The Paul Clarke affair — the guy who handed in a shotgun he’d found to the police and ended up being found guilty of possessing a firearm - continues to provoke strong feelings. People are unclear about whether or not he will have to serve the minimum of 5 years or whether, in fact, it’s possible that this case will count as an ‘exceptional circumstance’ enough for some other outcome.
In other words, until he’s actually been given 5 years, it may be wise to wait and see.
But, really, there’s another aspect of this story that’s been bothering me far more than the case itself. It’s been the reaction to it.
For example, I shared Paul’s tale with my work colleagues and was met with disbelief. These things, I’m told, don’t happen. There must be something dodgy about the guy, and the police must have had a pretty good reason to want to arrest him and charge him.
Oh, to have such faith in our criminal justice system!
I’m coming to the conclusion that when people hear about this sort of injustice – whether it’s terror suspects being locked up without charge or access to legal representation or some fool falls victim to a faceless, arbitrary and inhuman bureaucracy – they react by blaming the victim.
Blaming the victim is psychologically comforting. It means that the horrible thing only happened because of something the victim has done wrong, that such things wouldn’t happen to normal, decent people. The logic becomes circular when, lacking any evidence or information one way or another, people like to believe that when something bad happens to someone, that’s proof that they’re probably not normal or decent.
And this, it seems, is how you boil a frog. Even when the state sticks black bags over people’s heads and carries them away never to be seen again, most people prefer to believe it’ll never happen to them.
Jennie said...
16 Nov 09 at 2:31 pm
This is what happens when women are blamed for being raped for wearing short skirts, too. Just sayin’.
Charlotte Gore said...
16 Nov 09 at 2:32 pm
It was in my mind when I wrote this. :S
Roger Thornhill said...
16 Nov 09 at 2:36 pm
Older people remember Dixon of Dock Green or other foundations of our Common Law system, so often think things “work”. Flawed it was, but in the main people could live their lives in a law abiding manner and not have to interact with the State or its agents for years at a time. As long as you did not steal, threaten, harm or defraud, you could be confident you had “nothing to hide”.
Now? We have aircraft that are fundamentally unstable and require constant intervention just to keep in the air. It is often called “fly by wire”. Likewise our lives are becoming increasingly “by wire” needing constant adjustment just to not “break” a “law”, or should I say “fall foul of increasingly half-arsed regulations”. Most of the time we do not know our flight computers are flashing red. All it will take is for some functionary to decide to go on a fishing expedition and we are bang to rights.
Heresiarch said...
16 Nov 09 at 2:38 pm
I’m not sure what to make of this. For one thing, apart from the local report last week, I can find no information about it. Normally, stories like this are quickly picked up in the Daily Mail, among other places. So the fact that – despite the extensive blogging it has attracted – Paul Clarke’s (on the face of it) outrageous treatment hasn’t made more waves suggests to me that there is, indeed, something fishy about it. I say that, incidentally, not because I have any faith in the good sense of the justice system.
Mark Pack said...
16 Nov 09 at 3:12 pm
Charlotte: I wonder if you’re partly guilty of a very similar mode of behaviour – in this case seeing an apparently outrageous story about illiberalism and assuming it must be true?
It seems to me that there are all sorts of holes in some of the accounts.
First, they’re all based on one media report in one local paper as far as I can see. It’s a fairly short report that doesn’t give the prosecution’s side of the case.
Second, a lot of the comments have been about how outrageous an automatic jail sentence would be – both getting wrong what the sentencing law actually means in this case, but also ignoring the fact the CPS would have had to decide whether or not it was in the public interest to prosecute. What was the basis on which they made that decision? Across the blogs it would appear no-one knows – and plenty of people don’t mind not knowing before making up their minds.
Third, the person didn’t just find a gun, contact the police and get landed with a prosecution. He found a gun, waited until the following day to call the police – and even then just asked for an appointment rather than say “I’ve found a gun”. That seems odd, to put it mildly – and if the gun had been dumped by a criminal fleeing a crime, that delay could have had a big impact on the crime investigation.
