I feel slightly sick...

[jarl]

i don't know if they could still charge you with something, the mind boggles.

MURDER! It was on your property, you must've done it. 5 years isn't enough m'lord, throw away the keys to keep our streets safe, do it for the children, do it for the sake of all law abiding criminals everywhere!


Yes, he broke the law. But, is this knee jerk strictly necessary? Makes me ashamed to be British....

[Lumiya]

Well it's a weapon on your property then it is in your possesion.. , unless it's a right of way for other people (like an enterance to a communual door to some flats)

It's not knee jerk, it's purely how the law stands

[winxp-master]

Very strange laws we have then it seems, so someone walking past your property can throw something (i.e. a gun) into your garden and you are automatically responsable for it?

Find that hard to beleive and if it's true then i don't know what to say really, sounds very silly to me...

[StumpyFingers]

I wonder what would happen if all the cleaners in the kitchen got mixed. I have Pesticides and Ammonia, Sugar and Flour and there is some diesel in the shed and I have lots of nails and screws laying around.

[AIRWOLF]

Unfortunately this is the letter of the LAW, . . . not JUSTICE.

Although, . . if i had found a firearm in my garden i would call the police to report it straight away, . . . not keep it overnight then carry it through the streets to the police station.

The story says he asked to 'pop in' to see the chief superintendant, . . then produced a sawn off shotgun and placed it on his desk !!!!!! . . . put yourself in the inspectors position.

[StumpyFingers]

Unfortunately this is the letter of the LAW, . . . not JUSTICE.

Although, . . if i had found a firearm in my garden i would call the police to report it straight away, . . . not keep it overnight then carry it through the streets to the police station.

The story says he asked to 'pop in' to see the chief superintendant, . . then produced a sawn off shotgun and placed it on his desk !!!!!! . . . put yourself in the inspectors position.

Only if I was sitting on a toilet.

[Bluff]

Unfortunately this is the letter of the LAW, . . . not JUSTICE.

Although, . . if i had found a firearm in my garden i would call the police to report it straight away, . . . not keep it overnight then carry it through the streets to the police station.

The story says he asked to 'pop in' to see the chief superintendant, . . then produced a sawn off shotgun and placed it on his desk !!!!!! . . . put yourself in the inspectors position.

It was a cheif superintendant that he telephoned. I agree with what you are saying Airwolf, this doesn't make sense unless the story is wronly reported. The Ch superintendant is a very senior officer at that nick; who the hell would have access to his number and say 'can I pop in for a chat' and completely forget to mention the sawn off shotgun!

[russh]

If he wanted to hand the gun in, why phone a senior police office. Surely if he didn't know what to do he would just phone the police and say "I've found a gun, what a shall I do" Not keep it overnight then walk through the streets with it to the police station, then past the front desk and into a senior officers office. IMO there is more to this story than is being reported.

"I didn't know what to do, so the next morning I rang the Chief Superintendent, Adrian Harper, and asked if I could pop in and see him.

[TWIN BURNER]

Democracy is people having a say in how the country is run,a Dictatorship is when the people have no say at all.

When did we let this happen to us?........

We've letting it happen slowly for the last couple of years

[pdsquire]

if this is true then it makes me feel slightly sick. I will add it to my file of information that I give out to people who say, "why did you leave england" or "do you fancy going back"...

IT IS NOT TRUE!

Sorry. This is long but the subject really, REALLY annoys me. I shalln't be offended if no-one reads it.

This chap was represented by a solicitor who seems to have advised him to plead not guilty to a charge to which there is no defence. This may have made things worse for the him, but probably won't.

The relevant section (s51A Firearms Act 1968 ) reads:

"(2) The court shall impose an appropriate custodial sentence... for a term of at least the required minimum term [identified elsewhere as 5 yrs in this case] UNLESS THE COURT IS OF THE OPINION THAT THERE ARE EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES RELATING TO THE OFFENCE OR TO THE OFFENDER WHICH JUSTIFY IT NOT DOING SO." (emphasis added)

It seems from the judge's comments that he's already reached that opinion.

The Court of Appeal has decided that all the word 'exceptional' means in this context is that the court does not have to impose the sentence if it would result in 'an arbitrary and disproportionate sentence'. Along with the other observations of the Court in that case (R v Rehman [2006] if you are bothered) it is clear that IF the circumstances of this offence are as they have been described, then this man is going to be given an absolute discharge i.e. no penalty whatsoever and the conviction is not recorded.

The facts hardly justify the article's assurance that he MUST be sentenced to AT LEAST 5 years. It is simply not true.

Also, IF the circumstances of the offence are as described, then the CPS's decision to prosecute should have been challenged by way of judicial review as the prosecution was plainly not in the public interest. If the article contains the whole truth then the man's lawyers have aimed at the wrong target by trying to defend a strict liability offence: they should have gone to the administrative court.

So in summary, we have one decision by a CPS lawyer which is wrong: one decision by a defence lawyer which was wrong; an outcome which is likely to leave the man without a stain on his name. The mistakes should not have been made, but apart from the hysterical reporting and some inconvenience, where's the fire?

************************************************** ***

An interesting international contrast: in England there was a wholesale revolt in Parliament because of the suggestion that there should be permission to hold those suspected of serious offences for up to 90 days before charge. In case you don't know, the maximum currently is 24 hours which can be extended to 36 by a superintendent. After that the police have to apply to magistrates who can allow another 36 hours and in exceptional and rare cases, up to an absolute maximum of 96 hours from the start of custody - i.e. four days.

Once charged, that person must by law appear before the next sitting of the magistrates (usually within about 12 hours save on Sundays outside major cities) and has a right to bail in all cases save murder, some terrorism offences, and the most serious sexual offences. The magistrates can decide following argument to withdraw that right.

The magistrates will then set the timetable for trial.

In France where we are constantly told everything is done better, the Constitution of 1789 grants the right not to be arbitrarily detained. The problem is that the guardian of that right is the 'judicial authority'. In France the magistracy is completely different because rather than being completely independent of the police, a French "investigating magistrate" doesn't just judge, but directs investigations, decides what evidence is made available to the defence and can detain after charge according to his discretion.

This led to the 2004 Outreau Trial. On the say-so of the investigating magistrate, 18 people (they were poor and didn't have the access to Legal Aid we have here) were imprisoned from 2001. All their children were taken into care.

At their trial THREE YEARS LATER, four confessed, seven were acquitted, six were convicted but acquitted on appeal and one had killed himself awaiting trial. The Minister of Justice turned up to the appeal to apologise personally.

Let's do that maths again. Four convictions and 13 acquittals. Not what I would call justification for years and years of detention without trial, one death and several families ripped apart.

I love France, but even though our media never stop telling us that we have the worst laws in the World (and many of them ARE appalling) they forget that our legal system as a whole is regarded by campaigning lawyers around the globe as a beacon of protecting individual freedoms. I grew up in Belgium where the police were routinely guilty of the sort of thing that would lead to full scale enquiries here, and don't even start me on the 'law enforcement officers' in the Land of the Free. You want your land or house taken off you at the say-so of the local major? Just go to Spain or Italy. Live elsewhere if you like the weather or the pace of life better or if you want to escape our scum media, but if you're trying to protect your rights whoever you are, however rich or poor, whatever your race or background, stay right here.

Er... that's it.