Nanny Knows Best

Nanny Knows Best
Dedicated to exposing, and resisting, the all pervasive nanny state that is corroding the way of life and the freedom of the people of Britain.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

More Prats!

More Prats!Lordy lordy, it certainly has been the week for prats coming out of the woodwork. My prestigious "Prat of The Week Award" is being handed out with the same frequency as honours are by the Labour Party.

This particular bunch of prats are the people who tried to prosecute Edmond Taylor last year for a driving offence, despite the fact that CCTV footage showed a totally different man committing the offence.

Now you might say that mistaken identity can occur, and that CCTV footage can be unclear.

However, I should at this stage point out that Mr Taylor is black, whilst the CCTV footage clearly showed a white man committing the offence.

Mr Taylor has had to fight for a year to clear his name. Only when the judge was finally shown the CCTV footage, at the beginning of November, was Mr Taylor cleared on appeal.

He had been convicted of dangerous driving, the only evidence being police reports from the Surrey police. He was banned from driving for a year and fined £430.

Mr Taylor said:

"I attended four hearings.

If they had looked at the video once

they would have realised I was not the person they wanted.

I did miss a couple of hearings

but the police officer didn't attend any.

How many times did they need to see me to know that I was black

and the man who broke the law was white
?"

The sorry tale began in summer 2005, when a man was seen reversing a Vauxhall Corsa along the hard shoulder of the M23.

When PC Paul James of Surrey Police arrived to investigate, the man had left the car and was walking along the hard shoulder carrying a petrol can.

The officer escorted the driver back to the Corsa, where he gave his name as Edmond Taylor and produced a document to prove his identity and that he owned the car.

The officer issued a fixed penalty notice, and a notice for the driver to produce his insurance and other documents at a police station.

Unfortunately Mr Taylor's car and identity had been stolen.

The thief was allowed to drive away, and returned the car to where he had stolen it outside of Mr Taylor's home in South London.

Mr Taylor became aware of the problem only when a summons arrived.

At a preliminary hearing at Redhill Magistrates Court, Mr Taylor said he had never been to the spot where the offence happened and had not been stopped by police.

PC James was not in court, despite the fact that his evidence could have cleared Mr Taylor.

A trial date was fixed but PC James did not turn up then, either. It was the same story on Mr Taylor's third appearance, when magistrates decided to try the case on the paperwork.

On his fourth appearance Mr Taylor was convicted, fined and disqualified, though he was given notice to appeal.

Mr Taylor said:

"Every time I went to court I said I had never driven there.

But they consistently said it was me because of the police statement.

Each time I asked for the policeman to be there.

I even thought of contacting him myself,

but I didn't know which station he was from.

The CPS prosecutor kept saying,

'How many times are we going to give

Mr Taylor the chance to lie to the court?'

I was very angry when he said that

because there was no evidence.

To give the police officer his due,

he apologised to me after the appeal.

I asked him why he had never come to court.

He said the court had told him it wasn't necessary
."

Judge John Crocker quashed the conviction, and ordered an immediate investigation into the blunder.

Quote:

"It is totally disgraceful.

Why has this only come to light today?

I want a full explanation as to how this occurred

and I want it within three weeks
."

A CPS spokesman said:

"We are looking into exactly what happened

in this case

and will be supplying the judge with a report
."

A Surrey Police spokesman said:

"We apologise unreservedly to Mr Taylor

for the upset and worry he has gone through.

The officer was not in court because the nature of the offence

did not require him to be
."

Not only is this sorry tale utterly ludicrous, it is very frightening.

Prats may be way too soft a phrase to use in this particular case.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:23 PM

    At least they found it within themselves to apologise to the poor bloke!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1:30 PM

    Aren't our policemen wonderful? And the Bliar government wants to give them MORE powers!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:21 PM

    I would have thought the blame lies mainly with the CPS for not checking the evidence, though of course these days why should they? For most motoring case we are guilty unless we can prove our innocence - and that situation seems to be spreading into other areas. (Of course it started at the Inland Revenue.)

    It is, though, very odd that the thief would choose to return the car to the place it was previously parked. Did he have access to the keys wonder?

    Which brings us to the S172 requirement to identify the driver of a motor vehcile which MAY have been violating a traffic restriction and who MIGHT be considered for a penanlty of some sort - either a fixed rate ticket or a court summons.

    With the new draconian moroting laws recently nodded through parliament by presumably disinterested MPs failure to identify the driver of a vehicle for which you are the registered keeper now attracts a penalty of 6 points on your licence.

    So if someone clones your vehicles number plates because they drive a similar vehicle and then commits a couple of alleged offences you will need to identify them, I know not how, or prove that it was not your car. This can be more difficult than you might think. A lot more difficult. You may not know about this for some weeks after the offences - can you remember where you were and who you were with? Still have receipts to prove location?

    If you fail once it could be expensive in both fines and insurance policies. Fail twice and you will be banned and things will get very expensive.

    If you are the registered keeper of a company leased car the timescales could be longer and the likelihood of another employee driving even greater.

    There was of course the celebrated case of Hampshire police who were convicted for being unable to identify the driver who had 'borrowed' a CID car and tripped a speed camera.

    This, amongst other aspect of the act, is a complete nonsense and represents lawyers creating work for their mates. Never trust lawyers to pass laws.

    It also represents a case off the State actively bullying and persecuting potentially half its citizens, things that it seems to be telling us all are wrong and totally unacceptable. So much for Human and individual rights.

    Of course you are much more likely to be caught up in this if you are correctly and legally registered for everything - which of course is why someone would clone a another vehicle in the first place. They remain invisible, someone else gets a load of bother and just might end up with a wrecked life.

    To what end?

    Today the motorist is the soft target.

    Who will it be tomorrow?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous10:41 PM

    Mr Taylor can expect Chief Constable Hughes of South Yorkshire to target him in the future as he got off on the technicality that he didn't commit the offence. Tony Blair will be mightily miffed too, all that wasted court time. Why can't people just take these things on the chin, pay up and get on with their lives and stop bothering nanny?

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  5. Anonymous1:28 AM

    Over here in the land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

    When nanny erects red light cameras, stop sign cameras, speeding cameras and other such BS, we go out and paintball the shit out of the cameras.

    Ergo, no evidence.

    Too bad the once Great Brits have turned into a bunch of French girly-men.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous3:02 AM

    Ah yes anonymous, but you forget we are the land of CCTV cameras and face recognition trials.

    Near me about 3 years ago the speed camera scammers erected 3 units within 200 meters of road. 2 one side, 1 the other. A couple were attacked in the course of time. Nothing namby pamby like paintballs - proper fire used here.

    So they erected a cctv cammera on an lampost contraption. It has a mirrored globe sort of think so some sort of all round vision I suppose. Obviously their to watch over the cameras.

    Hasn't stopped one of the housings being recently subjected to what looks like a serious case of projectile vomiting though.

    ReplyDelete