People do weird things all the time, so perhaps that train of events was innocent, even if in the cold light of day it looks odd.
Add all these issues together and what do you have? An awful lot of uncertainty. Perhaps it is a case of outrageous legal provisions gone mad. But to say you’re sure that’s the case seems to me to require you either to ignore the facts of the case – or to have some other evidence that I’ve missed?
James D said...
16 Nov 09 at 4:07 pm
These sorts of outrages have been happening for years, thanks to the idiotic Star-Chamber-esque concept of “strict liability” (i.e. tossing half the rules of criminal proceedings out of the window). It’s what’s to blame for everything from ambulance-chasing lawyers to third-rate supermarkets owned by Labour Party donors refusing to sell wine to 30-year-olds.
Everyone has their favourite cases that show quite how absurd this feature of law is. Here are a couple that I find particularly interesting:
Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Storkwain (1986) (A pharmacist got convicted for falling for a fake prescription.)
A.D.T. v United Kingdom (2000) (In a rare reversal, the European Court of Human Rights told the British government to go away on gay group sex (and the filming thereof — you might well be able to argue that the applicant was foolish). Sadly, this was on the grounds of their right to a private life, rather than on grounds of the failure to include any need to prove mens rea in the law of sexual offences — and ultimately, we’ve seen what good that did more recently in the Goddard case a few months back.)
I could go on, but suffice it to say we would be well rid of this 19th Century over-reaction to the evils of the industrial revolution. Half-applying mediaeval rules of justice has only resulted in the sort of justice that would have been considered a disgrace in the Middle Ages. There needs to be legislation now to ensure that no court can ever convict again without mens rea having been proven beyond reasonable doubt.
As for Mr Clarke, I encourage take this all the way to Strasbourg: this makes a mockery of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Hywel said...
16 Nov 09 at 4:19 pm
“Oh, to have such faith in our criminal justice system!”
Like Mark I think there are some missing pieces here – the outrage may be justified but without them it’s hard to say.
Not the criminal justice system as such but certainly I do in juries. In this instance the jury reached a guilty verdict in 20 minutes. Maybe he was unlucky and had a jury who didn’t take much care in reaching their decision (though I’d say that’s pretty rare). 20 minutes when they also have to take time to elect a foreman doesn’t suggest much doubt or concern.
There is a lot of comment on this on not a lot of facts. I’ve still not read what offence he was actually convicted of – which makes it hard to be certain that the mandatory 5 year sentence applies.
I’ve also read a report that his statement was read to the court and not tested in cross-examination. That strikes me as a very odd set of circumstances. (honest mistake by a decent person may not be a defence in law but it has persuaded a lot of juries – however to run with that you’ve pretty much got to give evidence in person)
Elephant said...
16 Nov 09 at 4:45 pm
Clearly this chap is dodgy. Not only does he get himself arrested and convicted of possession, but he doesn’t even have the decency to ensure that his ulterior dodginess falls into recognised categories of criminal conduct that can be prosecuted through the normal channels.
I say why stop there. Why should prosecutors be required to prove that you have no reasonable excuse for having a knife? Let’s have strict liability. Of course the CPS won’t prosecute ordinary chefs unless there’s something else dodgy about them.
And the level of convictions in rape cases is a disgrace, because of the difficulty of proving a lack of consent. Criminalise all sexual activity – strict liability, obviously. The police won’t pursue it in the normal course, only where they know it was really rape but they can’t find the evidence. Why wouldn’t you trust them? Do you have something to hide?
Honestly, when did this country get so lily-livered. It’s human rights gone mad, I tell you.
Paul Walter said...
16 Nov 09 at 4:47 pm
There were about 1000 words in the Surrey Today report of this. In the average court case there are many times that number of words spoken plus infinite examples of body language, voice pitch, eye movement etc etc
So there may be quite a bit of the old disease of “bloggus conclusionus jumpitis” going on here.
I tend to sympathise with Mr Clarke, but as someone who has been on a jury for four cases, including one as foreman, I would not seek to totally dismiss a court’s conclusion without actually being there or reading more of a detailed report than just a thousand words on a local paper website plus, of course, 200,000 words of blog speculation.
