Treating the Teenage Thugs With Kid Gloves – Yet Again

In this blogpost back in mid-October, Clameur de Haro railed against the iniquity of giving a 16 year old thug with an appalling litany of violent crime, theft and anti-social behaviour to his name the protection of legal anonymity because of his age, thus preventing him being identified and shamed – although CdeH doubts, sadly, that the notion of shame at committing wrongdoing to others would have figured very much in the largely non-judgmental, morally relativist instruction he probably received in Jersey’s cultural-left dominated schools system.

So CdeH was heartened therefore, a few days after that mid-October post, by Deputy Trevor Pitman’s proposition to give the juvenile courts the power to curtail or set aside the protection of age-related anonymity in cases of serious assault, and to establish a legislative presumption in favour of naming - and was then subsequently even more heartened on receiving e-mails from more than one member of the Council of Ministers, saying that they welcomed and intended to support the Pitman proposition.

Amendments proposed since then both by Senator Ben Shenton and by Mr Pitman himself would restrict the liability to be named to offenders aged 16 or over, and would add other serious crimes to the list of offences where withdrawal of anonymity was applicable.

Accepting both the Shenton and Pitman amendments would mean, therefore, removing the restriction on naming, and the protection of anonymity, in cases of conviction for serious assault, murder, manslaughter, rape, or robbery, where the offender was aged 16 or over. Hardly unreasonable, Clameur de Haro would have thought, given the extent of public concern at rising levels of serious and violent crime among a determinedly recidivist section of the Island’s sub-18 youth.

Disappointingly however, CoM members are now resiling from this commitment, backed up by the Home Affairs and Education, Sport & Culture Scrutiny Panel.

The Panel oscillates between wanting to consider this issue, not in isolation but as part of a wider, more holistic approach to juvenile justice generally (translation: kicking it into the long grass and forgetting about it) and wanting to deflect the focus on to the question of parental responsibility.

But Mr Pitman is right when he says that many parents try extremely hard to keep their wayward offspring on the straight and narrow, and deserve more support. The Panel would perhaps be better employed in recommending strategies to bolster such responsible parental authority and supporting the exercise of it in any event, irrespective of any temporary and specific focus on the subject of juvenile justice - because all too often, as several of CdeH’s acquaintances have found to their dismay, the default setting of too many social services practitioners is almost always to take the child’s part against its parents and undermine parental authority.

The objections of the Ministers as articulated by the Minister for Health & Social Services are predictably, but no less disappointingly for that, based on the twin incubuses of firstly, the warped interpretations of the malevolently omnipresent international human rights industry, and secondly the predominantly child-centred, rose-tinted approach to juvenile criminality and justice which bears such a heavy responsibility for the explosion of juvenile crime over the last 30 years.

If the prescriptions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are an obstacle because Jersey’s Children’s Law does not contain the equivalent UK legislation’s distinction between a child (under the age of 14 years) and a young person (under the age of 18 years), then the remedy is surely to introduce a similar distinction into Jersey law, not for the community to wring its collective hands and say nothing can be done. Let’s not forget that the Convention was drafted in the mid-1990s, when perceptions of maturity and responsibility for criminal actions were different from those now applying.

As regards assumed conflict with the ECHR and Jersey’s 2000 Human Rights Law, that objection may not last if the incoming Cameron administration in the UK stands by its presently indicated commitment to repeal the Human Rights Act in its current too-pervasive and pernicious form, in favour of a statute less favourable to miscreants and charlatans but still protective of the rights and freedoms that the original ECHR was intended to safeguard.

We can be sure that the “all-children-are-angels” and “crime-caused-solely-by-social-conditions” lobbies would be gratifyingly discomforted were Jersey to say that, in the case of persistent violent offenders over 16, identification would not be restricted, and that the right of the overwhelmingly law-abiding public to be aware of the threat posed by repeat-offender young violent criminals in their midst justifies a derogation from the more undesirable consequences of international obligations in these circumstances. Perhaps, for once, we should just try it, rather than presuming we have no alternative to mistakenly treating repeated young violent criminals with a lack of resolve in many cases will send merely a signal of either only mild disapproval or weakness.

