Ian Brady, "madness" and the "justice system"

I cannot help but feel that the outcome of the "hearing" this week to decide upon the "sanity" (or otherwise) of Ian Brady, aka "The Moors Murderer" was pre-ordained even before it began.

Quite frankly, the reporting of his utterances before the hearing revealed him to be a very sad individual, but I think that it is stretching it a very great deal to say they revealed him to be "mad" and that he needs continuing medical "treatment". Nevertheless, I watched this evening a testimony from someone at Ashworth Hospital saying that he was indeed "mad" and that he was to be consigned, "for the foreseeable future", to the tender mercies of his "carers" at that "institution". My own view is that if he truly wishes no longer to ingest sustenance, liquid or solid, then he should be left to follow this path and "starve himself to death".

Obviously I do not set myself up as an expert on "madness", although I think I can fairly say that I know "evil" when I see it. I do not believe Ian Brady is "mad", but I do think him an irremediably "evil" individual - if he wishes to starve himself to death then I see absolutely no reason why we (as a nation) should prevent him from doing so. My considered view is that he should be returned to the normal prison system and that we should let nature take its course whilst, of course, protecting Ian Brady from victimisation by other prisoners, or indeed prison personnel and offering him continuing nourishment if he wishes to ingest it. If he chooses not to eat, or drink fluids, that is his affair. Other than this I have no other interest in the matter.

In summary, I think the decision to return him to Ashworth Hospital has been taken purely to avoid outraging what is perceived to be the wider "public opinion" (which is highly questionable) or perhaps offending the relatives of his victims. As he is not "immortal", his demise will occur in coming days/years whatever anyone decides - I see no useful purpose in delaying this, whilst obviously I would deplore any pro-active actions to hasten its occurrence.

The question society needs to ask itself is:
When does "punishment" (justified) morph into "pointless vengeance"? I think I have made my own views on this matter sufficiently clear.

Capital punishment for drug traffickers

I'm writing about this because of the news today that a 56 year old British woman has been sentenced to death for being caught with almost 5 kilos (over 10 lbs) of cocaine concealed in the lining of her suitcase on arrival on a flight in Bali from Bangkok.

Firstly, let me state very clearly that I am opposed to capital punishment - killing is wrong and state sanctioned killing (which is what capital punishment is) is no different.

However, the laws on this matter that apply in the UK, the EU and many other countries around the world, which forbid capital punishment, do not apply in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, China or indeed the USA, however much I may find their justice systems appalling - I live in the real world, though, and know that sovereign countries do what they think is correct. Nobody travelling to countries in the Far East which operate a very harsh criminal justice system with regard to drug smuggling is left in any doubt about it - the first time I flew into Kuala Lumpur, for example, I recall that although I was well aware of their laws on this matter, I was still somewhat 'thrilled' in a morbid kind of way by the warning printed in heavy red ink on the landing card that the consequence of carrying more than 10 grams (grams, not kilos) of drugs was a MANDATORY death sentence; it certainly focusses the mind. Many of the countries in that part of the world, such as Indonesia have similarly harsh policies. There is no secret about it - everyone who travels there is made aware of the consequences. I got a similar 'thrill' the first time I flew into the USA and had to complete the landing card which asked one to state whether one 'was now or had ever been a member of the Communist Party' - I knew long before I travelled there that this was one of the landing-card questions.

The bottom line is that if you travel to a country that imposes capital punishment for trafficking in drugs, and you carry almost 5 kilos of cocaine in your luggage to that country, then you must be prepared to live (or in this case die) with the consequences.

Lindsay Sandiford, the British woman in the Indonesia incident, has apparently apologised for her crime, fair enough, and has stated in 'mitigation' that she "would never have become involved in something like this but the lives of my children were in danger and I felt I had to protect them", which is put into context by the British human rights charity Reprieve being quoted as stating that she had been: "targeted by drug traffickers who exploited her vulnerability and made threats against her children". As an appeal is apparently going to be lodged by the condemned woman, I imagine that these factors will be investigated and taken into consideration, if this was not done [adequately] at the trial.

