However a personal note if I may: in 1950 my late grandmother was travelling home on the train and two youths attacked her and stole her handbag. She suffered severe head injuries and her life hung in the balance. Thankfully she recovered but had a metal plate holding her skull together for the rest of her life.
The attack was front page news in all the national papers and when the youths were apprehended Lord Justice Goddard, the leading criminal judge of the day, presided. The youths were given 7 years (when 7 years actually was 7 years) each and Lord Goddard regretted that he was unable to give a more punitive sentence.
As was posted above such attacks are now "two a penny" and I doubt such an attack would make page 17 of News Shopper let alone the front pages of the nationals. Also the perpetrators would probably receive a police caution or a community sentence in this day and age.
In short these things have always happened but in this day and age they happen a hell of a lot more!
Superficially an improvement but these are, presumably, RECORDED crimes. A lot of people simply don't bother to report things to the police anymore as they know they will be given short shrift unless it involves a driver who can be traced from the database.
The United Kingdom is the violent crime capital of Europe and has one of the highest rates of violence in the world, worse even than America, according to new research.
By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent
7:00AM BST 02 Jul 2009
Analysis of figures from the European Commission showed a 77 per cent increase in murders, robberies, assaults and sexual offences in the UK since Labour came to power.
The total number of violent offences recorded compared to population is higher than any other country in Europe, as well as America, Canada, Australia and South Africa.
The UK had a greater number of murders in 2007 than any other EU country – 927 – and at a relative rate higher than most western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
It also recorded the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU, and the highest absolute number of burglaries, with double the number of offences recorded in Germany and France.
Overall, 5.4 million crimes were recorded in the UK in 2007 - more than 10 a minute - second only to Sweden.
Chris Grayling, shadow home secretary, said: "This is a real damning indictment of this government's comprehensive failure over more than a decade to tackle the deep rooted social problems in our society, and the knock-on effect on crime and anti-social behaviour.
"We're now on our fourth Home Secretary in this parliament, and all we are getting is a rehash of old initiatives that didn't work the first time round. More than ever Britain needs a change of direction."
The figures were sourced from Eurostat, the European Commission's database of statistics. They are gathered using official sources in the countries concerned such as the national statistics office, the national prison administration, ministries of the interior or justice, and police.
A breakdown of the statistics, which were compiled into league tables by the Conservatives, revealed that violent crime in the UK had increased from 652,974 offences in 1998 to more than 1.15 million crimes in 2007.
It means there are over 2,000 crimes recorded per 100,000 population in the UK, making it the most violent place in Europe.
Austria is second, with a rate of 1,677 per 100,000 people, followed by Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Holland.
By comparison, America has an estimated rate of 466 violent crimes per 100,000 population.
France recorded 324,765 violent crimes in 2007 – a 67 per cent increase in the past decade – at a rate of 504 per 100,000 population.
The Home Office says there has been a downtrend in overall violence for the past decade.
But last October it emerged that levels of violent crime in England and Wales had been underestimated for more than a decade because of a blunder in recording methods.
Ministers admitted that some police forces had not been recording offences of grievous bodily harm with intent as serious violent crime. When the offences were included violent crime figures immediately increased by a fifth.
Separate figures disclosed in May showed that the number of people requiring hospital treatment after being seriously hurt in street fights or assaults has risen 50 per cent in five years.
More than 20 people a day were taken to hospital accident and emergency departments in England last year after being hit, kicked, scratched or bitten. Alcohol is blamed as a factor in half of the incidents and raises further questions over 24-hour drinking.
Researchers admit that comparisons of crime data between countries must be viewed with caution because of differing criminal justice systems and how crimes are reported and measured.
Okay, so this indicates that vehicle crime is down, but rapes are up. Crime figures are always manipulated and most crime isn't even reported as people cannot wait 3 hours at the front counter of a Police Station or the 2 days it takes Police to attend your address. Crime will always happen, but the ferocity seems to be on the increase and the paltry punishment is no deterrent whatsoever. No doubt there will be another outcry over knife crime after this latest tragedy and politicians will make noises, then it will happen again and again..........depressing.
