'Justice for Henry Hicks'
Discussion
Breadvan72 said:
The mis-spelling of "dyed" was pure klutziness and not finger trouble. Also check out the timing - I don't hit the claret that early!
Ah, so it was from the night before. Must have been a most convivial dinner. 
Breadvan72 said:
As to role models, I was delighted recently to work with a school in Lambeth that has mostly African-Caribbean pupils. I beat off Ofsted who wanted to put the school into special measures despite its very above average results (but Ofsted are having another pop on appeal). One striking thing about the school is that it has male primary teachers (men are rare in primary teaching, being vulnerable to false allegations of abuse). In particular the school has three teachers who are cool and confident black dudes in their thirties - great role models for the boys at the school.
Presumably that's academic results. Although its a major yardstick by which Ofsted judge a school, it's far from the only one. What are its reasons for wanting to implement special measures? Breadvan72 said:
Islington still has a white working class population, Brits and Irish who tend in my experience to be employed, Labour-voting, Arsenal-supporting and non-racist, but some of them are dynastic crims. The tawdry roadside shrine to Henry Hicks (it's behind Pentonville prison) is not far from another roadside shrine to a 29 year old local bloke who was stabbed by an associate in a 2 AM argument about drugs and/or a woman earlier this year.
That's enough to make anyone turn to crime. 
SantaBarbara]ica-Pica said:
One striking thing about the school is that it has male primary teachers (men are rare in primary teaching, being vulnerable to false allegations of abuse.
No no no
Your conclusion is faulty
It is not a new phenomenon actually
Just this minute I was thinking "we've not seen desamax (with his/her inexplicable inability to use the quote function) recently".No no no
Your conclusion is faulty
It is not a new phenomenon actually
Then the SB Bot popped up with this little gem.
I do love it when the internet delivers.
La Liga said:
Ian Geary said:
It seems the judgement focuses on whether it was a pursuit or not.
In my field ( accountancy) we consider substance over form. If someone is being "followed" by the police and doesn't want to get stopped by them, it seems awfully like a pursuit situation, regardless of whether or not the police have actually tried to stop him yet, or said the magic word to their boss in the control room.
I'm not much of an accountant, but I expect a spontaneous incident like this was is a little more dynamic than accountancy. In my field ( accountancy) we consider substance over form. If someone is being "followed" by the police and doesn't want to get stopped by them, it seems awfully like a pursuit situation, regardless of whether or not the police have actually tried to stop him yet, or said the magic word to their boss in the control room.
There's lots of room for interpretation as to whether something is a pursuit or not. I've known elderly drivers, on the fringes of, 'they shouldn't be driving any more', being requested to stop and not doing so. They weren't aware of the request therefore didn't have the intention to not stop (see definition) so it wasn't a pursuit.
Definition said:
A police driver is deemed to be in pursuit when a driver/motorcyclist indicates by their actions or continuance of their manner of driving/riding that:
they have no intention of stopping for the police, and
the police driver believes that the driver of the subject vehicle is aware of the requirement to stop and decides to continue behind the subject vehicle with a view to either reporting its progress or stopping it.
The margins in terms of time / distance of the Hicks case appeared to provide ample scope for the police drivers to reasonable interpret it wasn't a pursuit. they have no intention of stopping for the police, and
the police driver believes that the driver of the subject vehicle is aware of the requirement to stop and decides to continue behind the subject vehicle with a view to either reporting its progress or stopping it.
If we want to tackle the moped crime in London and elsewhere, we must accept people will suffer serious injury and death on occasions.
He was pushing on a fair bit too, so I assumed it would be obvious to the police that the chase was afoot. And obvious to any review that they would have known this..
It just seems quite a technicality to sit behind, as, ultimately the events did pose a serious risk to life.
Just to clarify, I feel blame is 100% Henry's and 0% police, it was not manslaughter/ murder and Hicks' bed is entirely of his own making.
Not sure how I feel about accepting more risk to the public when pursuing crims. If we could guarantee the crim gets 100% of the risk and no-one else, then absolutely: where do I sign?
But didn't that copper get killed by a pickup in Liverpool last year? And a girl on a crossing killed by a cop car going 90ish.
Accepting the death of one of my kids so a career criminal can get another suspension to his sentence, 100 hours community service and a £60 slap on the wrist is not a deal I would want to accept...
I had viewed the pursuit guidance being there to help the police have a reference point, or reality check, no matter how dynamic the situation gets, rather than something to be circumnavigated, or seen to be there to make their lives harder.
