Picking up the wreckage - by Richard... Thursday, August 18, 2011

Picking up the wreckage - by Richard... Thursday, August 18, 2011

For all the bellicose talk of dealing with the rioters and looters, here is an example of the "justice" system at work. Alcoholic Thomas Downey, 48, who was caught helping himself to doughnuts from a Krispy Kreme shop, was jailed for 16 months today. Hapless Downey, of no fixed address, had only been released from Strangeways prison at 7.30pm on Tuesday when he found himself in the midst of the rioting.

After attending a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, the serial offender proceeded to down a bottle of sherry and stumbled into the Krispy Kreme, in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, which was unsecured after being attacked earlier. He was almost immediately caught red-handed with a box of doughnuts, worth £17, when 20 riot police arrived. He was returned to custody.

Downey admitted burglary and breach of an Asbo by entering part of Manchester City Centre from which he is prohibited. The judge told him: "You are an alcoholic. That is established by your record which shows a chronic condition. You drink too much, too regularly and when in drink become threatening and abusive".

"Indeed on the evening before your arrest you had been released from prison and seem to have got no further than Piccadilly", said the judge. "The shop keeper described your condition in blunt terms, 'he was pissed'".

Downey's offending history - printed over 33 pages - included more than 100 convictions for 233 offences. In mitigation, Zoe Nield told the court Downey left prison with just £4 in his pocket.

Although he wasn't involved in the rioting, he saw the Krispy Kreme store unsecured and helped himself because he was hungry, having spent all his money on tobacco. She said: "He can't recall the events because he was drunk but he has expressed remorse."

One does not have to be a bleeding heart liberal here to see that jail is not the answer to the Downey problem – not least because it is an expensive and ineffective measure in this case. Likely, the best option would have been a secure rehabilitation centre, except that there are rarely enough places, and that part of the system is under-funded.

In any society, though, there are always inadequates. That is a fact of life, and a humane – to say nothing of sensible – society deals with it. Using the prison system as a human garbage dump, on the other hand, is not really an answer. It perpetuates the problem and costs us more in the long run.

Strangely, there is a system where inadequates like Downey could be pulled in to supervised employment, enabling them to make something of their lives. It is called Remploy. Yet its workshops are being closed down and the system is being dismantled, something initiated byLabour and not reversed by the caring, sharing Boy.

What is happening though, is that the plods, storming into the riot areas, have been missing the "first wave" of rioters and looters, and picking up the inadequates like Downey, with the "justice" system then putting them in jail - exactly the opposite of what we need to be doing.

But then, as one learns, it is much easier to bray about "being tough", and to call for more prisons to be built – and filled. Why bother trying to solve a problem when, with a little bit of effort, you can make it considerably worse?

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Not the end, but a rehearsal - by Richard...

While the media is being saturated with tales of the "exemplary" sentences handed down to last week's rioters (were the disturbances really only last week?), very little is being heard about the serial looters in Cleveland, the most salient fact to emerge being that the investigation there is costing £100,000 a month.

We write here, of course, about the scandal of chief constable Sean Price and his deputy, Derek Bonnard, who were arrested this month on suspicion of misconduct in a public office, fraud by abuse of position and corrupt practice. The force's former head of legal services, Caroline Llewellyn, is also implicated.

No doubt the powers that be are extremely relieved that the more overt spate of public looting has driven this episode from the front pages – and the London-centric media was never going to give it much space anyway.

Nevertheless, it is beginning to emerge that Price and his fellow conspirators have been engaged in long-term theft and corruption on a scale that is quite staggering – with a very significant number of people involved.

As to the amateur looters currently going through the courts, considerable concern continues to be expressed about the level of sentencing, leading to a closing of the ranks of the brain dead, with the Big Brave Cameron "talking tough" from behind concrete barricades and the protection of his armed guards.

What is particularly disturbing though is not only the level of sentencing, which is clearly disproportionate in some cases, but what is also the makings of racial bias.

Thus, while white man Nicolas Robinson is jailed by district judge Alan Baldwin for six months for the "opportunist theft" of a £3.50 bottle of water, Ghanaian Ohene Bamfo, charged with robbery, theft and violent disorder, is freed by district judge Tanweer Ikram on the basis that he has already been detained for two days in custody.

Of course, two swallows do not a summer make, but it has to be said that, on occasions like these, the magistrates court system almost invariably gets it wrong – witness the tiny example of Leigton-Morris, which is far more typical than one might imagine.

The issue cries out for inspired political leadership, instead of which we get Cameron. A sensible leader might have recognised that last week's rioting was the "madness of the moment", with underlying tensions and causes, from which responsibility the political classes cannot entirely divorce themselves. A clever response might have been a conditional amnesty – conditional on the loot being returned in a reasonable period – while the great and the good properly investigated the causes.

Lacking such a deft touch, the political classes are going out of their way to leave a legacy of bitterness and a residual feeling of unfairness, while the message sent is one of fear. The knee-jerk reaction speaks of little else.

But the most powerful message of all is that, if you wish to indulge in large-scale looting, wear a uniform with silver braid on your hat. Then, even if you are caught, you will be suspended on full pay while every process of the law is exploited. Not for you will be throw-away summary "justice" and nor, one suspects, will any sentence approach that of the Facebook duo.

And by such means – as we observed earlier – instead of putting the lid on events, the political classes seem intent on turning last week's riots into a rehearsal.