The Minister for Health & Social Services, interestingly, recommends both that the debate be deferred, and that the proposition be rejected – in successive paragraphs. The confusion inherent in this is consistent with the arguments advanced in the main body of her comments which (where they do not merely parrot the views of the HA & ESC Scrutiny Panel and the Law Officers), rely heavily on the discredited philosophies of seeking to understand and excuse criminality rather than dealing with it.

Although Clameur de Haro is no hanger’n’flogger, and although the range of subjects on which Clameur de Haro and Deputy Pitman would share the same opinion is probably, to say the least, somewhat limited, the Deputy has undoubtedly got it right on this one, and is more in tune with the mood of an anxious and frustrated public than his opponents. As he says when he advocates -

“……the norm becoming that those young people who choose to engage in vicious attacks that go as far as to put another’s very life at risk can expect to see their identity held up for all the community to see. Government simply must show itself to be in charge and finally act. The public expect no less.”,

this is -

“……an issue wholly side-stepped by the authorities who should have been seeking answers to the problem…”.

Remember, if you’re 16, then you’re old enough to have a motorcycle licence. Old enough to get married. Old enough to leave school and get a job. Old enough to join the Forces. Old enough to vote. You are not a child, whatever the legal definition.

The Pitman/Shenton proposals and amendments in tandem do not mean hanging children of 10 for sheep-stealing, although from some of the comments made, you could be forgiven for thinking they do. They would mean merely removing the restriction on naming, and the protection of anonymity, in cases of conviction for serious assault, murder, manslaughter, rape, or robbery, where the offender was aged 16 or over. That is an eminently sensible compromise, and all States Members should support it.

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He Isn’t A Child – Name Him!

Like many readers will have been, Clameur de Haro was appalled to read in last night’s Jersey Evening [sic] Post of the litany of crimes committed by the 16-year old miscreant with a history of violence whom the Youth Court on Tuesday sentenced to a restorative sojourn of 9 months at La Moye – although with any time already served, and with no doubt sympathetic assessments from probation officers and social workers bending over backwards to be non-judgmental, he will probably be back on the streets a lot sooner than that.

The youth’s crimes included participating in a vicious gang assault which left the victim with serious injuries, assaulting a police officer, vandalism in Coronation Park, being drunk and disorderly, racist insults to a member of the public, attempted assault on a police officer (again), theft of his grandmother’s keys and car, and violently resisting arrest (again).

And yet, because he is only 16, he cannot be named, because he is regarded judicially as a child.

How ridiculous. We invest children far younger than he with the rights and attributes of adults. Back in August, for example, CdeH blogged about Brook Jersey’s practice of not involving parents in the distribution of emergency contraception and contraceptive advice to “…..some as young as 12”. In what way does this criminal deserve the protection of anonymity on the grounds of childhood?

Jersey’s legislature has recently approved the establishment of a sex offenders’ register. Quite right too, although Clameur de Haro has reservations about the potential for mistake and misidentification, with all the horrendous consequences, and also about the ability of administrative departments to keep the data confidential, if confidential it is to be. But eventually, and hopefully with due safeguards if so, it may be in the public domain, irrespective of the dangers to paediatricians whom the dim may be unable to distinguish from paedophiles.

CdeH however would far rather be aware of the potential danger posed to himself, his neighbours, and his possessions, by the presence in the vicinity of a thug like the one sentenced on Tuesday. Said thug’s potential future employers might appreciate the knowledge too.

If he’s 16, then he’s old enough to have a motorcycle licence. Old enough to get married. Old enough to leave school and get a job. Old enough to join the Forces. Old enough (Heaven help us) to vote.

He’s not a child. Name him.

