itself harbouring such scum for 20 plus years and knowingly did so - boy has that come back to haunt it.

The guys in the article have no right to be in the UK. They are all here illegally. What other country would even be wasting time dealing with this. The answer was and is obvious. Get shot of them and don't worry about their fate. They knew what they were doing by being here (UK) and have no right - in my opinion - to call foul now they have been caught. In the same was they should not be entitled to free legal advice (GBP 100,000's)or all the other benefits they would have been entitled to.

I'm weary of this crap. I have watched it, seen it close up, for 20+ years. No more. Just when will the British population rebel - or will that be today, via the polls? Sadly, it will be misguided. This is one of Maggies legacies.

Sorry to boor the pants of you.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6619449.stm

Post by **STEVE G** » Fri May 04, 2007 6:54 am

It was because of the difficulty of using existing criminal law to combat terrorism that the US decided to simply ship terror suspects to Guantanamo Bay.
The criminal system requires you to have committed a crime before you are removed from the streets but in these cases, particularly if you are acting alone, it is possible to formulate a plan where you wouldnâ€™t have committed a crime right up to the point of carrying out your attack, by which time it is obviously too late.

Post by **nevets** » Fri May 04, 2007 2:49 pm

if these people are terrorists and they are known 100% to be just have them shot by the SAS the problem has gone, this would deter any other would be terrorists.

Post by **DawnHRD** » Fri May 04, 2007 7:20 pm

nevets wrote:if these people are terrorists and they are known 100% to be just have them shot by the SAS the problem has gone, this would deter any other would be terrorists.

Mmmm, and there was no outcry when precisely this was done in Gibraltar, was there...?

Don't remember it deterring any, though.

sargeant · Post by **sargeant** » Fri May 04, 2007 9:29 pm

100% correct dawn did not stop squat

Post by **caller** » Sat May 05, 2007 2:11 am

Hmm, my somewhat alcohol fuelled post, but genuine grievance got a response!

I don't think you can compare what happened in Gibralter an age ago with Irish terrorism links to the reality of today. In fact, I now think it would be viewed as a job well done!

Anyway, we are reaping what we sowed(?) and will do for the foreseeable future (and I'm not talking about Iraq).

Post by **STEVE G** » Sat May 05, 2007 2:25 am

Caller, if you get the chance have a read of, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, by Steve Coll, managing editor of the Washington Post.
It gives a good account of how this present mess originated.

Post by **caller** » Sat May 05, 2007 4:09 am

Thanks Steve, I might just do that.

Post by **DawnHRD** » Sat May 05, 2007 8:04 am

caller wrote:Hmm, my somewhat alcohol fuelled post, but genuine grievance got a response!

I don't think you can compare what happened in Gibralter an age ago with Irish terrorism links to the reality of today. In fact, I now think it would be viewed as a job well done!

Anyway, we are reaping what we sowed(?) and will do for the foreseeable future (and I'm not talking about Iraq).

I don't think so (response to highlighted bit). The powers that be at that time thought they would get applause. They did from some quarters, but from most they got an outcry. Remember what the feeling was towards the IRA then. On the British mainland they were hated & feared just as much as any present day terrorist/criminal is now.

Guantanamo is another case in point. I can't say what the feeling about that is in UK or USA, I'm too far removed, which I'll admit. However, every single person I've spoken to about it & most that I have conversed with on internet forums roundly condemn the US govt for their abuses of human rights there.

I think the point, then & now, is that people (general citizens) may be in favour of reinstating the death penalty for terrorism & certain other heinous crimes. They may be in favour of prisons that bear no resemblance to the "holiday camps" we see reported & life sentences that actually are for the rest of a criminal's natural life rather than 8 years. However, what they tend to baulk at is summary executions or imprisonments without a legally conducted trial and subsequent guilty verdict.

Post by **Wanderlust** » Sat May 05, 2007 8:35 am

Good post Dawn, and I think you can add that most Western governments also abide by that too, as otherwise it will make them look just as bad as the people they are after; how the US continues to get away with Guantanamo (although that finally seems to have started unravelling) beggars belief, especially as they are supposed to be the beacon of freedom and democracy. I think they have used up all the sympathy they had after the 11th September attacks (I refuse to call it 9/11 as that is the 9th November where I come from) and I hope everything hits the fan as the Republicans try to get another idiot in the White House.

Post by **STEVE G** » Sat May 05, 2007 8:42 am

The biggest problem at the moment is the difficulty of combating suicide attacks with the criminal justice system. If you are prepared to blow yourself up, it is hardly going to act as a deterrent and prior to the act it can be practically impossible to successfully prosecute for conspiracy or whatever.

sargeant · Post by **sargeant** » Sat May 05, 2007 9:16 am

Until the police and criminal evidence act PACE is tossed out and the police being allowed to do their job law and justice WILL remain a joke PACE was a left wing lolly pop law designed to make the police guilty before they said anything and all it has done is to allow criminals nay Blatantly guilty criminals walk free laughing and sticking middle digit to the law abiding public nay lets call them correctly the victims

Post by **Wanderlust** » Sat May 05, 2007 9:57 am

sargeant wrote:Until the police and criminal evidence act PACE is tossed out and the police being allowed to do their job law and justice WILL remain a joke PACE was a left wing lolly pop law designed to make the police guilty before they said anything and all it has done is to allow criminals nay Blatantly guilty criminals walk free laughing and sticking middle digit to the law abiding public nay lets call them correctly the victims

I think Margaret Thatcher may have something to say about PACE being a left wing lolly pop law, seeing as it was passed into law in 1984, when the Conservatives were in power!

Post by **caller** » Sat May 05, 2007 10:10 am

I don't think PACE is the issue. That was introduced in 84 as a direct result of too many problems after defendants were arrested. Dodgy confessions and the like.

Lets wait and see. Sometime soon there will be another atrocity in the UK. That will concentrate minds. The old way's are not yet able to deal with the new threats.

I find it crazy that the security services in the UK are constantly monitoring so many people, a lot of whom are foriegn nationals. Many are home grown, but have connections to Pakistan etc. I worry that some of these are deliberately "showing out" to divert attention from others not known.

If another 7/7 happens, things will change. The mood is there, but not quite the political will.

In effect, Belmarsh prison was our Guantanamo, the Law Lords ruled against that, hence the new detention laws, that was challenged, then we had the repatriation, now thats falling by the by (although it has survived challenges to other Coubtries so far).

it's scary.

Post by **DawnHRD** » Sat May 05, 2007 10:19 am

I actually think that PACE is/was a good act to pass. My father was involved in police work in the Navy & was there when PACE was enacted & talked to Mum & I a lot about it. There were bent coppers in that day (there probably are now) who were more interested in making the suspect fit the crime than actually finding the person who committed the crime. Look at the alleged IRA bombers who were released, after wrongful imprisonment, in the last decade. Under PACE, they would not have been convicted & the police might have made an effort to find the real bombers.
Look at the drug war here under Thaksin. People shot dead for no other reason than someone informed on them - no trial, nothing. Very easy to plant evidence in a dead person's pockets. Without PACE, UK could be the same way.

Yes, I agree, UK is becoming more skewed to the criminal's rights than the victim's. But PACE isn't to blame for that, increasingly pc judges, civil servants and amendments to the law are to blame. PACE just ensures that (hopefully) the right person is tried for a crime, rather than fit-ups & confessions that are beaten out of suspects.