Amnesties, clampdowns, longer jail terms: all have failed since Philip Lawrence's death 15 years ago. Now, as his killer is released, there is a new urgency to the search for a solution
Zac was the 13th teenager to be murdered in London this year, equalling the total for 2009. His death has provoked an increased police presence on the streets of Lambeth, parliamentary debates and moved the prime minister to describe Zac's fate as "absolutely horrific".
Yet to contextualise David Cameron's vow to make knife crime a priority, it is necessary to return to another set of school gates, this time seven miles north in Maida Vale. Here, outside St George's comprehensive, 15-year-old Learco Chindamo stabbed headteacher Philip Lawrence in the heart after he intervened to halt a fight.
Chindamo was freed last Monday, with no objections from Frances, to a secure probation hostel in London. His release has reignited the debate over whether knife crime has worsened since the stabbing.
The data provides a contradictory picture. Some statistics show a fall in stabbings in the wake of Lawrence's death. Others show a rise. Figures collated from NHS hospitals reveal that stab wounds have become more frequent with a surge in knife injuries since the mid-1990s, the biggest increase occurring since 2006. Those findings are loosely corroborated by statistics revealing that murders involving a knife reached 270 in 2007-08, the highest total since the Homicide Index was established in 1977.
Such trends are challenged by the British Crime Survey which logged a dramatic decline in "knife-enabled woundings" in the aftermath of Lawrence's murder. In 1995, researchers recorded 84,000 cases, falling to 29,000 in 2005-06, but rising to 38,000 only two years later. Evidence of a more steady growth in stabbings was detected by a home affairs select committee investigation that found "assaults by sharp objects" rose more than 30% in the decade from 1997.
Definitive analysis of knife crime between 1995 and 2010 is hampered by the introduction of different Crime Survey categories to define the scale of the problem. Its report last week revealed that police recorded 33,566 knife offences in the last year, a fall of 7%. During the same period, more than 4,700 people required hospital treatment for stab wounds, a small reduction.
Historical analysis is further muddied by the failure of the Home Office even to collate knife crime statistics until 13 years after Lawrence's murder. Official government figures show that during the last two years the number of recorded instances of possession of a pointed weapon has fallen from 13,988 to 10,857. The research, though, fails to reflect a constant: expert opinion that the young are most likely to carry knives, and that this has become normal among sections of British teenagers. Both Zac's murder and Chindamo's crime indicate the precocity of knife-users. Police warn the age of victims and perpetrators is falling.
Yet if the death of Philip Lawrence failed to bring about wholesale moral regeneration, which of the knife crime strategies introduced since have worked? First came the Offensive Weapons Act 1996, which made it illegal to sell knives to under-16s, but failed to reduce the number on the streets.
Knife amnesties, neighbourhood clampdowns, tougher sentencing, metal detectors on school gates and plans to make knife-carriers confront victims have all followed, but have had a negligible lasting impact, say criminologists.
Sherman, of Cambridge University, believes only draconian measures offer a solution, namely intensive stop-and-search strategies in known hot spots. He points to July 2008, when the frequency of teenage knife attacks was running higher than at any point since the killing of Lawrence. In response, Scotland Yard intensified stop and searches. Almost 27,000 young people were stopped within weeks, 577 knives were seized and more than 1,200 people arrested.
Sherman said the impact was profound. "The homicides came to a halt the minute Operation Blunt 2 began doing 400 searches a night. There is no alternative explanation for that except the Met doing hundreds of searches."
Some of the policies they [Labour] introduced scare the living daylights out of me: the indiscriminate stop and search of young people and forcibly making them walk through arches at stations worries me," said Hallsworth. He awards the Labour government two out of 10 on knife-crime strategies, saying the causes of poverty and inequality worsened during the party's tenure. Like many, he believes greater emphasis was required on challenging why young people carried knives in the first place.
The streets of West Norwood, where Zac died, endorse the model. Dubbed the "wild west" by some, its streets are pock-marked with boarded-up shops. The Park Campus school he attended dealt with disadvantaged teenagers excluded from mainstream education.