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Back to Jersey – and Back to the Blogosphere

Clameur de Haro found it a stimulating and rewarding experience living and working again in the Far East for the past few months: but with his last-ever overseas assignment having come to an end, and now lately arrived back on the Blessed Rock for good, he feels it’s time to pick up once again the reins of rightwards-inclined posting, to balance a little the local blogosphere’s majority leftward slant.

So, catching up, to what extent have the numerous undesirable features of the Island’s politico-economic landscape which CdeH hitherto railed against improved in his absence? And despite keeping intermittently in touch with events from afar, what does CdeH find on his return the land of his birthright?

Many of the answers, sadly, are not encouraging.

A still-bloated public sector, where spending appears predominantly out of control, where budgetary discipline seems lax or non-existent, and where sufficient determination to tackle either to the large extent actually necessary (as opposed to some cosmetic tinkering at the margins) looks less likely than snowdrifts in August.

Terry the Taxer and Ozo the Bozo purporting to direct an economic strategy which announced an appallingly cynical curtailment of front-line patient services and public facilities, but retracted immediately when objections were made – if cuts were (wrongly) thought necessary in the first place, why were they not defended robustly, however unjustifiable they were? And their cohorts and satraps already musing about raising indirect tax rates.

A government which almost certainly will have neither the vision nor the courage to go through with implementing much-needed staffing cuts, an absolute pay freeze, and pensions reform in public sector employment, nor any inclination to contemplate shrinking the size of the state by withdrawing from activities better undertaken by private enterprise.

A policing function with an effectiveness reportedly all but paralysed by internal strife, but still retaining the ability to commit the unbelievably ham-fisted bungling of what ought to have been a low-key routine investigation, thereby giving that malignant pipsqueak Syvret a golden opportunity to revel in his much-loved but self-proclaimed martyr status.

How depressing too, to see that the vast majority of the local politics blogs remain firmly anchored at the left-green end of the spectrum: some still obsessing, ostrich-like, with conspiracy theories about cover-ups or justice-denial to the exclusion of all else (and goodness knows, there’s no shortage of other things to get worked up about in this mis-governed island), while others continue to proselytize pernicious eco-authoritarian greenery.

At least Ratleskutle, Tony’s Musings, and Jersey 24/7 are still out there, providing a bit of much-needed wider variety of subject-matter.

So Clameur de Haro looks forward to a resumption of both promoting the alternative free-market and liberal prescriptions of a smaller state, reduced public spending, lower taxes and enhanced individual freedoms, and rebutting the authoritarian collectivist fallacies peddled by the pink leftists and their green fascist allies of convenience. Just as a taster for the latter, CdeH spied, on his pre-departure sojourn in a certain Far East airport, this entertaining piece in the Jakarta Globe about a ceiling collapse in a virtually new school building in Cirebon, West Java. Do, please, note the last sentence –

“Dedi Windiagiri, the head of the Cirebon school board, denied that the contractor was to blame. Climate change, he said, was the true cause of the accident.”

Really, you couldn’t make it up, could you? Ridiculous? Of course. But as an example of the fundamental dishonesty of so many genuflectors before the altar of the green religion, and their desire desperation to attribute any misfortune at all, whatever its cause, to the great holy mantra of climate change, regrettably not untypical.

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Wendy Kinnard – Good Riddance (Part 2)

So farewell then, Wendy Kinnard – who as of last week no longer blights Jersey with her political subterfuge and spectacular ministerial unfitness.

Hard as it is to beat the record of sheer incompetence which Trendy Wendy displayed in her political stewardship of La Moye Prison, Clameur de Haro? reckons that the ineptitude she displayed in political oversight of the Police during her tenure of office, firstly as Vice-President and then President of the old Home Affairs Committee, and subsequently as Minister of Home Affairs, comes pretty close.

Kinnard was closely involved in the disastrous recruitment of Graham Power as Chief of Police in 2000. Despite having no particular qualifications or expertise in any kind of candidate evaluation, interview, or selection, politicians always consider themselves to be somehow blessed with these skills, and the States’ records of the time reveal that Trendy Wendy, a politician not noticeably troubled by any detectable excess of modesty or doubt about her own intellect and abilities, and who would have considered herself eminently suited to participation in the selection process, was a member of the interviewing and appointment panel: it’s surely inconceivable that, as Vice-President of the Home Affairs Committee, she did not play a pivotal role in the appointment.

