Saturday 8 September 2012

Crime and Punishment


This is a picture of a nasty, local scallywag which I gave to the police recently to help them identify him after a series of anti-social acts committed by him, which culminated in a mugging in broad daylight, right outside a friend's shop here in Bath.  I had not blurred the face in the picture I gave the coppers, and I'm not sure I should have blurred it in this one either.

He first appeared on the streets of Bath a few months ago, stopping everyone he met - including me - and asking them for money, because he was 'homeless'.  He would walk all around our local pub begging, until he was chucked out and told not to return.  He still returned though, and some idiots actually gave him money.

He looks very fit and healthy - for a junkie - and can obviously afford a mobile phone, even though he is regularly seen with uncapped syringes poking through the pockets of his trousers.

He has stolen stuff from all over the place, so I am assuming that he stole his bicycle as well.  His technique when mugging is to ride up to his victim on the pavement and then ram them with it.  When they fall to the ground, he circles them to prevent them from standing up as his accomplice goes through the pockets and takes anything of value.

The person he mugged in my local street had just arrived on a day trip from Bristol, and was very shaken indeed.  He began by refusing to press charges with the police, but the police leaned on him and he relented.  This bastard's victims are always small and skinny, and he is fit and muscular.

I and a few other people have been trying to get him hosed off our streets and banged up where he may be able to reflect on his social responsibilities, and - at the request of the police - I took this photo of him as he cycled past the pub, where I was outside having a fag when I saw him coming.

An officer called me about the photo, and then gave me his email address so I could forward it on.  They worked out who he was, and had already been contacted about some nasty drug-deals he had been reported for.  They had a couple of plain clothed officers tail him for a week or two, then they finally jumped out of their car and arrested him as he was in the process of mugging another (skinny and feeble) friend of mine as he was delivering clothes to a charity shop.

I thought that was that - good job done - but now I hear that the police have let him go again, saying that the evidence against him is not strong enough to take to court.

The officer in charge has been speaking to frightened pedestrians who have been accosted by him, advising them to stay away from our shopping street in case he happens to be there.  So now the retailers who have been targeted by him are losing customers because of him as well.  I know the police have a difficult job to do, but time and time again, I have handed them stuff on a plate, only for it to be ignored for fear of overspending on their budget without a conviction.

I had to dissuade a beefy friend of mine from having a little talk with this particular bastard, as - most likely - it would have been my friend who ended up in prison, not the bastard in the photo.

Meanwhile, the police bide their time as they wait for him to do something so utterly bad that no jury in the land would fail to convict - like riding a bicycle on the pavement.  Bear in mind that H.I. was recently fined £70 for throwing a cigarette-butt in the gutter.  I fucking give up.


16 comments:

  1. And they call decent, honest citizens who step in to defend their little patch of God's green earth vigilantes who are prosecuting for taking the law into their own hands. Well, there it is, the law, in the gutter. Will someone in the forces of law and order please pick it up?

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  2. It wasn't so long ago that a hefty copper would have taken him behind a shed, and had a very short word with him. Now he would probably be assigned a second Social Worker.

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    1. They still do, but not to real criminals. Did you see the video of the copper in Melksham, Wiltshire, breaking the nose of a drunk woman in the cells a few months ago? He was suspended, condemned by the head of Wiltshire Constabulary, found not guilty, given his job back and payed about £30,000 in compensation. He is still a serving policeman.

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  3. I really don't like cops. For many reasons. I'll just add this reason to the list. Sorry about the asshole mugger. He definitely needs an attitude adjustment.

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    1. I have tried my hardest to be helpful to the police over the years, but I have now all but given up telling them anything that I am not legally obliged to, for fear of it being used against me out of sheer laziness. British coppers are probably the laziest in the world, but always blame their lack of action on 'lack of resources'. Bollocks. They are well enough funded to employ civilians to fill out all the paperwork for them to sign, so they can get off their arses and get onto the streets again.

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  4. And I would unblur his face if I were you.

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  5. Tom, you need to swing over to this blog and read this:

    http://bashingbambi.blogspot.pt/2012/09/law-and-order.html

    Both of you posting in a similar vein on the same day!

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    1. There is such a thing as 'undue force', though. I have guns, but I wouldn't turn them on a burglar who did not have his own gun pointing at me. I would be prosecuted for hitting him over the head with a broomstick too. I suppose I could ask the armed robber if he wouldn't mind waiting a few minutes while I unlocked the gun cabinet.

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  6. Tom, I would start an umbrella campaign against him. Anytime anyone sees him on the bike, poke the end of the brolly into his spokes of his front wheel and send him flying off. Merely "an accident" just as his running into people is treated as "an accident" by the police. He is a bastard.

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    1. Without the covert cooperation of the police, this too would be classed as GBH, and you know how the police like to make as easy a conviction as they can for as little effort as possible.

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  7. Such a pessimist. I'll bet you could muster a brolly and cane brigade in a heart beat. They would understand their marching orders. The accomplice could be a problem, though. Unblur the face and they might fade off to another jurisdiction.

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  8. Words fail me Tom - there is so much in this world that is so unfair and when it hits home then it becomes doubly annoying. At least the couple who recently shot at a burglar when their house was burgled for the third time have been told they wouldn't face prosecution. This man in the photo must be laughing all the way to the bank.

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  9. It's not a recent phenomenon. In the eighties druggy squatters took over a council owned building in the town in which I lived in the 1980s and made life hell for neighbours, businesses and passers by.
    The then police superintendant wanted to take action but was restrained by his superiors under pressure from the trendy leftie council.
    He took early retirement...I think a lot of coppers like thim did so too over the years and we're left with the lazy bully boys.

    Mark you, don't let me get started on the gendarmerie...

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  10. Send an un-blurred photo to everyone you know in Bath, ask them to print off as many copies as they can, and paste them all over town with a warning 'BEWARE THIS CRIMINAL'.

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  11. I'd have a pocketbook loaded with cement and crack him over the head. Repeatedly. And have friends in the wings to take out his accomplice. Stupid git.

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  12. Ugh. What legally can you do? that would be the first thing to find out. Is it legal to put up posters of the guy? to report his movements? Maybe to set someone up as a mark for his little scam and then testify against him? Do you know his name? With luck someone will slash his tires (or put syringes through them) or knock him off his bike.

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