In the short term, Sherman and Hallsworth are calling for robust local-led policing, although broader trends point to a worsening problem. Sherman said Britain's rising population would increase "pedestrian encounters of young men" in poorer areas unless trends change. Hallsworth said: "Arguably, things will either maintain their way or get worse."
What is more predictable is that the clump of flowers in honour of "Lil' Zac, fallen soldier" will not be the final tribute to a murdered teenager this year.
STABBINGS AND KNIVES: THE FACTS
■ 322 fatal stabbings were recorded by police in 2007, the highest number since records began in 1977, up by almost 40% in a decade.
■ The number of people prosecuted by magistrates for possessing knives soared from 4,489 in 1997 to 7,699 in 2006.
■ The number of youths aged between 10 and 17 searched by police rose from 123,819 in 2007-08 to 185,489 in the 2008/9
The boy who got stabbed to death last night was good friends and football team mates with one of my very good friends at school. Very sad news and he was going to play U18 football for a professional side next season, I don't know the team but he was ment to be very talented. Something needs to happen because gun and knife crime is becoming a regular event in this society. It's getting scary to go out on your own sometimes.
Im surprised St Columbas had to go to Blackheath for a ruck? As an Old Bexleyheathean thats as far as we went for a ruck and as the catholics had different holidays wed drag our selves to Welling for a scrap as BETHS werent worth the walk.Blackheath was almost foreign travel.I went out with a bird that had been a Blackheath Bluecoat and she was a bit posh.Ive been away a while but what the hell is going on?
Actually SE9Addick, it's not like running the gauntlet for me, I was also SE9 (Middle Park boy) but London has changed, my business takes me to London almost every day and it really isn't the same place I grew up in, there is this undercurrent of nastiness and to be quite frank, the places that were nice areas are now mostly shit holes. I know that there were gang fights years ago, I remember them, fights between Middle Park, Horn Park and Ferrier Estates were common and of course 80's football violence but this is different, it has a sinisterness about it and a hugely different morale code. Most of my family still live on Middle Park, so please don't be so patronising.
This sort of behavior could be stopped in an instant,first we will have to get rid of all the lefty liberal tossers running this once proud nation and that includes that limp wristed twat Cameron ,give the police a bit of power again ,and bring in a punishment where you receive what ever you dish out ,for example when they catch the brave little soulja that stabbed the boy in Welling ,take him to a room ,strap him down and with some sort of mechanical device stab him in the throat .I do night work all over London and in country towns and coastal towns and i believe this country has got worse and worse ,all these people who say this sort of thing has always happened get on my tits somehow trying to justify it.
The German Clearly a very considered view and so balanced. Did your carer supervise you when you typed or had he/she taken a short break??? 'with some sort of mechanical device stab him in the throat''.And what 'mechanical device would this be?' Perhaps you would like to sponsor our engineers to invent such a machine? Your comment that 'this sort of behaviour could be stopped in an instant' makes me wonder if you have any idea of the history of the criminal justice system and the failure of the death penalty (amongst others) to prevent such terrible crimes. In the 19th century people got hung for theft of lambs (hence the saying you might as well get hung for a sheep as a for a lamb) and it didn't stop theft.
I am not against retribution, but this is already a feature of the criminal justice system (although I fully accept that in the eyes of many it fails to be sufficiently harsh) but to talk of a mechanical device to stab him in the throat makes me wonder about lunatics like you wandering the length and breadth of this country after dark. Let the professionals deal with it and if you don't like it stand for Parliament on the 'let's have a mechanical device to stab offenders in the throat'' mandate. I am sure you will get elected...
The German Clearly a very considered view and so balanced. Did your carer supervise you when you typed or had he/she taken a short break??? 'with some sort of mechanical device stab him in the throat''.And what 'mechanical device would this be?' Perhaps you would like to sponsor our engineers to invent such a machine? Your comment that 'this sort of behaviour could be stopped in an instant' makes me wonder if you have any idea of the history of the criminal justice system and the failure of the death penalty (amongst others) to prevent such terrible crimes. In the 19th century people got hung for theft of lambs (hence the saying you might as well get hung for a sheep as a for a lamb) and it didn't stop theft.