Just as a thought, have you seen this report from the archive of Surrey Today? It is irrelevant to the case, but it is worth reading it as background:
http://tinyurl.com/surreytodaydvla
Has it crossed your mind that if you were a police officer and someone brought a bin liner into an interview room with you and then unwrapped it to reveal a sawn off shotgun, you might require a change of underwear? So, the law in this case, i.e, it would seem, encouraging people to call the police to examine and collect a firearm in situ if they spot one (rather than bringing said firearm into a police station) is not totally mad. Having said that, a sentence of five years for what seems to be, on the face of it, clumsiness, does seem rather baffling.
So, I come back to the point. We need more information on this case.
Constantly Furious said...
16 Nov 09 at 4:48 pm
Exactly.
And when you hear that he’s known to the police already, it reinforces this thinking (though it quite clearly should not).
The “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” line is how ‘they’ will eventually supress us all…
asquith said...
16 Nov 09 at 4:57 pm
“There must be something dodgy about the guy, and the police must have had a pretty good reason to want to arrest him and charge him.”
Needn’t bother with a trial then, eh? I remember very well that people said very similar things about Robert Murat, who as far as I know is wholly innocent of anything apart from having made a piss-poor choice of “friends” given the people queuing up to slag him off once he was named as a suspect.
I tell you what though. Is having a shotgun such a bad thing in the first place? If he was on his way to a clay pigeon shoot, or was just terrified of being attacked & thought the police wouldn’t protect him, is it really such a heinous thing? I wonder.
Paul Walter said...
16 Nov 09 at 5:14 pm
“Exactly.
And when you hear that he’s known to the police already, it reinforces this thinking (though it quite clearly should not).
The “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” line is how ‘they’ will eventually supress us all…”
The key point here is, as I understand court procedure, this would not have mentioned in court, as it is not allowed.
Elephant said...
16 Nov 09 at 6:06 pm
Ah, Constantly Furious, but was he an habitual scroat, or “yet to be convicted of an offence“?
Dan said...
16 Nov 09 at 6:06 pm
“These things, I’m told, don’t happen. There must be something dodgy about the guy, and the police must have had a pretty good reason to want to arrest him and charge him. Oh, to have such faith in our criminal justice system! …such things wouldn’t happen to normal, decent people. The logic becomes circular when, lacking any evidence or information one way or another, people like to believe that when something bad happens to someone, that’s proof that they’re probably not normal or decent.”
I’m not being funny, but why don’t you do some of the following:
a) speak to the reporter who covered the case and see if there’s more to it from him/her, first hand
b) pay for a transcript of the court case
c) write to the judge
d) anything else which might approximate to attempting to discover actual, real, new facts, rather than just giving us your opinions which don’t seem to be based on anything, much?
Charlotte Gore said...
16 Nov 09 at 6:18 pm
Actually the reporter who was in the court for the full 2 days, and has spoken to Paul etc, has again confirmed that the report is accurate.
The Jury, unless they wished to overturn the law, had to find him guilty because he’d admitted to being in possession of that firearm.
The problem is that in lots of other cases, the police have not arrested individuals for similar things – for example, one man was told by the police to bring the weapon to the station and refused to send an officer to pick it up.
At this point I’m perfectly prepared to wait until the actual sentencing before making any further comment.
But… how people react to this story, this automatic assumption that there’s something dodgy about this guy that struck me as disturbing and worth mentioning.
Gregory Carlin said...
16 Nov 09 at 6:37 pm
“That seems odd, to put it mildly – and if the gun had been dumped by a criminal fleeing a crime, that delay could have had a big impact on the crime investigation.”
You still have Z-cars in your part of the world? I am afraid Dixon of Dock Green faded a little for the rest of us.
‘Police admit they “could have done things better” after telling a landlady to destroy thousands of pages of child pornography she found in a flat.’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7537721.stm
That’s fairly common.
Gregory
Paul Walter said...