Nairn man may face jail, but there's another aspect to the incident

A young Nairn man has been told he may face a jail sentence, even if the preferred punishment is a 'restriction of liberty' order (I presume this is something like a curfew enforced by an electronic tag?) for having fired an air-gun over the heads of three boys and a girls (aged between 12 and 15) who were engaged in throwing snowballs at his door. Apparently he asked them to stop doing this, but when they ignored him he used his air-gun.

It is clear that the domestic circumstance of the man who fired the air-gun are somewhat precarious and that if he cannot supply a permanent address the only alternative may be some kind of custodial sentence.

Obviously it is not acceptable for someone to use an air-gun in this manner and he requires punishment, but I wonder if the children who were making a nuisance of themselves will be admonished in any way at all? The article certainly gives no clue about this. Will their parents take them in hand and ensure they do not make a nuisance of themselves in future? Presumably they were discussing the incident (jokingly or in a terrified manner, we are not told) when their 'Guidance teacher' (whatever that is!) overheard them. Will their 'Guidance teacher' be telling them the facts of life about what it takes to be a 'good citizen'? Obviously the man possibly facing a jail sentence needs to learn about this too, but those kids need to know that they shouldn't be going around annoying their neighbours 'for a lark'!

The "Jesus Saves" stone that didn't save a lady driver

A dreadful incident is reported on in the Inverness Courier in which a lady driving on the Nairn to Grantown-on-Spey road was assaulted whilst parked at a stone with the words "Jesus Saves" painted on it. It's not in fact very clear from the report what form the assault took - whether it was theft or for some sexual reason.

I don't drive on that road very often (although the scenery in the area is rather dramatic) and have often noticed the message on the stone - it is indeed something of a 'feature' on this road, so the fact that it makes it into a newspaper report doesn't entirely surprise me. So far as I recall, it is on quite a bendy bit of the road, with no obvious place to park nearby. It is certainly ironic, and I do not wish in any way to minimise the seriousness of what happened to this unfortunate lady, that the message conveyed by the words was not borne out in practice. If anyone has any information about this incident they can contact the police in Nairn on 01667 452222.

"Engrenages" - Spiral (French TV cop series) - Series 1

I wrote a couple of years ago about the 2nd series of this 'gritty' French television 'cop' drama.

Since then I've seen the 3rd series, equally-astonishing in its 'grittiness', but just recently I've at last seen the 1st series, which I missed the first time around. This evening, in fact, I've just watched the final two of the eight episodes of this marvellous drama, like all the three series it was shown on BBC4 television. The adjective 'gritty' doesn't quite do it justice though - perhaps 'stomach-churning', 'hurl-worthy' or plain 'gruesome' would sum it up better!

It would be wrong and insensitive to say I have grown to 'know' and/or 'love' any of the characters in this bleak drama, but I suspect it is, whilst no doubt over-dramatised for the purposes of producing a television series, unfortunately not too far removed from the harsh daily reality of many involved in some of the nastier real-life crimes I've heard about in recent years.

I do hope a 4th series is in prospect? - and from this website of French producing company Canal+ it seems that filming of the 4th series began in August this year and will be completed by next April, with the series being expanded from the usual 8 episodes to 12 for this 4th series. What new horrors they will have in store for us can only be imagined! You can find a rough translation into English of the synopsis of the 4th series, linked to above, here.

Nairn bank fraudster fined for "ringing the changes" offences

The Highland News is reporting that a fraudster called Andre Rostas (from Thornton Heath, Croydon) has been fine at Inverness Sheriff Court for an attempted fraud and a further successful fraud at the Nairn branches of Bank of Scotland and The Royal Bank of Scotland respectively.

The fraud involved trying to confuse bank cashiers ('tellers') when asking for largie sums of money to be changed into different note denominations, then changing his mind and asking for another denomination, abstracting some of the notes in the process by sleight of hand. The report mentions that this individual had a conviction for a similar offence last February, although it does not mention where that offence took place.