I am not against retribution, but this is already a feature of the criminal justice system (although I fully accept that in the eyes of many it fails to be sufficiently harsh) but to talk of a mechanical device to stab him in the throat makes me wonder about lunatics like you wandering the length and breadth of this country after dark. Let the professionals deal with it and if you don't like it stand for Parliament on the 'let's have a mechanical device to stab offenders in the throat'' mandate. I am sure you will get elected...
He'll win the Daily Mail vote.
Under those well known Liberal tossers aka Labour the prison population grew to a record 85,000 and harsher tariffs were introduced for knife crime etc and yet there are still tragedies like this recent stabbing. The problem isn't sentencing it's that too many morons think carrying a gun or a knife makes them in to some kind of hero. Let's see how heroic this guy is when he's facing 15-20 years inside.
Black ForestReds said: He'll win the Daily Mail vote.
Possibly so but don't forget that Beaverbrrok who owned the Mail supported Hitler so I'm not sure that this is any sort of endorsement. Just increasing sentences doesn't prevent offending. I doubt that any of these people (or whatver term you want to use) think of the potential sentence when going out armed with a weapon. Do they spend their waking hours scouring the latest decisions of the courts??? And although one can blame Labour, the fact is that none of the political parties have the answer. And before anyone berates me, nor have I but I do feel that peer pressure is the greatest cause.
I have never seen you post before, but on this evidence alone, you win CL WUM of the month. For full marks you could have added subtlety or humour. Just so you know for the next time you care to post outrageous nonsense
A guy who trains at my club is a doorman in medway and works at a big nightclub in Rochester by the river, they had a knife amnesty two years ago. They searched everyone going into the club, if they found a knife they gave the person an option, fill out a questionaire on why you have the weapon or they call the police and you get arrested, in the first hour they took 7 knives, I will add that this was between 9 and 10pm, and the first group was mainly couples going for a meal at the club before going into the main part of the club. The main reason cited for carrying was for personal protection! Blokes out only with their girlfriends are carrying so if they get into a situation they are gonna pull a blade, utter madness!!! I wont go into how many knives they got when the post 11pm lot turned up!!
Black ForestReds said: He'll win the Daily Mail vote.
Possibly so but don't forget that Beaverbrrok who owned the Mail supported Hitler so I'm not sure that this is any sort of endorsement. Just increasing sentences doesn't prevent offending. I doubt that any of these people (or whatver term you want to use) think of the potential sentence when going out armed with a weapon. Do they spend their waking hours scouring the latest decisions of the courts??? And although one can blame Labour, the fact is that none of the political parties have the answer. And before anyone berates me, nor have I but I do feel that peer pressure is the greatest cause.
I think it was Harold Harmsworth aka Lord Rothermere who was pro-Hitler rather than Beaverbrook, he even visited him several times and congratulated him over acquiring the Sudetenland.
This sort of behavior could be stopped in an instant,first we will have to get rid of all the lefty liberal tossers running this once proud nation and that includes that limp wristed twat Cameron ,give the police a bit of power again ,and bring in a punishment where you receive what ever you dish out ,for example when they catch the brave little soulja that stabbed the boy in Welling ,take him to a room ,strap him down and with some sort of mechanical device stab him in the throat .I do night work all over London and in country towns and coastal towns and i believe this country has got worse and worse ,all these people who say this sort of thing has always happened get on my tits somehow trying to justify it.
This post was inevitable on thread of this sort. Are you the editor of the Daily Mail?
BlackForestRed They both supported him, at least initially. I now wonder after the German's latest rant 'Nail em up' that he is either a WUM or someone who should be sedated.
Initially maybe, but Beaverbrook saw sense far earlier than Rothermere and the Daily Mail prided itself on being the official newspaper of the British Union of Fascists. Nothing has changed there.
Comments
I'm with Faversham Addick and SHG.
Yes these things have "always" happened.
However a personal note if I may: in 1950 my late grandmother was travelling home on the train and two youths attacked her and stole her handbag. She suffered severe head injuries and her life hung in the balance. Thankfully she recovered but had a metal plate holding her skull together for the rest of her life.