16 Nov 09 at 6:42 pm
“speak to the reporter who covered the case and see if there’s more to it from him/her, first hand”
Yes, as Charlotte mentions, the reporter, Holly Thompson has been twittering with some very interesting details:
http://twitter.com/h_thompson
I’m starting to feel more and more concerned about this case, esepcially when considering that current Home Office advice to police is:
“Anyone surrendering an illegally held
firearm should be questioned discreetly with
a view to establishing its history but, unless
circumstances exist to give serious cause for
concern as to its provenance (for example,
if it appears to have been stolen), the
person handing it in should not be pressed.
The emphasis should be on creating an
environment in which people hand in illegally
held firearms.”
http://bit.ly/h20mv
Charlotte Gore said...
16 Nov 09 at 7:50 pm
Brilliant, Paul.
Billy Bunter said...
16 Nov 09 at 10:58 pm
Garden guns are supposed to be exempt,
‘The Falco 9mm rimfire rifle is small enough to fit into a large pocket – but is this garden gun fit for purpose?’
http://www.shootinguk.co.uk/guns/339966/Falco_9mm_rimfire_rifle_review.html
I use mine, for shooting rats, I would have said “I have a garden gun’ – I’m going to rat with it, it fits nicely in my pocket, see ya all later.
A sawn-off shotgun is smoothore, 90 No. 7 shot pellets up the ass of any rat that crosses my path (quite literally).
Billy
Malcolm Todd said...
17 Nov 09 at 9:49 am
When trying to establish whether there has been a crime (particularly if you’re bothered about mens rea – I do love a bit of Latin on the web), it’s usually valuable to ask whether there’s a motive. With that in mind, the most interesting thing I found from following Paul Walter’s links above is that Paul Clarke was previously convicted of an assault which was overturned on appeal a year ago:
http://www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/news/Man-accused-attacking-DVLA-inspector-broom-walks-free/article-361380-detail/article.html
If you’re of the Daily Mail persuasion, you might like to take this as proof that he’s a dodgy geezer and it’s just as well they finally caught him for something. Myself, I’m inclined to wonder whether somebody in Surrey Police saw a chance for revenge on an uppity sod who refused to knuckle under last time. Either way, there’s obviously some history here.
Dan said...
17 Nov 09 at 11:01 am
“Actually the reporter who was in the court for the full 2 days, and has spoken to Paul etc, has again confirmed that the report is accurate.”
A few things occur to me from your reply and that of Paul Walters below:
1. ‘Reporter confirms reporter’s report was accurate’ is not really a story.
OK, I know one of my suggestions was to speak to the reporter (though it was only one) but I wasn’t looking for ‘Did you make any mistakes?’ but ‘Did you leave anything out?’
2. The reporter says she was in court for the full two days; she cannot have reported everything in a piece described by Paul Walters above as being ‘of about 1000 words’.
As he says, ‘In the average court case there are many times that number of words spoken plus infinite examples of body language, voice pitch, eye movement etc etc’.
What was left out?
(And why did this case even take two days, given that the defendant seems not to have given evidence? I’m interested as to why Clarke chose to take this route, whether he was represented at police interviews, what advice his solicitor [if he had one] gave him and so on.)
3. “The Jury, unless they wished to overturn the law, had to find him guilty”
There’s actually quite a long history of juries finding people not guilty because they think a case is unfairly brought or the punishment the defendant will face is disproportionate. It seems they didn’t think that in this case.
4. As I originally said, why not purchase the court report (I think this is easily done)?
Or write to the judge?
Or contact Clarke’s solicitor – who has now been contacted by Radio 4?
In other words, why not do some digging?
This case is a classic case of which the majority of the ‘blogosphere’ is struggling to replace proper journalism (I’m aware that much journalism is not ‘proper’, but that’s a different point) after the death of newspapers; it’s just masses of comment and speculation on limited facts (based, ironically, on one obviously flawed report by a ‘MSM’ journalist) with no attempt to get out there and find stuff out.
Charlotte Gore said...
17 Nov 09 at 11:38 am
Well, investigative journalism isn’t my particular niche. I’ve never claimed to be anything other than a blogger and have no pretensions of being a journalist… I don’t even consider myself a writer.