But happy to accept the points made by someone who has experienced it firsthand.
Cheers
Ian
Breadvan72 said:
singlecoil said:
TimmyMallett said:
No one is born bad.
And yet I know of at least one case where the head nurse spoke up and told her juniors to leave a particular newborn alone."On the day I was born
The nurses all gathered 'round
And they gazed in wide wonder
At the joy they had found
The head nurse spoke up
And she said leave this one alone
She could tell right away
That I was bad to the bone..."
Breadvan72 said:
You are right, Derek, but the same is true of an Inquest - a jury's finding relates only to the instant case. My point is that the exoneration of the officers might give a boost to other officers. Compare the firearms position - it is very rare for officers who shoot people to be found guilty of misconduct or crime. I do however appreciate the negative impact of being put through the mill after taking actions, often in stressful situations, in the performance of difficult duties.
Thanks for that, and I see your point.There was a case in my old force where officers, from PCs to Chief Super, were held on suspension for over four years for most, despite a judge in a pre trial hearing telling a group of four that there was no case to answer. CPS went ahead regardless and the charges were dismissed on day one, ten minutes into it. It meant that officers could look to careers being destroyed and all that stress of unlimited punishment hanging over then, even when there was not a prima facie case against any one of them. It wasn't that they'd not done nothing wrong, they'd just done nothing criminal, nor, come to that, anything against discipline.
With regards the officer who pulled the trigger, he had to wait until it got to the Old Bailey until the CPS dropped the case. I saw the disclosure and it was apparent that there was no hope of a prosecution. There were basic gaps in the evidence, dirty great holes. He was suspended for a bit over three years.
No one would argue that an investigation into a shooting by a police officer not only needs to be both thorough and fair, but needs to be seen to be thorough and fair. However, if a non-police officer had been subject of such an investigation, he would not have been charged.
Police officers should be treated exactly the same as the general public when it comes to the law. Discipline is a different matter. However, Facebook campaigns and organised lobbying should be ignored when coming to a decision whether to prosecute or continue with a case.
No police officers were found guilty, but they were certainly punished when it was obvious they need not be. The majority left the job. Two senior officers had any opportunity of advancement to the top levels ruined. It was, some felt, a rather obvious message.
Breadvan72 said:
You may be right, but perhaps the extant guidance could be firmed up and a more robust approach taken to risk assessments and liability. It is hard, I appreciate, with aggressive claimant lawyers hovering around.
I think the primary issue is the RTA which currently leaves officers exposed to DD charges. I think the relevant interpretations came from PC Milton who was ‘familiarising’ himself with the car etc. The Fed are pushing for this to be ammended. I don’t know that much about the international scope for wiggle room with the HRA, but I get the impression we don’t ‘take charge’ of how we apply it as other counties do. For example, a few counties in Europe couldn’t care less about pursuing mopeds. I doubt policia locale care too much about the state’s duty of care towards a criminal without a helmet on. Perhaps Brexit (don’t say it three times or it’ll attract all the turds from NP&E) provides an oppportinity here.
The problem with criminal law (and I imagine a lot of law) is its so focused on the outcome as opposed to risk.
Pursue someone who abandons the car and is apprehend = no problem. Pursue someone who crashes and dies = major problem. An officer’s personal risk of being investigated is often linked to chance / variables outside their control.
Ian Geary said:
La Liga said:
Ian Geary said:
It seems the judgement focuses on whether it was a pursuit or not.
In my field ( accountancy) we consider substance over form. If someone is being "followed" by the police and doesn't want to get stopped by them, it seems awfully like a pursuit situation, regardless of whether or not the police have actually tried to stop him yet, or said the magic word to their boss in the control room.
I'm not much of an accountant, but I expect a spontaneous incident like this was is a little more dynamic than accountancy. In my field ( accountancy) we consider substance over form. If someone is being "followed" by the police and doesn't want to get stopped by them, it seems awfully like a pursuit situation, regardless of whether or not the police have actually tried to stop him yet, or said the magic word to their boss in the control room.
There's lots of room for interpretation as to whether something is a pursuit or not. I've known elderly drivers, on the fringes of, 'they shouldn't be driving any more', being requested to stop and not doing so. They weren't aware of the request therefore didn't have the intention to not stop (see definition) so it wasn't a pursuit.