As CdeH? posted on 6 December, Mr Power, distinguished since his arrival in Jersey by nothing so much as a constant near-invisibility, had up to that time enjoyed a previous career most remarkable for, firstly, his attempt to sue the political authority of the Scottish Northern Constabulary for racial discrimination - on the grounds that he was English – when it (wisely in the opinion of CdeH?) passed him over for the role of Chief Officer, and, secondly, the quite extraordinary regard in which he was held by the rank-and-file rozzers in his previous post – so much so that they allegedly arranged his funeral for him - complete with vacant coffin.

It’s surely equally inconceivable that Kinnard did not play a similarly crucial role in the appointment of Lenny Harper to the post of Deputy Chief of Police in 2003, although by that time somebody, somewhere, no doubt aware of the way the wind might be blowing, had the foresight to involve Sir Ronnie Flanagan in the “rigorous assessment” of Harper’s fitness for the post following his recruitment as Chief Superintendent and Head of Operations the previous year. Whether that was indeed foresight, or alternatively precautionary political CYA tactics, is for the reader to judge in the light of subsequent events. CdeH? has certainly made his own judgement.

A reasonable subject for speculation though, is the extent to which Kinnard would have found Harper’s views on the nature of policing in a modern society most agreeable to her essentially leftist and so-called “progressive” politics: Harper, it will be recalled, had obtained an upper-second in Government and Politics, and gone on to secure a masters’ degree in Criminal Justice Studies.

Given the then cultural slant of degrees of that type, and their popularity among the new wave of senior police cadres committed more to the selectively managerialist and social-engineering philosophy of policing rather than to the crime-prevention / impartial law-enforcement one, it’s a very tenable proposition that his qualifications would have imbued Harper with many of the precepts of the political-correctness view of society and its approach to policing it: and that this would have chimed effectively with Kinnard’s own innate (but carefully concealed for public consumption) left-liberal radicalism.

Power, incidentally, sported his own MA in Politics, Philosophy & Economics obtained from Queens, Oxford, in 1979, which might well also have appealed to Trendy Wendy’s political worldview (you might have thought, might you not, that an aspiring senior copper would have wanted to acquire a graduate qualification in law or jurisprudence? - clearly a PPE was considered likely to be more in tune with the future zeitgeist).

The scene was therefore set for what was to follow.

Many, including CdeH?, remember the disturbing conduct of the police reinforcements imported from the UK around the time of the England-Portugal clash during the 2006 World Cup. After dramatically talking up a potential crisis (an early precursor, had we but realized it, of the Jersey Police management’s taste for the sensationalist press release), thereby increasing the likelihood of some kind of mayhem, the Police manifestly over-reacted, both to the implied threat of disorder (never likely to involve more than a couple of drunken yobs attempting ineffectively to indulge in handbags at ten paces), and to the little disturbance that did in fact occur.

Meanwhile, however, elderly ladies of impeccable behaviour and manners, seeking to do nothing more mayhem-generating than gain access to the Jersey Arts Centre, were subjected to frightening, intimidating, aggressive and threatening tactics from those UK reinforcements, gallantly arrayed in helmets, batons and riot shields (and why not?.......CdeH? recognizes that elderly ladies denied legitimate access to an arts centre were far more dangerous to public order than potential football hooligans, weren’t they?)

This was inescapably Kinnard’s responsibility. Of course, in no way should the head of any political authority charged with oversight of policing engage in political interference in the conduct of police operations: but to either passively allow or actively condone the introduction into Jersey of policing of methods of this kind was a failure of policy and oversight for which Kinnard must bear full blame.

The increasingly aggressive behaviour of the uniformed constabulary towards the public in general, and law-abiding motorists in particular, in the past few years is an unwelcome continuation of this trend. Clameur de Haro?, along with most of his acquaintance, believes this has much more to do with artificially massaging the Force’s published crime detection rate than it has to do with preventing general or car crime.