Dan said...
17 Nov 09 at 12:06 pm
What are you doing here, if not writing?
And it’s hardly investigative journalism to expect people to search for a few facts before developing opinions, surely?
I must say, I don’t disgree with your general point – that on the facts as they appear this guy is hard done by. But if we’re going to start screaming about the terror of the state, it is sensible, I think, to at least try to establish some facts?
Charlotte Gore said...
17 Nov 09 at 12:11 pm
You’ve consistently implied that there’s reason to doubt the accuracy of the original source, despite the journalist confirming the details and the comments of Paul’s lawyer on R4 last night. Extract from PM on CF’s blog.
I’m wondering why you’re maintaining there’s more facts yet to be uncovered when you have no basis for believing so other than, “well there MUST be”.
Malcolm Todd said...
17 Nov 09 at 12:27 pm
Charlotte: I think you’re missing Dan’s point. The journalist confirming her own story is hardly corroboration, and Paul Clarke’s lawyer can hardly be cited as an impartial source.
Should we doubt whether there are more facts than first appear to this story, another side to the events? Well, ask yourself: if the starting point of this story was a government report, would you be prepared to take their word for it, or would you question their motives for what they tell you and whether they might have an interest in presenting a less than wholly honest picture?
Dan said...
17 Nov 09 at 12:42 pm
Look, there are obviously more facts than are contained in one court report. Apart from anything else, Clarke himself did not give evidence.
These may be exculaptory or not, but they exist.
All I’m saying is before you start shouting about how appalling this all is – based on the word of one reporter on one local paper – why not try to find out some of those facts?
It might strengthen your case.
Paul Walter said...
17 Nov 09 at 1:04 pm
My guess is that the judge will pass a sentence of zero days. i.e. release Clarke without a prison sentence. Why? Because the judge can reduce the miniumum sentence in “exceptional circumstances” of which there is no proscribed list. Finding a gun and handing it in to the police is clearly an “exceptional circumstance”.
So you have to ask why the police arrested him and why the CPS charged him? Well, he’d been previously tried and cleared on appeal for an alleged attack on a DVLA inspector with a broomhandle.
And he’d previously been found in possession of a cattle prod. So, he was presumably “known to the police” – indeed he seem to know the Chief Super as he was able to phone him personally. So this background may be why the police thought it was best to follow their strange procedure, even in contradiction of the Home Office guidance in such cases. I don’t defend this, in fact the whole thing is an appalling waste of public money, but I can understand it, while not being sypathetic to it. It is a logical reason why the police did what they did, perhaps.
Dan said...
17 Nov 09 at 2:01 pm
I’m not keen on speculation, but to join in: it may be that his behaviour was not as described in his statement (which would be a good reason not to give evidence ie to avoid a cross examination).
It may also be that the police would like a firearms conviction on his record as they have intelligence about him, to which we’re not privy, which makes this desirable.
This is a guy with convictions after all; a suspended sentence with conditions, or monitoring of some sort might make sense.
If they know this guy is a slightly weird loose cannon with a history involving cattle prods, personally I’m not surprised they go for the conviction (their job) and let the judge decide on sentence (his or her job). Because if Clarke goes loco at some point in the future, few people will ask what the filth were doing letting him off when he walked in with a loaded shooter the year before, will they?
Von Spreuth said...
17 Nov 09 at 6:19 pm
XX but also ignoring the fact the CPS would have had to decide whether or not it was in the public interest to prosecute.XX
After the hundreds of stories we have heard where they have decided NOT to prosecute bang to bloody rights assholes, or TO prosecute people for handing out anti queer leaflets at public events, you have a touching faith.
Lord Mandelson of Ballymacarrett said...
17 Nov 09 at 10:48 pm
“Myself, I’m inclined to wonder whether somebody in Surrey Police saw a chance for revenge on an uppity sod who refused to knuckle under last time. Either way, there’s obviously some history here.”
That happens, it is a running score phenomena, there was a time, in London, it was the only plan, re: south London and east London gangsters. You got them for ‘something’.
