Crime

A woman was assaulted by a domestic abuser after he was confined to her home under a tagged curfew, an inspector has revealed – as he warned of a lack of checks.

Justin Russell, the chief inspector of probation, said it was “deeply concerning” and “unacceptable” that electronically tagged domestic abusers under restrictions were being allowed to live with potential victims.

On the one hand, if he’s a domestic abuser then this is possibly his domestic. So, after release (the tag is parole or summat) then why shouldn’t he return to his domestic? He’s been punished for his crime, no we don’t have sentences which say “You may not go home when time is served”.

On the other hand confining him with a tag to where the crime took place and another might doesn’t seem all that sensible either.

There doesn’t actually seem to be a fair answer either. What’s a penitent husband (no, imagine) supposed to do, rent another house while on parole? Or what’s the point of putting a scrote back into a target rich environment?

Any answers?

The England rugby player arrested over the alleged rape of a teenager who claims she was drugged plays for Sale Sharks, the club has confirmed.

A 29 year-old, who is not currently a part of Eddie Jones’s plans, was quizzed on Sunday along with a prostitute after an incident in Manchester.

That’s getting pretty damn close to an identification, isn’t it?

No, thank you, we’ll not have speculation in the comments.

We do know that there are false claims of rape. Ranging from the malicious to the confused – no, that wasn’t rape M’am, however much you wish you hadn’t done what you did voluntarily.

We have varied estimates of this, from nearly never never, through to 6% from detailed academic research to perhaps this:

A third of rape victims feel police are ‘unhelpful’ during investigations

This is clearly an overestimate but it’s still useful as a boundary. It will include those who actually are let down by police activity as well as those who would like to ram something through. Interesting what can be observed by taking certain numbers seriously…..

Corruption in South Africa under Jacob Zuma scarcely believable, says Zondo inquiry

Only necessary to look a little north – not just Zimbabwe – to see how it was all likely to work out.

Man held after 100 iPads stolen from children’s hospital in Liverpool
Merseyside police took 54-year-old into custody after £70,000 theft from Alder Hey

Last time around that place was stealing brains, wasn’t it?

But there you go, Scousers

Thought this was an interesting distinction:

The 60-year-old mentions the same few topics on so many lips: Proposition 47, no-cash bail, and police officers “looking the other way because they don’t want to be accused of misconduct.”

“I was living in South Central Los Angeles in the 1990s,” Mr Maddox told the Telegraph. “Back then it was mostly crime over the drug trade, and gangs fighting each other over turf. I never felt threatened because I wasn’t part of that criminal world. Today my head’s always on the swivel, as they say in my neighbourhood.

“What’s different now is that most of the victims are completely innocent people. It’s people who are attacked on the way home from watching a movie, it’s minority-owned small businesses who are the victims of smash and grabs. And it’s happening in every corner of the city.”

Petty level crime against the person is – arguably – worse than drug gang turf battles.

I also learned something. That downgrading of shoplifting or theft below $950 in value – which leads to the steaming gangs etc. I had thought it was some woke DAs implementing it. Nope, it was a Proposition put to the voters and they passed it. Hadn’t known that.

A Kill the Bill rioter has been jailed for 14 years despite claiming his new gender neutral “they” pronoun would make prison life difficult.

See?

The only alternative possibility is that the claim of the pronoun was just some tosser trying it on. And we know that never, ever, happens, right?

JK Rowling has condemned Police Scotland for “Orwellian” guidance which allows rapists to self-identify as women, as the author became embroiled in a new row over transgender rights.

The Harry Potter writer quoted George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984 in response to correspondence from Police Scotland, which states that rapes could be recorded as carried out by a woman if the perpetrator “identifies as female”.

What’s the definition of rape?

Under Scottish law, rape is defined as non-consensual penetration with a penis, so it could not be carried out by someone with female anatomy.

Seems pretty open and shut really. Clearly it’s ridiculous too. But then the claim is that the folks really are women, penis and all. Part of society has gone mad upon this subject.

I also think that folk are missing a trick too.

So, the question some are asking is, well, how dangerous is it allowing the ladypenis into formerly women only spaces? Difficult to tell really, isn’t it? The claims of who has done what where are difficult to sort through.

