How did I miss this story? Someone finds a sawn off shotgun in his garden and hands it into the police to be disposed of safely, at which point he’s then arrested, charged and now convicted for possessing a firearm. He faces a minimum of 5 years.
It’s a clear miscarriage of justice. The man’s life is ruined because he tried to do the right thing. What reasonable person would believe this is the correct outcome in this case?
Apparently Stuart Sharpe’s not bothered, causing Devil’s Kitchen (and in fairness, myself) to stare open mouthed and incredulous, at his response.
In court, the prosecution said:
“The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant.”
… which sounds fantastically tough and politically wonderful, but in the real world a case has been found which undermines public confidence in this. Clearly it’s not irrelevant, except to politicians who set these rules.
Anyone can see that taking a firearm to a police station isn’t something society should be punishing with 5 years in prison. The law is unjust and wrong – because it allows no other possible outcome – but what politicians will dare stand up for a rethink of the firearm possession rules?
I think none, so Paul Clark is going to rot. And my friend Stuart and others are fine with that. Not amused.
Martin said...
14 Nov 09 at 7:43 pm
Admittedly, the decision may be legally right; however, this isn’t much consolation when the law itself is wrong.
A bit of a shame the jury didn’t consider jury nullification; but that option is basically never given to juries by the Judge. Perhaps we need our own version of the FIJA? http://fija.org/
Stu said...
14 Nov 09 at 7:54 pm
Just to be clear here as well, I don’t believe 5 years is a proportionate penalty, and I didn’t say that. I was mainly reacting to Jennie’s post which suggested he’d ‘done nothing wrong’, which is clearly false – we have a law and he broke it.
The biggest issue here is really the mandatory minimum sentence which seems totally inappropriate and can only have been put in place without giving any thought to this kind of situation. Had there not been a mandatory sentence he would have been let of with a fine, most likely, which would have been far more appropriate.
Charlotte Gore said...
14 Nov 09 at 7:58 pm
Well, the only thing ‘wrong’ he’s done is to break a law. The actual harm caused by that? Well, compulsory 5 years in jail for him. That’s all.
Mark Reckons said...
14 Nov 09 at 8:01 pm
Could make for an interesting House of Comments podcast this week! Constantly Furious is scheduled to be a guest this week.
I’ve had a quick blog about this case here too. You might want to check it out to see the link to another case when the police actually advised someone in a similar case to take a gun and ammunition that he had found to the station!
John said...
14 Nov 09 at 10:03 pm
I don’t understand the people that say `he must be hiding something` unless there’s some very kafkaesque machinations going on with some shady alliances he has.
Why would you go to a police station if that were so and not throw it in a river?
subrosa said...
14 Nov 09 at 10:10 pm
It gets worse though Charlotte. A dangerous murderer, two years into her sentence (indefinite imprisonment) is taken shopping and has absconded.
Aye I said shopping – in a London High Street on a Friday too.
This country’s gone mad.
John Billot said...
14 Nov 09 at 10:21 pm
I think we’re confusing “Law” with “Justice”. Those two were divorced several years ago. The “Law” is something it’s practitioners (police, judges etc) play to keep them in employment whilst the rest of us naive creatures can only stare open-mouthed and wonder what’s happened whilst we were asleep.
DavidNcl said...
14 Nov 09 at 11:23 pm
“he’d ‘done nothing wrong’, which is clearly false – we have a law and he broke it.”
Wow.
Further comment is, I think, pointless.
Ispettore said...
14 Nov 09 at 11:26 pm
But how the hell can you have a conviction without the necessary “mens rea” – the guilty intent – which used to underpin most English law? As a former police officer in another galaxy far away and a long time ago I simply cannot understand the erosion of this principle but I suspect it may have something to do with that arch-weasel of everything foul and twisted in English “Justice” Jack Straw.
The crime of murder used to require “malice aforethought” but that seems to have been dropped too.
Jack Straw deserves prosecution and the death penalty for the extent of his mens rea and malice aforethought.
IvanS said...
15 Nov 09 at 12:09 am
The lesson of this and other travesties of justice in modern Britain is , never put yourself in the firing line by attempting to do the right thing. It’s best to look away, cross to the other side of the road and generally refuse to get involved with anyone in a position of authority unless you absolutely have to. It’s also advisable not to stick to the rules or obey the law if you can get away with it, this is what a decade of New Labour has reduced us to.
Dick Puddlecote said...
15 Nov 09 at 12:50 am
“How did I miss this story?”
It helps if you read the hard copy first.
Gregory Carlin said...
15 Nov 09 at 1:12 am
He should have said it was an exhibit for the Tate Modern. Because strict liability, doesn’t apply to the Tate Gallery.
Well, or so it would appear.
Gregory
Dear Gregory,
Thank you for your original email sent in early October.