And in truth, what’s wrong with the philosophy? Unless you start scalping merely because you want to re-edit the scorecard over past trivia.
‘Mr Clarke accused Mr Hart of exaggerating his injuries, adding: “I reckon he wanted some time off work and compensation.”‘
I am reluctant to believe the worst of civil servants bravely venturing forth, however the gentleman was a witness to the DVLA event he is not guilty of.
I would not suggest ( because of the law of defamation) the DVLA planted a gun in a garden.
That would be quite rash.
Lord Mandelson
Donald Rumsfeld said...
17 Nov 09 at 10:57 pm
“And he’d previously been found in possession of a cattle prod.”
And in China, he’d be a police officer. Have you tried getting information from a cow?
The problem with liberals, is you expect other braver folks to solve you problems, and then you get hysterically upset, because a few suspects get their heads stuffed in a vice @ Bagram.
One other thing, in DC, you Brits are a beggar.
Donald Rumsfeld
Von Spreuth said...
18 Nov 09 at 9:40 am
XX Charlotte Gore said…
17 Nov 09 at 12:11 pm
You’ve consistently implied that there’s reason to doubt the accuracy of the original source, despite the journalist confirming the details and the comments of Paul’s lawyer on R4 last night. Extract from PM on CF’s blog.
I’m wondering why you’re maintaining there’s more facts yet to be uncovered when you have no basis for believing so other than, “well there MUST be”. XX
Because he has fallen pray to the VERY juvenille side of the internet, who believe NOTHING in the bloody world EVER happens without it being a “conspiracy”. WHICH, of course suits the “Governments” very well, it saves them a FORTUNE on having to cover up their mistakes, or even their deliberate actions, themselves.
ALL care of juvenile bastards that polute the internet of today.
Dan said...
18 Nov 09 at 10:38 am
Von Spreuth, I think you’ve missed my point ever so slightly.
I’m not claiming there is any ‘conspiracy’; I’m just saying we don’t know the full facts – because we don’t, as I’ve explained pretty clearly.
So Clarke may have been treated fairly or unfairly: we just don’t know.
Beyond that, I am merely suggesting that, before they leap into either corner, people should consider attempting to discover some facts.
That’s all.
David Weber said...
18 Nov 09 at 4:39 pm
“There must be something dodgy about the guy, and the police must have had a pretty good reason to want to arrest him and charge him.”
Even if there was, the courts didn’t come to this decision, and they cannot test it — this discretionary power is only granted to the police. In other words, for justice to be done, we have to trust the police, rather than the courts, to work out unpleasant details such as whether a person was actually guilty of criminally procuring a firearm or not.
Mark Pack said...
18 Nov 09 at 5:07 pm
David: that’s not the full story though as far as I can see. To give two examples – the CPS have discretion over whether or not they think it is in the public interest to prosecute. Juries similarly can (and sometimes do) find people innocent if they view the situation as absurd or disproportionate.
The whole process involves a lot more people making decisions than the ‘law on auto-pilot’ accounts some people have given.
Dan said...
18 Nov 09 at 5:44 pm
David Weber said: “(W)we have to trust the police, rather than the courts, to work out unpleasant details such as whether a person was actually guilty of criminally procuring a firearm or not.”
That’s not the case: your lack of understanding is astonishing.
The police don’t even decide whether to charge – this is a decision made by the CPS after they receive a file sent to them by the police.
Beyond that, it is the jury (in indictable cases) which decides ‘guilt’, not the police OR the CPS.
Ironically, police officers will tell you how frustrated they are by the regular rejection of what they view as sound cases by CPS lawyers, who are labouring under a target as to convictions – so it’s not even the case that juries get to decide innocence; often this decision is de facto made by the CPS at the point where a given CPS lawyer decides not to charge on the basis that, in his or her opinion, there in insufficient chance of a conviction at trial.
JuliaM said...
19 Nov 09 at 6:45 pm
“It may also be that the police would like a firearms conviction on his record as they have intelligence about him, to which we’re not privy, which makes this desirable.”