Definition said:
A police driver is deemed to be in pursuit when a driver/motorcyclist indicates by their actions or continuance of their manner of driving/riding that:
they have no intention of stopping for the police, and
the police driver believes that the driver of the subject vehicle is aware of the requirement to stop and decides to continue behind the subject vehicle with a view to either reporting its progress or stopping it.
The margins in terms of time / distance of the Hicks case appeared to provide ample scope for the police drivers to reasonable interpret it wasn't a pursuit. they have no intention of stopping for the police, and
the police driver believes that the driver of the subject vehicle is aware of the requirement to stop and decides to continue behind the subject vehicle with a view to either reporting its progress or stopping it.
If we want to tackle the moped crime in London and elsewhere, we must accept people will suffer serious injury and death on occasions.
He was pushing on a fair bit too, so I assumed it would be obvious to the police that the chase was afoot. And obvious to any review that they would have known this..
It just seems quite a technicality to sit behind, as, ultimately the events did pose a serious risk to life.
Just to clarify, I feel blame is 100% Henry's and 0% police, it was not manslaughter/ murder and Hicks' bed is entirely of his own making.
Not sure how I feel about accepting more risk to the public when pursuing crims. If we could guarantee the crim gets 100% of the risk and no-one else, then absolutely: where do I sign?
But didn't that copper get killed by a pickup in Liverpool last year? And a girl on a crossing killed by a cop car going 90ish.
Accepting the death of one of my kids so a career criminal can get another suspension to his sentence, 100 hours community service and a £60 slap on the wrist is not a deal I would want to accept...
I had viewed the pursuit guidance being there to help the police have a reference point, or reality check, no matter how dynamic the situation gets, rather than something to be circumnavigated, or seen to be there to make their lives harder.
But happy to accept the points made by someone who has experienced it firsthand.
Cheers
Ian
For example, if the only reason not to continue a pursuit is because the rider is on a bike then we need to create an environment where that doesn’t become a reason.
Brexit won't impact the ECHR because it's not an EU thing, unless post Brexit the UK becomes so isolationist that it withdraws from the Council of Europe. The ECHR comes into play in police pursuit cases because of article 2 ECHR which guarantees the right to life, and which imposes an obligation on the State to protect life and to conduct full investigations when someone dies after contact with state agents. Thus inquests into deaths following police contact always have juries and involve more scrutiny than most inquests. Note the important proviso to article 2
"Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this Article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary:
in defence of any person from unlawful violence;
in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained;
in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection."
My perception as to policy and guidance on pursuits is that police forces have become more risk averse than is justified by the likelihood of adverse findings against officers trying to apprehend suspects. Health and safety culture often appears to me to be based on unduly pessimistic assessments of liability risk, ignoring the fact that civil courts tend to be robust in rejecting unmeritorious claims.
"Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this Article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary:
in defence of any person from unlawful violence;
in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained;
in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection."
My perception as to policy and guidance on pursuits is that police forces have become more risk averse than is justified by the likelihood of adverse findings against officers trying to apprehend suspects. Health and safety culture often appears to me to be based on unduly pessimistic assessments of liability risk, ignoring the fact that civil courts tend to be robust in rejecting unmeritorious claims.
I add two points:
(1) Making pursuit a remote command decision rather than a situationally determined decision by the officer at the scene seems to me unhelpful.
(2) The idea of risk-assessing a pursuit as it happens is not realistic. Of course there should be continuous instantaneous risk evaluation in the mind of anyone engaged in a risky activity, but the idea that the officer has to conduct a process before deciding to pursue is not a realistic one.
Note also the evidence in the link below about how Hicks was riding. He may or may not have spotted the tailing officers. As an Islington habitue, I can confirm that flamboyant and aggressive scooter riding are the norm in the area. Note the suggestion that if Hicks had known he had been clocked, he might have taken his helmet off.
That, by the way, raises another sub topic. If officers routinely stop chasing when the rider has no helmet, that is daft. The duty of care owed to a suspect should not be extended so as to defeat the public policy that suspects should be apprehended.
http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/henry-hicks...
(1) Making pursuit a remote command decision rather than a situationally determined decision by the officer at the scene seems to me unhelpful.
(2) The idea of risk-assessing a pursuit as it happens is not realistic. Of course there should be continuous instantaneous risk evaluation in the mind of anyone engaged in a risky activity, but the idea that the officer has to conduct a process before deciding to pursue is not a realistic one.