The attack was front page news in all the national papers and when the youths were apprehended Lord Justice Goddard, the leading criminal judge of the day, presided. The youths were given 7 years (when 7 years actually was 7 years) each and Lord Goddard regretted that he was unable to give a more punitive sentence.
As was posted above such attacks are now "two a penny" and I doubt such an attack would make page 17 of News Shopper let alone the front pages of the nationals. Also the perpetrators would probably receive a police caution or a community sentence in this day and age.
In short these things have always happened but in this day and age they happen a hell of a lot more!
UK is violent crime capital of Europe
The United Kingdom is the violent crime capital of Europe and has
one of the highest rates of violence in the world, worse even than
America, according to new research.
By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent
7:00AM BST 02 Jul 2009
Analysis of figures from the European Commission showed a 77 per cent increase
in murders, robberies, assaults and sexual offences in the UK since Labour
came to power.
The total number of violent offences recorded compared to population is higher
than any other country in Europe, as well as America, Canada, Australia and
South Africa.
The UK had a greater number of murders in 2007 than any other EU country – 927
– and at a relative rate higher than most western European neighbours,
including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
It also recorded the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU, and the highest
absolute number of burglaries, with double the number of offences recorded
in Germany and France.
Overall, 5.4 million crimes were recorded in the UK in 2007 - more than 10 a
minute - second only to Sweden.
Chris Grayling, shadow home secretary, said: "This is a real damning
indictment of this government's comprehensive failure over more than a
decade to tackle the deep rooted social problems in our society, and the
knock-on effect on crime and anti-social behaviour.
"We're now on our fourth Home Secretary in this parliament, and all we
are getting is a rehash of old initiatives that didn't work the first time
round. More than ever Britain needs a change of direction."
The figures were sourced from Eurostat, the European Commission's database of
statistics. They are gathered using official sources in the countries
concerned such as the national statistics office, the national prison
administration, ministries of the interior or justice, and police.
A breakdown of the statistics, which were compiled into league tables by the
Conservatives, revealed that violent crime in the UK had increased from
652,974 offences in 1998 to more than 1.15 million crimes in 2007.
It means there are over 2,000 crimes recorded per 100,000 population in the
UK, making it the most violent place in Europe.
Austria is second, with a rate of 1,677 per 100,000 people, followed by
Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Holland.
By comparison, America has an estimated rate of 466 violent crimes per 100,000
population.
France recorded 324,765 violent crimes in 2007 – a 67 per cent increase in the
past decade – at a rate of 504 per 100,000 population.
The Home Office says there has been a downtrend in overall violence for the
past decade.
But last October it emerged that levels of violent crime in England and Wales
had been underestimated for more than a decade because of a blunder in
recording methods.
Ministers admitted that some police forces had not been recording offences of
grievous bodily harm with intent as serious violent crime. When the offences
were included violent crime figures immediately increased by a fifth.
Separate figures disclosed in May showed that the number of people requiring
hospital treatment after being seriously hurt in street fights or assaults
has risen 50 per cent in five years.
More than 20 people a day were taken to hospital accident and emergency
departments in England last year after being hit, kicked, scratched or
bitten. Alcohol is blamed as a factor in half of the incidents and raises
further questions over 24-hour drinking.
Researchers admit that comparisons of crime data between countries must be
viewed with caution because of differing criminal justice systems and how
crimes are reported and measured.
2003 137 per 100.000 people
2004 173
2005 165
2006 164
2007 143
2008 164
2009 168
A year out of date, edited for brevity
Can the fight against teenage knife crime be won?
Amnesties,
clampdowns, longer jail terms: all have failed since Philip Lawrence's
death 15 years ago. Now, as his killer is released, there is a new
urgency to the search for a solution
Zac was the 13th teenager to be
murdered in London this year, equalling the total for 2009. His death
has provoked an increased police presence on the streets of Lambeth,
parliamentary debates and moved the prime minister to describe Zac's
fate as "absolutely horrific".
Yet to contextualise David Cameron's vow to make knife crime
a priority, it is necessary to return to another set of school gates,
this time seven miles north in Maida Vale. Here, outside St George's
comprehensive, 15-year-old Learco Chindamo stabbed headteacher Philip
Lawrence in the heart after he intervened to halt a fight.
