Thwaites Brewery trashed by travellers

[alfaman]

Looks like Thwaites in Blackburn had an invasion over the weekend.

100k of damage and ‘contamination’ ... but no arrests. On site over the bank hol weekend.

WTF - no arrests for breaking and entering and criminal damage?

... doubt anyone else would get away with breaking and entering and criminal damage. .. and most likely stting everywhere.

[alfaman]

Kinda depressing reading this thread after i’d Put it up yesterday.

So it seems in he UK ... if you have a large enough and potentially violent enough group ... you can pretty much do as you like. Sad.

And in the riots in 2011 ... it took what .... several nights of consecutive violence and destruction across several towns before substantive effective action took place.?

Interesting how in where I live ( gulf and Singapore )... there would be quite swift action to these sorts of events

In the ‘Arab spring’ sympathy riots here in Bahrain in 2011 ... the low life’s who occupied a roundabout / caused chaos / started fires etc ... basically got rounded up and jailed for a while to help get things back to normal.

Similar approach in Singapore when some drunken workers rioted, caused damage and set cars on fire : jail and deportation.

I guess deporting travelers may not be legal or feasible .... not sure why the vehicles and caravans cannot be seized and impounded though. Or why riot police would not be used considering the scale of damage.

One additional thought - how do the travellers actually benefit from smashing up the offices - doubt there is anything in there they can actually sell on? Wanton destruction just for fun?

“Mornin luv .... we have some spare malt and brewing hops from a recent job down the road ... still fresh ... would you like to buy some”

Edited by alfaman on Thursday 31st May 06:40

[alfaman]

So 100 travellers trashed a brewery on private land. Too many / too much risk to take action.

If (for example) 300 locals then turned up to subsequently trash and burn the travellers vehicles .... also would be too high risk for the Police to take action - right?

[alfaman]

La Liga said:

ou're quite right. It's sometimes such that a couple of burglars will be released from prison and burglaries immediately increase.

You'll find this minority you speak of will more often than not have long criminal records.

I had been burgled 2 or 3 times when living in the UK ...pretty much exactly what the Police said.

They said there was often a step change in burglaries immediately after a known repeat offender came out of jail ...

And just 1 offender in a town may do dozens of burglaries a week to support a drug habit

[alfaman]

FourWheelDrift said:

There's only one way to get them to move quickly - http://www.mortarinvestments.eu/products/tanks-2#

I do wonder what the legality would be of Thwaites hiring a Cat D9 or perhaps 988 loading shovel to drag / doze or scoop the offending vehicles off the premises. A D9 plus ripper weighs about 60-65 tons.

[alfaman]

Well we all get extra ‘police costs’ added to our council tax bills for the generous Police pension schemes that the Govt can’t seem to afford.

So I pay towards my own pension .... and other people’s too.

‘Because I’m worth it’...

[alfaman]

W124Bob said:

I'm just waiting for the H&S prosecution of Thwaites because one of the temporary residents stubbed a toe on an empty barrel ruining a promising football/modelling/ballet career.

Not sure if any brewing is still done at Blackburn ... if so i would have been tempted to bury a few vehicles under several mash tuns of purged yeast waste. .... or rinse the travellers with some hot water hoses

[alfaman]

La Liga said:

nowing what I know and the scale, I'd expect the police to facilitate them leaving ASAP and then they carry out a thorough investigation once they have left.

I would expect some arrests , ID and details taken, and possibly vehicles impounded.

If I and my mates squatted in a high street shop, smashed it up, shat on the stock, pissed on the floor... and the cops turned up ..... i’d Be free to go while giving a finger to the plod just like the travellers

... thought not....

[alfaman]

Earthdweller said:

Not far off really .. most of the famous brands have been sold off ..and are produced elsewhere .. there is no mass brewing there anymore

It’s a massive site which Thwaites are in the process of moving out of to new premises at Salmesbury outside

I used to visit the Whitbread Salmesbury brewery regularly for work ...interesting that Thwaites are setting up there ( or is whitbread contract producing for them?)

Edited by alfaman on Saturday 2nd June 19:51

[alfaman]

Red 4 said:

To put it in Rovingtroll's terms (because he purports to being ex-military, although I have my doubts).

Do you think we could put together a Task Force to re-take the Falklands today, given the cuts in the armed forces and deployments elsewhere ?

Answer: not a fking chance.
..