Note also the evidence in the link below about how Hicks was riding. He may or may not have spotted the tailing officers. As an Islington habitue, I can confirm that flamboyant and aggressive scooter riding are the norm in the area. Note the suggestion that if Hicks had known he had been clocked, he might have taken his helmet off.
That, by the way, raises another sub topic. If officers routinely stop chasing when the rider has no helmet, that is daft. The duty of care owed to a suspect should not be extended so as to defeat the public policy that suspects should be apprehended.
http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/henry-hicks...
La Liga, I think that a culture of unreasonable risk aversion has set in within the public sector. It is partly driven by aggressive and not always scrupulous lawyering, but that is I think only part of the story. The law on liability remains fairly robust, and many of the situations that lead tabloids and NPE posters to froth about H and S and/or PC gone mad would, if tested in court, result in judgment against the claimant. I think that the risk averse culture may stem partly from poor quality training courses and a self sustaining industry based on taking a pessimistic view, partly on insurance company numbers games, partly on trends in police management, and so on.
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 22 October 11:19
SantaBarbara said:
Why are the police allowed to exceed the speed limits?
I know that you are often accused of being either a bot or a troll, but I am going to assume that you are neither and that this is a genuine question. The answer is that in some circumstances but not all police may exceed speed limits. They may do so when seeking to prevent crime and apprehend suspects and in other situations that class as emergencies. It would be a poor public policy that said that police and/or other services could not break speed limits when responding to, say, a train crash, a terrorist attack, an ongoing riot, a house fire, and so on. If your house was on fire, or you had a desperately sick child, or you were facing an attacker, you might not wish the response services to be limited by road signs.
There is a sticky in this forum explaining emergency response driving.
Breadvan72 said:
I think that a culture of unreasonable risk aversion has set in within the public sector. it is partly driven by aggressive and not always scrupulous lawyering, but that is I think only part of the story. The law on liability remains fairly robust, and many of the situations that lead tabloids and NPE posters to froth about H and S and/or PC gone mad would, if tested in court, result in judgment against the claimant. I think that the risk averse culture may stem partly from poor quality training courses and a self sustaining industry based on taking a pessimistic view, partly on insurance company numbers games, partly on trends in police management, and so on.
Even if testing in court resulted in a positive result, it's the treatment prior to that & it's effect on their life & career that will make people think it's not worth it. It's the cultural lack of support for those actions that will shape their inaction/actions.Who can blame them at the coal face for that?
I agree, so the negative culture needs to change. There needs to be better education of public sector leaders about the reality of risk. In the US, the litigation culture is more pronounced, but the police seem less risk averse in practice than they are here.
Sectors of my profession are not helping. There are the low grade ambulance chasers, of course. They play a volume game and calculate that numbers mean that insurers may roll over often. Further up the ability grades, there are well meaning but misguided activist lawyers, who may fail to see the negative impact of their queue jumping for a few clients and causes on the broader utilitarian and progressive social settlement. They consume a chunk of resources bashing various entities of the state, and help to create a culture of undue caution.
Sectors of my profession are not helping. There are the low grade ambulance chasers, of course. They play a volume game and calculate that numbers mean that insurers may roll over often. Further up the ability grades, there are well meaning but misguided activist lawyers, who may fail to see the negative impact of their queue jumping for a few clients and causes on the broader utilitarian and progressive social settlement. They consume a chunk of resources bashing various entities of the state, and help to create a culture of undue caution.
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 22 October 12:49
vonhosen said:
Breadvan72 said:
I think that a culture of unreasonable risk aversion has set in within the public sector. it is partly driven by aggressive and not always scrupulous lawyering, but that is I think only part of the story. The law on liability remains fairly robust, and many of the situations that lead tabloids and NPE posters to froth about H and S and/or PC gone mad would, if tested in court, result in judgment against the claimant. I think that the risk averse culture may stem partly from poor quality training courses and a self sustaining industry based on taking a pessimistic view, partly on insurance company numbers games, partly on trends in police management, and so on.
Even if testing in court resulted in a positive result, it's the treatment prior to that & it's effect on their life & career that will make people think it's not worth it. It's the cultural lack of support for those actions that will shape their inaction/actions.Who can blame them at the coal face for that?
What is needed is a traditional 'forces' mentality where you back your troops rather than the current one where you cover your own arse as priority number one.
We need to reduce the influence of politics on society as a whole, as it has long since become a frequently negative and counter-productive stumbling block.
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