Chindamo
was freed last Monday, with no objections from Frances, to a secure
probation hostel in London. His release has reignited the debate over
whether knife crime has worsened since the stabbing.
The data
provides a contradictory picture. Some statistics show a fall in
stabbings in the wake of Lawrence's death. Others show a rise. Figures
collated from NHS hospitals reveal that stab wounds have become more
frequent with a surge in knife injuries since the mid-1990s, the biggest
increase occurring since 2006. Those findings are loosely corroborated
by statistics revealing that murders involving a knife reached 270 in
2007-08, the highest total since the Homicide Index was established in
1977.
Such trends are challenged by the British Crime Survey which
logged a dramatic decline in "knife-enabled woundings" in the aftermath
of Lawrence's murder. In 1995, researchers recorded 84,000 cases,
falling to 29,000 in 2005-06, but rising to 38,000 only two years later.
Evidence of a more steady growth in stabbings was detected by a home
affairs select committee investigation that found "assaults by sharp
objects" rose more than 30% in the decade from 1997.
Definitive
analysis of knife crime between 1995 and 2010 is hampered by the
introduction of different Crime Survey categories to define the scale of
the problem. Its report last week revealed that police recorded 33,566
knife offences in the last year, a fall of 7%. During the same period,
more than 4,700 people required hospital treatment for stab wounds, a
small reduction.
Historical analysis is further muddied by the
Yet if thefailure of the Home Office even to collate knife crime statistics until
13 years after Lawrence's murder. Official government figures show that
during the last two years the number of recorded instances of possession
of a pointed weapon has fallen from 13,988 to 10,857. The research,
though, fails to reflect a constant: expert opinion that the young are
most likely to carry knives, and that this has become normal among
sections of British teenagers. Both Zac's murder and Chindamo's crime
indicate the precocity of knife-users. Police warn the age of victims
and perpetrators is falling.
death of Philip Lawrence failed to bring about wholesale moral
regeneration, which of the knife crime strategies introduced since have
worked? First came the Offensive Weapons Act 1996, which made it illegal
to sell knives to under-16s, but failed to reduce the number on the
streets.
Knife amnesties, neighbourhood clampdowns, tougher
sentencing, metal detectors on school gates and plans to make
knife-carriers confront victims have all followed, but have had a
negligible lasting impact, say criminologists.
Sherman, of
Cambridge University, believes only draconian measures offer a solution,
namely intensive stop-and-search strategies in known hot spots. He
points to July 2008, when the frequency of teenage knife attacks was
running higher than at any point since the killing of Lawrence. In
response, Scotland Yard intensified stop and searches. Almost 27,000
young people were stopped within weeks, 577 knives were seized and more
than 1,200 people arrested.
Sherman said the impact was profound.
Some of the policies they [Labour] introduced"The homicides came to a halt the minute Operation Blunt 2 began doing
400 searches a night. There is no alternative explanation for that
except the Met doing hundreds of searches."
scare the living daylights out of me: the indiscriminate stop and search
of young people and forcibly making them walk through arches at
stations worries me," said Hallsworth. He awards the Labour government
two out of 10 on knife-crime strategies, saying the causes of poverty
and inequality worsened during the party's tenure. Like many, he
believes greater emphasis was required on challenging why young people
carried knives in the first place.
The streets of West Norwood,
where Zac died, endorse the model. Dubbed the "wild west" by some, its
streets are pock-marked with boarded-up shops. The Park Campus school he
attended dealt with disadvantaged teenagers excluded from mainstream
education.
In the short term, Sherman and Hallsworth are
calling for robust local-led policing, although broader trends point to a
worsening problem. Sherman said Britain's rising population would
increase "pedestrian encounters of young men" in poorer areas unless
trends change. Hallsworth said: "Arguably, things will either maintain
their way or get worse."
What is more predictable is that the
clump of flowers in honour of "Lil' Zac, fallen soldier" will not be the
final tribute to a murdered teenager this year.