The court warned Rostas that if he came before a Scottish court again the matter would be dealt with very severely. One does wonder whether this man, clearly a serial and habitual offender, has not been dealt with too leniently this time with only a fine (of GBP2,000-) being imposed.

Interesting visits to my little blog

Occasionally I notice a particularly interesting visit to my little blog and such an event occurred just about 15-20 minutes ago and I thought I'd say "Hi!" to whomever it was who was kind enough to land here, just in case I have a return visit.

The Google query concerned was "carol barclay kinghorn" and when I checked, my relevant blog article comes at the top of the Google search results, amazingly ahead of two BBC news reports at around the same time; as the link in my blog article was to a similar BBC article I had read and which prompted my article, I think it illustrates just how discerning Google is to 'recommend' me so highly.

However, the really interesting thing about this search so far as I am concerned is that it emanates from a "Halifax & Bank of Scotland" server, seemingly in Halifax - the lady concerned was at the time employed as an Assistant Manager by HBOS at its Gyle Shopping Centre branch in Edinburgh. I wrote my article in March 2009, so I am wondering if she is now at liberty once more or perhaps in discussion with her [now presumably former] employers.

"Depressed" teenager gaoled for fire-raising at Nairn harbour

An apparently 'depressed' teenage young woman, Dawn MacRae, 18, has been gaoled for 16 months (presumably to be reduced if she can find it in herself to be of good behaviour whilst in prison) for setting fire to a boat in Nairn harbour, the fire spreading to three other boats and destroying all four.

Apart from being, it seems, a bottle-a-day of vodka drunkard (although as the report puts it ironically she managed to stay 'mostly' sober for the two days prior to the trial) it is mentioned that she may have suffered some kind of sexual abuse, causing the depression and perhaps the drunkenness and if this is true then I hope she is given some kind of remedial help. On the other hand it could be that she is just an evil little ***** .

Middle-class areas 'must police themselves'

This is the basis of an amazing new 'policy' announced by Patrick Shearer, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (Acpos) and chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary.

Mr Shearer says police forces need to target their efforts where they are most required. That sounds reasonable enough in itself, but there is more, much more, to this pernicious policy. Mr Shearer is quoted as saying:

"The idea of the universal police service for all belongs to a time when resources were plentiful. "We have to accept that a lot of the public can look after themselves. When times get hard you really have to target resources. "A gold-plated service is no longer appropriate and we’ll have to stop doing some of the things we are doing at the moment or have done in the past. "For us to continue to be effective we have to very much target our resources where the need is and not necessarily where the demand is."

As I mentioned above, this may sound reasonable, but it does seem to make a number of highly dubious assertions. For example, when Mr Shearer opines "We have to accept that a lot of the public can look after themselves", I have no doubt that many people (and not just 'middle-class' people) could look after themselves if allowed to do so, but the reality is that home-owners are actively discouraged from 'helping themselves' and may very well suffer severe legal consequences if they dare to do so! A case in point, a relative and his wife, returning home some years ago (they lived then in a very nice part of Dundee, in what by any standards would be described as a 'middle-class' area) to see a man - a burglar - exiting an upstairs window across the roof of a rear extension, with a bag of 'loot'. Other bags of 'loot' were later discovered in a back corner of the garden, indicating that he had made at least three trips into the house to steal prior to my relatives' return home. Coming off the roof of the rear extension he fell badly and so it was easy for my even then quite elderly uncle to detain the man until the police responded to the telephone call that my aunt made for assistance. No violence was used by either the man or my uncle. Nevertheless, for several months, until the case came to court, my uncle was under threat of police prosecution for 'illegal detention'. Luckily that threat was removed just before the trial - the burglar having withdrawn his spurious claim, when it became clear his lengthy prior record of theft would be an issue.

So, if what Mr Shearer is proposing is that if some ned/chav/ne'er do well invades my home intent on theft, that I may stop that person by ANY MEANS AVAIALBLE, then I might be prepared to go along with him. And I think the means I should be allowed to have available, should I so wish, should include for example a baseball bat or a gun. Why should I have to afford a robber ANY rights whatsoever?! And why should I be at risk of criminal proceedings for defending my home? However, I very much doubt that this is what Mr Shearer proposes.