In consultation with the artist, Richard Prince, Tate has replaced Spiritual America 1983 with a later version of the work made by him in collaboration with Brooke Shields, Spiritual America IV 2005. The room reopened to the public on Tuesday 13 October 2009.
Tate is in ongoing discussions with legal advisors about the catalogue.
Tate temporarily closed the room displaying Spiritual America following a visit by the police from the Obscene Publications Unit on Wednesday 30 September 2009. The police advised that the work was ‘indecent’ under the Protection of Children Act 1978 and that they considered Tate had committed an offence under that Act. They advised that if the work were not taken down and if the catalogue were not removed from sale a prosecution would be likely. In the circumstances Tate decided that they would withdraw the work from display. The work has now been returned to the lender at his request
Kind regards,
Charlotte Ashworth
Information Manager | Tate Modern
0207 401 5179, 07816 138 908
Belinda BG said...
15 Nov 09 at 1:27 am
Compare with the recent case of an inventor of a bomb-proof blanket had a gun to test the blanket. He had the gun for 10 yrs, the police were tipped off, found the gun and he got an 18mths custodial sentence.
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_home/displayarticle.asp?id=432639
flurbert said...
15 Nov 09 at 1:51 am
What a load of crap. Get the fuck away from me with that kind of noise. I’ll bet a crips fiver against a smelly wet fart that this bloke is a well known crook, and the shotgun is his own. Bullshit.
JuliaM said...
15 Nov 09 at 8:19 am
“I’ll bet a crips fiver against a smelly wet fart that this bloke is a well known crook, and the shotgun is his own. “
Godh, well, it’s hard to argue against such a cogent summation, so I won’t bother. I will ask, though: is a Crips fiver worth the same as a Bloods fiver, or are they on different exchange rates?
JuliaM said...
15 Nov 09 at 8:23 am
The thing that puzzles me about this ’strict liability’ offence is, how do they get around that when they want to run these sort of ‘We’re doing something about gun crime, no really, we ARE..’ initiatives for the benefit of the press?
Do they have to get some sort of nullification act passed for the duration, or is it a kind of ‘gentlemen’s agreement’, much like when small children agree not to peek between their fingers while all the others go off to hide?
One might, otherwise, think they just make it up as they go along. Mightn’t one?
Jennie said...
15 Nov 09 at 12:39 pm
Depressing comments on my blog about this too.
Oranjepan said...
15 Nov 09 at 12:51 pm
Extending the prosecutors absolutist argument that there are never any exceptions to the rule would end up with the requirement that swat team officers and soldiers in barracks be prosecuted too – for the sake of consistency.
Sounds like a dangerous precedent to me…
Oranjepan said...
15 Nov 09 at 12:54 pm
…so maybe not a miscarriage, more like a perversion of justice.
Ispettore said...
15 Nov 09 at 1:15 pm
“Absolute” offences are a dangerous pandering to tabloid hysteria by a government that has absolutely no concept of true justice. Every single one of the bastards ruling us was schooled in totalitarian politics and believes in stealing freedom and imposing control, foot in the door, thin edge of the wedge, bit by bit.
As every single offence is individual to its circumstances how can conviction be “absolute”? Propaganda, repression, show trials, demonisation. New Labour.
Those who voted them in are idiots.
Surreptitious Evil said...
15 Nov 09 at 3:14 pm
I have to say that the strict liability for possession of a firearm or, in this case, a shotgun, without a licence has not changed since the Firearms Act 1968 was passed. All that has happened under New Labour is the mandatory 5-year sentence. Still doesn’t make what has happened ‘right’ though.
Oranjepan – I would refer you to s54 of the Firearms Act 1968 which provides limited exemptions for certain Crown Servants from “possession” offences.
Ispettore said...
15 Nov 09 at 3:41 pm
Well, only just after New Labour came to power a friend of mine clearing a relative’s house after he had died found an automatic pistol and ammunition – presumed to be a war souvenir. He telephoned the local police too and they said just to come into the station and hand it in. He did that and they didn’t even take a statement from him. So if the strict liability existed then why wasn’t he prosecuted? Probably because it was before New Labour took the words “common sense” out of our language and replaced them with “Common Purpose”. Before they obliterated the concept of the constable’s discretion and replaced it with the Commissar and the Clipboard.
This is New Labour. Despite their draconian firearms legislation since 1997 gun crime has doubled. It now stands at more than 10,000 a year in the UK. Serious wounding with firearms has more than doubled. They are full of shit and everything they do just has an opposite effect.
Niklas Smith said...
15 Nov 09 at 6:47 pm
@Surreptitious Evil: So under UK law, if a person wants to get someone they dislike thrown in prison, the best way to do it is a) get a shotgun license, b) buy a shotgun, c) leave it on their property, and d) laugh as the get a five-year mandatory sentence?
