According to Gwent Police that is. Snarking at the hairstyle of a convicted cocaine dealer is now a crime which can lead to prosecution. At which point perhaps we should be revisiting the criminal law and deciding that snark, insult and piss taking are, as the old rhyme has it, names that can never hurt. It’s sticks and stones, actual violence, that matters:
Police have warned social media users they could face arrest if they “troll” a wanted drug dealer by mocking his distinctive hairstyle.
That Dame Vera Baird doesn’t understand rape nor rape statistics isn’t all that surprising. All too few do. That Dame Vera Baird is now in charge of whining about rape and rape statistics does make this a problem. This is an issue that we’ve addressed more than once around here.
Dame Vera is complaining that:
Rape prosecutions have “dropped off a cliff” because the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is acting like a “bookies” that only backs cases it will win, says the new victims’ commissioner.
Nor is our rape trial problem because we inhabit a patriarchy, nor even because the underlying problem is purely about consent to an entirely legal activity. It is, obviously enough, legal to have sex – we don’t go around jailing mothers purely on the grounds that they must have bumped uglies at some point. The defining line between rape and not rape is that issue of consent. Yes, of course, non-consent should be a crime, is a crime and will continue to be one.…
See MoreQuite why this should be controversial, why it should even be news is unknown:
Scotland Yard is pushing to prosecute all the 1,130 people arrested in the Extinction Rebellion (XR) protest as it called for tougher penalties to deter similar demonstrations. The Metropolitan Police has set up a dedicated unit of 30 officers to investigate the public order offences allegedly committed by the arrested protesters who range in age from 19 to over 70. “It is our anticipation that we are putting all of those [arrested] to the Crown Prosecution Service,” said Laurence Taylor, deputy assistant commissioner.
It’s entirely possible that we’d like to shield children from some of the vicissitudes, viciousnesses, of the modern world. Even some of those outbreaks of the medieval world to which we’re currently subject. It’s also rather an over reaction to jail someone for three years for showing us photographs of those very things.
For, however distressing varied horrors from Isis are they’re still actually that reality out there. We’ll not be able to grasp what is happening without knowing of what is being done now, will we?…
See MoreIt’s obvious enough that there really are stalkers out there. People who obsessively follow and interfere with the lives of others. It’s equally obvious that this should – at some limit at least – be a crime and one that is punished in order to dissuade. It is perhaps less obvious that a major push has been made in recent years concerning this crime. More attention is paid to it. At which point we get these statistics, numbers which we’ve got to try and pull the truth out of:
… See MoreEight out of 10 people accused of stalking are not charged despite reported cases to the police having tripled in four years.