In summary, the scope of police duties should be for elected officials to decide, not for the police to set arbitrarily. Given the fact, too, that it is highly probable that middle-class people pay the vast bulk of the taxes that pay for public services like the police, it is bare-faced effrontery for some jumped-up policeman to make this kind of policy statement. Mr Shearer should get on with doing his policing job and not interfere with policy matters way above his pay grade!

Hell becomes Paradise - memories of the Holocaust

I've just been watching a very moving testimony from one of the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust of WWII on BBC4. Told she was about to be shot, then told to return to the ghetto (which she had hitherto considered 'Hell' - one can only imagine the conditions she had already experienced there), this was instantly transformed into a 'Paradise'; the stark and calm way in which she expressed her feelings at the time was tremendously impressive. How thankful I am that I have never been faced with such Hellish (and I use the word advisedly) choices and experiences. The lady in question, Holocaust survivor Alice Sommer Herz, is now 106 years old, although the programme was filmed when she was 98 years old. This lady, still playing her piano wonderfully at age 98, is a living testimony that evil does not triumph.

Why shining a light can be dangerous - as well as criminal

I don't normally have much positive to say about legislation designed to restrict freedom, but I make an exception in this case. Apparently the shining of laser pen beams at aircraft (aeroplanes and helicopters) has become a real problem and danger for pilots trying to navigate safely. Incidents have been increasing rapidly over the UK in the past few years, it seems, with 'hotspots' around Heathrow, Luton, Newcastle, Glasgow and Cardiff. The problem first started to occur in the 1990s in the US, but has since spread to other parts of the world including Canada, Europe and the Middle East.

If you have one of these devices and have ever been tempted to shine it up in the sky at a passing aircraft:

Please note that -

IT IS DANGEROUS TO AIR NAVIGATION

DON'T DO IT!

Very many of us fly at least a few times a year, if only to go for a fortnight's holiday of summer sun. Disaster could strike any of us if this idiocy is not curbed, including I expect some of the perpetrators.

Four decades after the Sexual Offences Act this kind of nonsense still happens?!

We are told often that life is so much easier for homosexual people in the UK now than it was pre-1967 when the Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalised homosexual acts in private and I am sure it is, even if I don't have relevant personal memories of the period before this, having been only about 15 years old at the time. However, every so often something happens that brings me up with a jolt. Some joker in Portsmouth thought he could make a 'fast buck' by pretending to be an undercover police sergeant and making blackmailing married men 'cruising' in a gay haunt a lucrative proposition, by extracting 'instant fines' from them. The apparently genuine threat of the 'shame' of a court appearance on charges of 'gross indencency' made some of the men involved willing to hand over several hundred pounds each. Presumably one of his potential victims decided to go to the real police (who mostly react somewhat differently now than they would have 40 years ago), leading to Lee Creamer (aka 'Sergeant Perry') being gaoled at Portsmouth Crown Court for three and a half years. Judge Peter Henry correctly summed-up this despicable individual:

"The people you were targeting undoubtedly would have been in that frame of mind where they weren't going to think straight. You were relying on the fact they were going to panic and pay the money."

Even though homosexuality was decriminalised quite a long time ago, many gay men (and women) are still reluctant to 'own' who they are, so leaving themselves open to this kind of nonsense. To some extent this is understandable because however 'right on' we may like to kid oursleves that Britain is today, there are still a lot of prejudiced people around who don't hesitate to make life difficult for gay people if they think they can get away with it (just remind yourself how successful a number of major religions are in having their prejudices accepted and in a number of cases enshrined in law). Whilst this is in some respects a depressingly familiar type of case, at least it has a 'happy' outcome - the culptrit has been brought to book.

The value of Boris

Some people find it easy to mock the 'faux-oaf' Boris Johnson (although in reality he is the very antithesis of what it is to be a fool), but the present London Mayor is probably a good man to have around in a crisis, as one Londoner found (who as it so happens says she did not vote for him, but no matter). Naturally Boris is refusing further comment on the matter, as in my experience is often the case when decisive action and innate courage are involved.