I expect they would. Buit surely you aren’t arguing that the safest thing for society is to let the police go off half-cocked and use a poorly-drawn up law to get something on h…
Oh. I see you are: “This is a guy with convictions after all; a suspended sentence with conditions, or monitoring of some sort might make sense.”
*sigh*
Dan said...
19 Nov 09 at 7:08 pm
‘Let the police go off half-cocked’? So I take it you have some inside knowledge of the ca…
Ah. No.
It seems you’re just commenting on something you read about in the ‘MSM’ (which you normally affect to despise, amusingly).
Once again, for the really hard of thinking:
1. The CPS decide on charge, not the police. (And if the evidence isn’t there, the CPS really don’t like to charge.)
2. The court decides on guilt, not the police.
How many times with you people, FFS?
Von Spreuth said...
19 Nov 09 at 7:18 pm
But the police decide what goes on the collators report.
And a suspicion of a fire arms offence will red flag his file for the rest of his life.
Do NOT mistake “The ways and means act” for anything resembling a prosecution.
JuliaM said...
19 Nov 09 at 10:17 pm
“It seems you’re just commenting on something you read about in the ‘MSM’…”
Yup, that’s right. I confined myself to reading the established media. I didn’t read any blogs or formus, oh dear me no. How’d I get here again?
“How many times with you people, FFS?”
Gosh, it must be awfully galling to you when people don’t just fall into line and believe what you tell them to believe, eh? Why don’t you stamp your feet? You never know, that might do the trick…
Dan said...
20 Nov 09 at 8:27 am
Ah. So you’re commenting on other people’s comments in one local paper… You didn’t even read the original ‘source’.
You should have said.
(Credibility is strong with this one.)
I’m not stamping my feet, though; I’m just pointing out that you have nada in the way of evidence for your contention that this is Big Brother grinding his boot into a human face. I don’t have any that it isn’t, but then I’ve never said I have – all I’ve said is there are serious unanswered questions on both sides of the argument and can we try to establish the full facts before we all start squealing and firing up the outrage bus.
I’ve read your own blog: it consists of fisking the Daily Mail while talking about how terrible the ‘MSM’ is – but you have never, so far as I can recall, ever found anything out for yourself (read ‘broken a story’). You should try it – you seem to have enough time on your hands! But then, ‘commentary’ is so much easier I guess.
JuliaM said...
20 Nov 09 at 10:29 am
“Credibility is strong with this one.”
Remind us of your own claims to credibility..?
*crickets*
“…can we try to establish the full facts before we all start squealing and firing up the outrage bus.”
Oh, but it’s such a big bus, and there so much room.
But still, let’s see what he gets, eh? It better not be longer than 16 months. After all, this commenter points out at ‘Inspector Gadget’s, that that’s what you get for actually FIRING a loaded shotgun in public, while having numerous convictions.
Not that he served that, though; they’ll take off the 4 months he spent on remand and get an automatic half-sentence cut. So he’ll be out in March….
The justice system. Great, isn’t it?
“I’ve read your own blog: it consists of fisking the Daily Mail while talking about how terrible the ‘MSM’ is…”
That’s hardly all it consists of, so I guess you just managed to read the one post. Sorry, Dan, I’ll try to make the words a little shorter for your next visit.
Or you could show us all how its done? Point us to your own blog?
You do have one, don’t you?
Dan said...
20 Nov 09 at 11:09 am
Last post from me, which means you’ll inevitably have the last word J…
Look, I’m not claiming any special credibility, I’m just saying – for the last time – let’s try and find out the facts before jumping to outraged conclusions.
What’s difficult about that?
Constantly Furious said...
20 Nov 09 at 11:57 am
You do have one, don’t you?.
I suspect not. Methinks ‘Dan’ is the blog equivalent of a restaurant critic.
He knows exactly what should and should not be done, and is more than happy to share this wisdom at great and tedious length, but can he chop an onion? Oh no.
Prove us wrong, Dan. Toss us a salad…
Von Spreuth said...
20 Nov 09 at 12:29 pm
Na THAT should be easy. He seems like a RIGHT tosser.