Now we’ve got a simple measure. One to legal standards as well.

So, how many rapes in Scotland committed by women? That’s the number committed by trans people, there’s our measure of danger. I have a feeling that the number’s going to be higher than the trans advocates are going to be happy with.

Two thirds of rape victims drop out of prosecutions over phone searches

No.

We don’t know whether a rape even happened until at least some investigation is done into the claim that one did. Sp an alledger or claimant is that, not a victim. Further, only some of those who do drop out in the process are doing so over phone searches. Not all of those who drop out.

Finally, given that some folks have been found not guilty of rape as a result of phone searches – the incident turning out to be perhaps morning after regret, or even the presumption of the start of a relationship that didn’t, say – then it’s rather good that some do drop out of the process as a result of phone searches, isn’t it?

FBI hunts for fugitive parents of school gunman Ethan Crumbley as they are charged with manslaughter
Couple could face up to 15 years in jail if convicted, after their son killed four pupils and injured seven more in high school gun rampage

I think I’ve seen that the kid is being charged as an adult. Which would seem to make manslaughter against the parents difficult if the idea is that as parents they shouldn’t have let him do it.

But then American prosecutors, they do try to charge everyone with everything, don’t they?

Jussie Smollett “is a real victim” of a “real crime,” his attorney said in opening statements at the ex-Empire actor’s trial Monday, rejecting prosecutors’ allegation that he staged a homophobic and racist attack in Chicago.

Defense attorney Nenye Uche said two brothers attacked Smollett in January 2019 because they didn’t like him, and that a $3,500 check the actor paid the men was for training so he could prepare for an upcoming music video, not as payment for staging a hate crime, as prosecutors allege. Uche also suggested a third attacker was involved and told jurors there is not a “shred” of physical and forensic evidence linking Smollett to the crime prosecutors allege.

“Jussie Smollett is a real victim,” Uche said.

Be interesting if the jury ends up believing that…..

Soldiers and other Armed Forces personnel accused of rape should no longer be tried in military courts because of “shockingly low” prosecution rates, the Victims’ Commissioner has told the Defence Secretary.

In a letter to Ben Wallace, Dame Vera Baird warned that the integrity of the military was at risk unless it ended a culture of protecting its own by giving victims of sexual assaults access to “independent justice” in civilian courts.

She cited figures showing that conviction rates in civilian courts for rape were five times those of military courts, at 50 per cent versus 10 per cent in the five years up to 2019.

As these things work a low conviction rate implies a high prosecution rate and vice versa.

Sigh.

Stonewall is facing a tribunal over claims it tried to have a “gender critical” barrister sacked, after a judge refused to throw the case out.

Allison Bailey, a lesbian criminal barrister who helped to found the LGB Alliance, a charity that allegedly broke away from Stonewall over its stance on transgender inclusion – is currently suing Stonewall.

Ms Bailey claims that the charity collaborated with her chambers, because it was a fee-paying member of the charity’s embattled Diversity Champions scheme, to place her under investigation.

The barrister claims that as a result of a row over her views on transgender issues, she had lost work and income.

Given that barristers are self-employed and all. Apparently they tried to get her thrown out of chambers, fewer cases going her way and so on. But not really sacked – although we know what they mean of course.

Judge Sophie Clément said Mr Richard had “committed grave acts by favouring the interests of Mr Tapie at the expense of those of the state”.

Mr Tapie was handed compensation and damages after accusing the state of defrauding him when he sold a stake in Adidas, the sportswear group, to a bank backed by the French government in 2008.

Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister at the time who is now president of the European Central Bank, had pushed through the settlement.

It was later overturned after prosecutors said the process was tipped in Mr Tapie’s favour as a reward for backing Nicola Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election.

Mr Richard’s case relates to his time as Ms Lagarde’s chief of staff when she was finance minister. She was convicted of negligence in 2016 in relation to the scandal, but faced no fine or sentence due to her “international reputation”.

Political bird gets off because she’s political bird. Aren’t you glad we left political union with that gang of thieves?