"Engrenages" - Spiral (French TV cop series)

Unfortunately I didn't see the first series of "Engrenages" a couple of years ago, but the second series of this gritty French TV cop series is currently showing on BBC4 television. The English title of the show isn't particularly good, although it does try and encompass the different themes of the story, I suppose. In any case, I have to say I have become addicted to the second series - I started to watch it before I went to Spain in mid-September, but made sure I recorded every episode on my DVR, because I knew I proabably wouldn't be able to watch every episode when I was there.

Currently we're on episode 6 of 8 of the second series (with episode 7 being shown tonight and again next Friday, both on BBC4). It's still possible, however, if you're quick, to watch the whole series on the BBC iPlayer here.

I mentioned that the series is "gritty" - well, it's that all rght! "Engrenages" means 'gears' or 'cogs', but a more colloquial translation might be 'convolutions' or 'complications'. I think what the actual English title 'Sprial' is trying to convey is the theme of the hidden complexities of the criminal and semi-criminal characters in the series and their inter-relationships. Apart from the fact that the legal system is different in France from the usual English or American we are more familiar with, it adds the seediness of various of the legal protagonists (from the frankly corrupt Advocate Szabo to the ambitious, unscrupulous and completely out-of-her-depth AdovocateKarlsson), not to mention the ambition and publicity-seeking of a Public Prosceutor and a randy and stressed (female) police inspector and the undercover (and good-looking) Arab police officer Samy with whom she flirts.

For me one of the attractions of this second series is the argot, a mixture of slang Parisian French and slang Moroccan Arabic - I can follow most of the dialogue in both languages without using the sub-titles (which are pretty good, I'd say), but it does add an atmosphere of authenticity. Just as in modern 'popular' English, which is peppered with words orginating in India/Pakistan, Africa or the Middle East (which many people don't realise, so ubiquitous have they become), French is similarly admixed with a lot of north-African words and slang, even amongst native French, but of course in this cop show many of the ne-er do wells are of Moroccan or Algerian origin anyway, mainly Moslem but from what I can observe a few of them are probably north-African Jews too (when I lived in Casablanca in the early 1970s, for part of my time there I lived in an apartment in a smartish part of the city adjacent to the Jewish quarter or 'mellah', although many of the original inhabitants had left in the wake of the '67 war). The seediness, corruption and general back-biting, ambition and spite seems to involve all the communities portrayed in the programme, whether French, north-African or Jewish and whether they are the professionals (judges, advocates, police) or the low-life criminals who they are trying to catch or in some cases colluding with. Much grittier than most of the CSI offerings from the US - in fact I'd say the closest to it I've seen is the Glasgow-based Taggart, specially some of its earlier episodes.

Catch it on BBC4 (Sundays at 10pm, Fridays at 11.35pm or on the BBC iPlayer) if you can.

"Bad elements" from Aberdeen take a trip to Banchory ...

... and are alleged to have got up to no good in the post office there.

Saudi princess robbed of her 'pocket money'

A wave of crime in luxury hotels in Sardinia's Costa Smeralda has been taking place over recent days, in hotels of one particular hotel chain - insider skullduggery is suspected of having provided a professional gang with information to enable them to perpetrate their heists; a significant raid has also taken place in Portofino on Italy's north-west coast.

What drew my attention to this story was the headline about a Saudi princess having 11mio Euros stolen from her roomsafe; one presumes what we are actually describing here is a suite of rooms - I cannot imagine someone so wealthy having a mere room. What was she thinking? Holding such a large sum in her roomsafe seems to me to be most 'unwise', not to say completely mad. Possibly she was planning to buy a property, or more likely it was simply a reflection of habits in Saudi Arabia which favour holding cash rather than relying on banks - and in these parlous financial times such reticence is perhaps understandable, always provided that one ensures that the cash is securely held and a hotel roomsafe cannot by any stretch of the imagination be expected to foil a determined thief. The hotel's own main safe might be a better bet, I suppose, but even there I think you are taking a major risk. Ultimately one really needs to have one's own personal guard to guard the roomsafe or hotel safe when such sums are involved and the costs of doing so are likely to be trifling in comparison.