But because we did effective strategic planning on this back in 1984 .... we won’t need to

We have a garrisoned airbase there and rapid deployment capability - which we didn’t have in 1982.

... no need for task force.

( I was based in FI for 2 years on the airbase project)

[alfaman]

Didn’t Ireland partly tackle the issue through a change in law to prevent parking up and camping on land that was not specifically ‘designated’ for that purpose?

If that worked .... could that not be implemented in the UK?

As an aside - is there much of an issue with travellers in Northern Ireland?

[alfaman]

question for the police on here

.. in the case of traveler invasion of private property ( as opposed to a council owned park ) ..

what would the response be if the business owner engaged some private 'security' to get the travelers off the land .. say some security who were paid to get rid of the travelers by whatever means needed ?

as the Police resources are not nearly enough to deal with just the travelers, and hence not nearly enough to deal with a full-on travelers ruck with other ppl ... would the Police then not interfere in the ensuing ruck .. and just let things take their course ? and would the fire brigade intervene if caravans got burnt during the fracas ? ( or stand back with the Police due to safety risks ? )

( perhaps some similar scenarios played out during the 2011 riots ? )

[alfaman]

Bedfordshire aren’t a lot better ...

I once saw what I think was a drunk driver drive into my car parked outside my house ... and then drive off ...got the car details and reg number and immediately phoned the Police... saying there was a dangerous driver weaving about who drove into my car.

The response was “err we are a bit busy this evening”

A few days later I called again ... “did you not follow up later in the evening and visit his address”?

“We went round and knocked on the door (this was a couple of days later) ... but got no answer”

.. that was it

Lesson : you can be stfaced in bedfordshire ... and drive away from an accident .... just don’t bother to answer the door if and when the Police pop round

Edited by alfaman on Thursday 14th June 20:24

[alfaman]

rxe said:

010101 said:

How could the owners of the brewery have defended their property?

If they had a Caterpillar D9 delivered and proceeded to enforce the privacy of their site, what would have happened?

Do non-government people have any power at all?

They would have been promptly arrested for bulldozing caravans.

Surely clearing rubbish from the brewery / private land is not an offense

[alfaman]

markcoznottz said:

Presumably the use of those 'syringe drivers' in the NHS was a state sponsored way of accelerating death for old people with failing bodies? But obviously it was not officially sanctioned no one saw anything etc.

Or more like accelerated death for people whose bodies were NOT failing (?) ... eg : older fit person goes into hospital for something minor - gets drugged up to the eyeballs and ends up in the morgue

[alfaman]

markcoznottz said:

Red 4 said:

rxe said:

Like I said, make taking the piss less attractive. Can you tell my why seizing their assets wouldn’t help? I’d deal with irregular large scale criminality by making the consequences of it so serious that they wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t have to deal with every encampment, you just deal with a few.

Simple thought experiment. Say in Lancashire, the police had powers to seize all assets used in a trespass. Do you think the caravan dwellers would be more or less likely to take the piss in Lancashire, or would they go somewhere else?

Because you can't just apply the law to 1 section of society - no matter what you might think of them.

It's called racism and victimisation.
I know that won't sit well with many on here but it is what it is.

Seizing Joe Public's motorhome because he parked it somewhere he shouldn't and then flogging it ?

I can imagine the outrage and condemnation ...

Joe public don't break into business premises, dump on the carpet, and steal the copper do they you retard. They also tend to have a receipt for thier motor home. Inside the modern plod social worker brain. It's 'victimisation' to seize assets used in the illegal occupation of premises. Never mind the caravans should be seized under proceeds of crime act.

Why not use some similar laws that are used for mass looting / theft / arson / London riots ?

In most countries ‘en masse’ ongoing Looting / theft / arson / criminal damage ... is met with armed police / tear gas and water cannon.

But no doubt that is beyond the remit and capability of our Police.

( many of my friends in Asia were just astonished at the (slow and initially feeble) response to London riots .. and mass arson and looting. )

Eg: “ In India we’d fire a couple of warning shots first to get ppl to disperse.... “

[alfaman]

Red 4 said:

It is.

You want to use water cannon on a group of travellers (inc women and children) because some of them are stripping a brewery ?
.

Well it might help clean up the excrement.

To be honest - water cannon on a crowd of thugs looting and pillaging $’00s of K of assets / damage wouldn’t be totally out of proportion .. could add some Dettol.