On more than one occasion, CdeH? has been stopped during the evening (when, it should be said, totally libation-free, stone-cold sober, in a car with all lights functioning perfectly, and nary a suspicion of anything remotely interpretable as even marginally erratic driving) and subjected to by turns surly and aggressive questioning. [“Looked as though your seat belt wasn’t on” was the most recent explanation proffered.] Remarkably however, when the plods are confronted with a reasonably articulate motorist who demands their names and numbers so that he can make a formal complaint about unjustified harassment, they back off.

This escalation of an intimidating style of general policing also happened on Trendy Wendy’s watch, politically. The supposition has to be that she tacitly approved, or, more likely, that she had so little idea of what political oversight of policing should involve that it didn’t occur to her to question what the constabulary’s general approach to the community it nominally serves should be, nor to require an explanation for what it manifestly is.

Finally, we come to the Haut de la Garenne imbroglio. If ever there was a case crying out above all for a calm, measured, unemotional, evidence-centric and supposition-free discharge of its responsibilities by the Jersey Police, this was surely it. Yet Harper, by this time either totally captured by, and an unwitting tool of, the agenda of the Kinnard-Syvret axis and their fellow-travellers, or signed up to that agenda of his own volition, was allowed over a long period of time to grandstand repeatedly with ill-informed speculation and value judgements to a media long on sensation-seeking but short on objectivity. A more egregious failure to exercise due political oversight of a police force is virtually impossible to imagine – the fault is that of Power’s at operational level, and at political level, that of Kinnard alone.

It seems unbelievable in retrospect that Kinnard should have been allowed anywhere near the April 2008 selection process for Warcup’s appointment to (mercifully) replace Harper, but that is what happened. Fortunately on this occasion, the beneficial influences of Messrs Liston, Ogley and Crich prevailed, or we might have had a Kinnard-driven extension of Harper’s contract.

What a disreputable litany of disaster this deplorable woman foisted on to the Island. It is immeasurably better for her departure.

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Power has previous when it comes to suing

Clameur de Haro? was mortified, on returning to the Rock after journeying briefly to sunnier climes in pursuance of business, to find that he had missed all the fun of the deplorable Graham Power’s attempts - much after the fashion of that also signally unlamented and very PC PC, Sir Ian Blair - to cling on, limpet-like, to office, despite his clear unfitness for it manifested by his inadequate management of the HdlG enquiries.

How ironic that in an earlier part of his career, it was Mr Power who exposed the shortcomings of the Grampian Police in their investigation into the murder of a 9 year old boy by a paedophile, leading to the resignation of that Force’s Chief Constable.

CdeH? cannot recall a time since Mr Power’s appointment when he has been so publicly active, having been distinguished since his arrival in Jersey by nothing so much as a constant near-invisibility and a silence of almost monastic proportions.

But we should not be too concerned that this apparent sudden enthusiasm for action represents a departure from the norm: for, as CdeH? and others note, Mr Power does, as the rozzers say, have previous form when it comes to threatening legal action against existing or would-be employers.

Before his appointment to Jersey, Mr Power had up to that time enjoyed a previous career most noteworthy for his attempt to sue the Northern Constabulary Police Board, the political authority of the Scottish Northern Constabulary, for racial discrimination - on the grounds that he was English – when it (wisely in the opinion of CdeH?) passed him over for the role of Chief Officer. Prepared to take the NCPB to an industrial tribunal, with the backing of the Commission for Racial Equality, he eventually negotiated an out-of-court settlement.

Clameur de Haro? suspects that the threat to sue here is merely the opening gambit of an attempt to secure yet another out-of-court settlement with a lucrative payoff – but wishes it success, despite the notion of compensating this man out of public funds for deserved loss of office sticking in the craw, because if it enables the island to draw a line under, and move forward from, the disastrous Power-Harper regime, it would be cheap at virtually any price.

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