STABBINGS AND KNIVES: THE FACTS
■ 322 fatal stabbings were recorded by police in 2007, the
highest number since records began in 1977, up by almost 40% in a
decade.
■ The number of people prosecuted by magistrates for possessing knives soared from 4,489 in 1997 to 7,699 in 2006.
■ The number of youths aged between 10 and 17 searched by police rose from 123,819 in 2007-08 to 185,489 in the 2008/9
Walked past the spot, very eerie.
The boy who got stabbed to death last night was good friends and football team mates with one of my very good friends at school. Very sad news and he was going to play U18 football for a professional side next season, I don't know the team but he was ment to be very talented.
Something needs to happen because gun and knife crime is becoming a regular event in this society. It's getting scary to go out on your own sometimes.
Im surprised St Columbas had to go to Blackheath for a ruck? As an Old Bexleyheathean thats as far as we went for a ruck and as the catholics had different holidays wed drag our selves to Welling for a scrap as BETHS werent worth the walk.Blackheath was almost foreign travel.I went out with a bird that had been a Blackheath Bluecoat and she was a bit posh.Ive been away a while but what the hell is going on?
ps Im 43
People would pay good money to see that
Clearly a very considered view and so balanced. Did your carer supervise you when you typed or had he/she taken a short break???
'with some sort of mechanical device stab him in the throat''. And what 'mechanical device would this be?' Perhaps you would like to sponsor our engineers to invent such a machine? Your comment that 'this sort of behaviour could be stopped in an instant' makes me wonder if you have any idea of the history of the criminal justice system and the failure of the death penalty (amongst others) to prevent such terrible crimes. In the 19th century people got hung for theft of lambs (hence the saying you might as well get hung for a sheep as a for a lamb) and it didn't stop theft.
I am not against retribution, but this is already a feature of the criminal justice system (although I fully accept that in the eyes of many it fails to be sufficiently harsh) but to talk of a mechanical device to stab him in the throat makes me wonder about lunatics like you wandering the length and breadth of this country after dark. Let the professionals deal with it and if you don't like it stand for Parliament on the 'let's have a mechanical device to stab offenders in the throat'' mandate. I am sure you will get elected...
He'll win the Daily Mail vote.
Under those well known Liberal tossers aka Labour the prison population grew to a record 85,000 and harsher tariffs were introduced for knife crime etc and yet there are still tragedies like this recent stabbing. The problem isn't sentencing it's that too many morons think carrying a gun or a knife makes them in to some kind of hero. Let's see how heroic this guy is when he's facing 15-20 years inside.
He'll win the Daily Mail vote.
Possibly so but don't forget that Beaverbrrok who owned the Mail supported Hitler so I'm not sure that this is any sort of endorsement. Just increasing sentences doesn't prevent offending. I doubt that any of these people (or whatver term you want to use) think of the potential sentence when going out armed with a weapon. Do they spend their waking hours scouring the latest decisions of the courts??? And although one can blame Labour, the fact is that none of the political parties have the answer. And before anyone berates me, nor have I but I do feel that peer pressure is the greatest cause.
For full marks you could have added subtlety or humour.
Just so you know for the next time you care to post outrageous nonsense
They searched everyone going into the club, if they found a knife they gave the person an option, fill out a questionaire on why you have the weapon or they call the police and you get arrested, in the first hour they took 7 knives, I will add that this was between 9 and 10pm, and the first group was mainly couples going for a meal at the club before going into the main part of the club. The main reason cited for carrying was for personal protection! Blokes out only with their girlfriends are carrying so if they get into a situation they are gonna pull a blade, utter madness!!! I wont go into how many knives they got when the post 11pm lot turned up!!
I think it was Harold Harmsworth aka Lord Rothermere who was pro-Hitler rather than Beaverbrook, he even visited him several times and congratulated him over acquiring the Sudetenland.
They both supported him, at least initially. I now wonder after the German's latest rant 'Nail em up' that he is either a WUM or someone who should be sedated.
Initially maybe, but Beaverbrook saw sense far earlier than Rothermere and the Daily Mail prided itself on being the official newspaper of the British Union of Fascists. Nothing has changed there.