Three white men have been convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black jogger who was shot dead while running through a residential neigbourhood in Georgia.

Travis McMichael, 35, his father Greg McMichael, 65, and their neighbour William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, were found guilty after a jury deliberated for 11 hours.

Someone threatens you during a riot and you shoot him and that’s not guilty. Some bloke runs through the neighbourhood and you shoot him and that’s murder.

Blimey, who could understand such a mess? Almost as if three’s some weird principle behind all this, wonder what it could be?

Can get lonely still pacing that classically liberal path:

Victims could get a new independent right of appeal to challenge releases of criminals by the Parole Board after the recall to jail of Colin Pitchfork, the double child murderer, for approaching young women in the street.

Nope, no way, un uhn, fuck off.

The entire point is that it’s the Queen’s justice. Yes, we been done wrong. That’s a bad ‘un. But the punishment is going to be according to the law, as written down and understandable to all. The mob gets no look in, has no say.

Well, other than that jury which always has the nullification power of insisting that whatever the evidence that t’ain’t no crime.

This means no raises in sentence because the victim statement after conviction is a proper tear jerker, no lynching, no heavier sentence ‘coz the bloke’s from some class or background or another. Here’s the crime, here’s the time, that’s that.

We can argue against the very idea of parole – serve your time! We can argue that everyone gets it, come what may – roughly what we do have, folk serve what, a half of their sentence these days?

But no, we don’t have a system where some get punished more heavily because some part of the public don’t like ’em. Because that’s killing off the central point of the system. Rulz is rulz, whosoever you may be. A longer time served ‘coz of what some folks think of you breaches that, horribly.

No, fuck off.

But I do know a little about the next place over:

The British Virgin Islands is preparing for a referendum on removing the Queen as head of state and becoming a republic amid an escalating corruption row with the UK Government.

Corruption wouldn’t wholly surprise. A distant relative was a colonial adminstrator as a career. Specialised in small island nations. Gilbert and Ellice, Anguilla, Montserrat and T&C are the ones I know of.

He found it a bit surprising one day when “his” Prime Minister was filmed at the airport stuffing bundles of cash into his pockets. Said PM owning the refueling company and certain planes from S America wanting to refuel, quietly, before visiting the US. Got charged by the Americans too.

Not as odd as the rebellion against independence and insisting on becoming a colony (sorry, “overseas territory”) again, the struggle financed by selling the new postage stamps. But still, corruption in the area wouldn’t wholly, exotically, surprise.

Refreshingly honest:

I did it ‘for the money,’ says art double-dealer who conned investors in £16m scam

Not the behaviour, obviously, but the explanation…..

Somewhere in this story of vile sexist assault etc there’s, from the victim, an insistence that – and I paraphrase – that the company must return to her father stock options stolen from him. At least, that’s what I recall having read at some point.

Hopefully that’s just a side issue, not a core one in any of the complaints…..

A former Labour peer sexually abused a young boy and girl when he was a teenager, a court was told.

Nazir Ahmed, formerly Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, went on trial at Sheffield Crown Court on Thursday accused of sexual offences against children dating back more than 40 years.

A jury was told how the woman alleges that Ahmed attempted to rape her in the early 1970s, when the defendant was about 16 or 17 years old but she was much younger.

At this distance there’s absolutely no evidence, just recall of varying levels of detail. So difficult to prove that, well, should it even be tried?

On the other hand:

Ahmed was charged along with his two older brothers, Mohammed Farouq, 71, and Mohammed Tariq, 65, but both these men have been deemed unfit to stand trial.

Farouq and Tariq face charges of indecent assault in relation to the same boy Ahmed is alleged to have abused. But the jury has not been asked to determine whether they are guilty of these offences, just whether they did the acts alleged.

‘This is about repeated sexual abuse that took place in Rotherham’
Opening the prosecution case, Mr Little told the court: “This is about repeated sexual abuse that took place in Rotherham over a number of years.”

That circuit of kiddie fiddling had been going on for how many decades?

This not being something you’re likely to hear me of many others saying very often but that one eyed git from the BNP did actually have a point on Question Time, didn’t he?

Anyone got a transcript of what he did say, and got booed for saying?