(Not that I believe this is what has happened in this case, but surely this could happen so long as the person planning the deed did it secretly.)
If I find something by accident does that mean that I “possess” it automatically? What if I didn’t WANT it in the first place but literally stumbled over it? There clearly has to a limit.
What are people meant to do? Is the correct course of action to phone the police and not touch the gun? That is what I would have done personally.
Rob said...
15 Nov 09 at 6:53 pm
It is incredible that laws can be passed for which there is no defence at all. None.
Contrast this with the “no liability” laws which apply to our MPs.
Rob said...
15 Nov 09 at 6:55 pm
“What are people meant to do? Is the correct course of action to phone the police and not touch the gun? That is what I would have done personally.”
Make the call from a public phone booth, and give a false name. Don’t give them any reason to nick and charge you. A bit difficult for this gentleman, admittedly, as the firearm was on his premises.
Gregory Carlin said...
15 Nov 09 at 10:08 pm
“The thing that puzzles me about this ’strict liability’ offence is, how do they get around that when they want to run these sort of ‘We’re doing something about gun crime, no really, we ARE..’ initiatives for the benefit of the press?”
Like a helpful villain, who wants to do a General de Chastelain? – Well they get a dude, he’s dun stuff, ya know jobs, he’s gotta eat, and that means bank withdrawals – the peelers want him in the witness protection program, problem is,
he is caught with a 9mm biscuit whilst delivering pizza to a women’s refuge in Leeds, it was his fault really, it was a reality TV set the West Yorkshire police were doing about Slovakian Big Issues sellers
The piece is sent down to London, and ballistically tested on a Brazilian consultant for the World Wildlife Fund.
The Home Secretary needs to get rid of the witnesses, and who better to call than the Poppy Project, because if you need a no-witness solution, you need gold standard experts.
‘We’re doing something about gun crime, no really, we ARE..’
far-frigging-out – but what?
Gregory
Lord Mandelson of Ballymacarrett said...
15 Nov 09 at 10:25 pm
R. v Ronald Smart – Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, rings a bell
“It appears to us to be inherent in that statement that he possessed the necessary mens rea (intention) in making the images concerned,” he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4677882.stm
I did this, as a public spirited act etc.
Letters From A Tory said...
16 Nov 09 at 10:50 am
I think this situation is more nuanced that you give it credit for.
If someone’s intentions are taken into account, then you will presumably place the verdict of innocence or guilt on the basis of what they say. For example, someone could walk into a gay club with a shotgun and get caught by the police, only to plead that they had no intention of using and should therefore be excused jail.
See where this all gets messy?
Ispettore said...
16 Nov 09 at 11:16 am
Letters from a Tory – until New Labour arrived on the scene with lots of young police officers and prosecutors who demonstrated an astounding ignorance of the “old” law, mens rea was an essential component of criminal offences.
“If someone’s intentions are taken into account, then you will presumably place the verdict of innocence or guilt on the basis of what they say.”
No, you will base it on the rest of the evidence and whether you believe their account or not. That used to be the basis for English justice – guilt had to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and the state of mind of the alleged perpetrator was taken into account, were the consequences intended? – but that was before trial by tabloid and the “if you are accused you must be guilty” mantra brought to these shores in 1997.
The concept of guilty intent – mens rea -seems to have been abandoned hence so many people being locked up for accidents and “strict liability” offences. It makes me suspicious, as though the state are deliberately flexing their muscles and cowing ordinary people with the fear of doing something wrong – even relatively minor – and being banged up for it in order to exert more control over us.
Oranjepan said...
16 Nov 09 at 1:36 pm
@surreptitious evil
exactly, the law already encompasses an acceptance for the legitimate use of force, which means the legal argument by the prosecutor is unsustainable without explicitly recognising those exceptions – and this requires taking the context into account.
For the individual any discernable intentions are clearly a factor in determining whether a crime has been committed, just as they are definitely a mitigating or aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing.
Relying on purely technical arguments about whether the letter of the law has been adhered to is a retrograde step towards dogmatism, and which, as we have seen in the expenses scandal, is no defense from the ire of the public.
True justice is about the spirit of the law.
So if any gap opens up between the spirit and the letter of the law then that creates an argument for political change… just one more to add to the pile.
Rankersbo (Simon Jerram) said...
16 Nov 09 at 2:16 pm
Of course he did something wrong.
But something that warrented him being charged? No.
Had he just been given a bit of a grilling and let go I would not question this.
Gregory Carlin said...
16 Nov 09 at 6:45 pm
|For example, someone could walk into a gay club with a shotgun and get caught by the police, only to plead that they had no intention of using and should therefore be excused jail. See where this all gets messy?”
http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/ProductImages/Shotgun.jpg
That dude, I would give a free pass to.
Anybody who sticks their tongue out to aim, I just feel, society has to have a little headroom for tongue sticker outers.
Gregory
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