Early on in my banking career, whilst I was still in London as a management trainee, I often used to accompany a senior arab personal banking officer from our office, usually on Thursday or Friday afternoons, around various of the 'swankier' hotels in London to deliver to various clients of the bank their 'pocket money' for the weekend - this was in the 1970s and the sums were usually of the order of GBP10-30k (depending on which methods you use to evaluate current values, that might be equivalent to GBP40-120k to GBP100-300k in today's money) and usually we did two or three such deliveries during the afternoon, more during the summer when there were more visitors from the middle east in town. Normally we had to provide them with unused banknotes, not for any 'nefarious' purpose, but simply because of their desire not to have other people's fingerprints on their notes and in those days we had to get these notes specially from the Bank of England, with whom we had standing arrangements. Of course, those were still quite large sums of money, but most of it would have been 'blown' by their normal spending habits by the time the end of the following week came and they needed further injections of cash to keep the party going, but at least they didn't hoard massive amounts of cash in an unsecure roomsafe. Doh!

Thuggery in Nairn

Very sketchy details so far of an attack in Nairn late last night which has left a man seriously injured.

Paedophile rings and the ways they can be tracked, exposed and punished

I saw with shock reports a week or so ago about what was being described as the most serious case of systematic organised paedophilia in Scotland. Another useful link to this story is here.

I just came across a blog post from around the same time as the two media links above in the ever-excellent Spy Blog which takes the writer's usual clinical and detailed look at different aspects of how this case was cracked. It is a very lengthy and complicated article, but will repay the effort to read it in full and [in my case attempt to] absorb it all.

Embezzler gets 40 months gaol-time at Inverness Sheriff Court

Christopher Proudfoot, who embezzled £936,452 from Highland Network between December 2004 and January 2008, has been sentenced to 40 months in gaol. Presumably he will be out in less than two years with 'good behaviour'. In neither the latest report, nor in an earlier one during the trial, did the BBC choose to include Proudfoot's photo. Personally I think this is wrong, so with just a little bit of searching I found articles in both the Press & Journal and the Sun which helpfully included his photograph, just in case he tries to touch any of us up in a few years time for a 'loan'. Forewarned is forearmed.

I hope Mr Proudfoot can learn the discipline he obviously lacks so that he doesn't fritter away in future more money he doesn't have on his so-called 'gambling addiction', but until then it is clearly necessary for the public and his former employer to be protected from his weakness.

On the other hand a fraudster from that current 'hate-group', banks, quite rightly receives no such 'anonymising' treatment from the BBC - Carol Barclay, of Kinghorn (Fife), has pleaded guilty at Edinburgh Sheriff Court of embezzling over GBP30,000- from the accounts of customers, principally from the account of one of them, an elderly gentleman. She was employed as an assistant manager with HBOS at its Gyle Shopping Centre branch in Edinburgh. Sheriff Alistair Noble has called for 'background reports' (What's to know? She's a crook!) before sentencing her.

Gay chef murderer found guilty

As expected, former 'Mr Gay UK' Anthony Morley has been found guilty of the murder of Damian Oldfield. Morley was found to have slashed Mr Oldfield's throat before stabbing him several time and then cutting sections of flesh from his chest and thigh which he then proceeded to cook partially in olive oil and herbs. After this he walked into a nearby takeaway restaurant wearing a bloodstained tee-shirt, telling staff there he had killed someone who had tried to rape him.

It would appear that the jury (correctly in my view) gave this defence argument short-shrift. My own feeling is that Morley was (and probably still is) conflicted about his own sexuality; the fact that he apparently had a girlfriend when he became the first winner of the 'Mr Gay UK' competition in 1993 may be a small clue. The case is obviously both gruesome and sad for all concerned, for Morley himself, but specially for the family of Mr Oldfield.
(My earlier brief blog article about this crime, during the trial when I first heard about it, is here.)

The Telegraph article linked to above does not mention what sentence Morley has been given; presumably the sentencing hearing will come later.