Sunday, July 19, 2009

More vindictive and totally unreasonable British police behaviour (1)

They are not the friendly Bobbies of old. They are now Left-trained thugs who see ordinary people as the enemy. A couple who tidied up a garden were thrown into a riot van for attempted burglary. But if you get your car stolen the British police just yawn

A judge has blasted a waste of taxpayers' money after a couple who picked up items of rubbish from the garden of an abandoned house were thrown into a riot van for attempted burglary. Public-spirited Richard and Lynne Small, both 38, believed they were helping the environment when they recovered leftover junk from the garden near their home in Hull, East Yorks. They collected a pair of old boots, a hose-pipe, a plant, half a shoe lace and used tins of paint from the empty property and used a wheelie bin to carry the trash to their home just a few yards down the road.

But they were left stunned and humiliated when they were arrested, handcuffed and bundled into a police van after being confronted by four officers. After a five-month ordeal ending at the city's Crown Court the couple were finally released without charge. And the case judge has condemned the decision to pursue the matter as a sickening waste of taxpayers' money.

Bricklayer Richard said: 'We couldn't believe it when they slapped handcuffs us and threw us in a riot van. You'd think we'd robbed a bank the way we've been treated. 'When it finally got to court we were charged with the lesser offence of theft by finding and refusing to take a drugs test. We'd refused the drugs sample because we'd done nothing wrong. 'All we did was pick up a bit of litter, we were doing a public service. We'd just been on a walk and thought we could use some of the stuff. It was an eyesore. 'It's been very distressing. The police should be arresting criminals.'

The Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence when the pair appeared at court and their barrister Paul Genney said: 'This was rough justice. It is a gross matter of overkill. 'One would question the reason for the arrest and as for the request to take a drugs test one can well understand their indignation.'

Recorder Paul Isaac formerly entered not guilty verdicts on the theft charges but gave the couple six month conditional discharges for refusing the drugs test. He said: 'This is all unfortunate. It does seem to me to bring this matter to the crown court is something of a waste of public resources. 'Whatever the rights and wrongs, your defence that you have taken these items believing them to be abandoned would likely have been accepted by any sensible jury.'

A spokesman for Humberside Police said: 'We had received a call from a member of the public saying they believed two people were stealing from the house. 'We followed procedure and now the police and the Crown Prosecution Service have decided not to continue the case.'

SOURCE

More vindictive and totally unreasonable British police behaviour (2)

They are not the friendly Bobbies of old. They are now Left-trained thugs who see ordinary people as the enemy. An offence to invite your friends to a BBQ via Facebook??

Riot police raided a 30th birthday barbecue because they thought the organiser, who had invited his friends via Facebook, was staging a rave. Four police cars, a riot van and a helicopter moved in on Andrew Poole's gathering which was taking place in a field owned by a friend. The coach driver had invited 17 guests to an 'event' on his social networking page by private invitation and was about to light the barbecue when the gazebo suddenly started flapping wildly and the sound of chopper blades filled the air.

The gazebo under which the party guests were gathered because it had started to rain. Then the police riot van arrived...

A police helicopter circled the field several times before four police cars and a riot van stormed into the field in a small village near Sowton, Devon. Eight officers wearing camouflage trousers and body armour then jumped out and ordered the party to be shut down or everyone would be arrested.

Andrew, of Exeter, Devon, said: 'It had started to rain so we had gone in under the gazebo. All of a sudden there was this noise in the sky - I honestly couldn't believe it. 'The thing then hovered over us for about 25 minutes, watching 15 people eat. They told us to take down the sound system and said everybody's got to leave. 'It was 4pm and we hadn't even plugged the music in yet. We tried to reason with them, and even offered for them to take the power lead for the sound system, but they were having none of it.

'It was on private land. We were nowhere near anyone. We weren't even playing any music. What effectively the police did was come in and stop fifteen people eating burgers.'

Andrew had spent £800 for the hire of the generator, marquee and food. The guests arrived at 3pm but soon after a police helicopter generated a huge dust cloud which covered his BBQ in debris.

Andrew said: 'The police had full-on camouflage trousers on and body-armour, it was ridiculous. There was also several plain-clothes officers as well. "I told them it was my 30th birthday. I said "this is a once in a lifetime event for me, please don't ruin it". But they kept on insisting I had been advertising it as an all-night rave on the internet.

'But I'd created an event, and 17 people had confirmed as guests, I did put the times on it as "overnight" in case people wanted to sleep-over. 'They were still banging on saying it was advertised on the internet. They wouldn't accept it wasn't a rave. It was in a completely isolated field.

'We'd actually faced the speakers away from the village just in case nosy-neighbour types complained. But someone must have seen us putting up the marquee and phoned the police.'

SOURCE



British Christian teacher tells of race slurs by Muslim pupils aged 8

Must not object to Muslim bigotry and hate

A teacher claims he has been sacked for reprimanding pupils who made racist remarks about his being a Christian. Nicholas Kafouris said he lost his £30,000-a-year post because he would not tolerate the 'openly racist' behaviour of pupils as young as eight. He said the predominantly Muslim youngsters openly praised Islamic extremists in class, and hailed the September 11 terrorists as 'heroes and martyrs'.

Greek-born Mr Kafouris, 40, taught for more than ten years at Bigland Green Primary in Tower Hamlets, East London, where according to the most recent Ofsted report 'almost all' the 465 pupils are from ethnic minorities and a vast proportion do not speak English as a first language.

He is taking the school, its headmistress and assistant head to an employment tribunal where he will claim he was forced out after highlighting the rise in racism among pupils.

In 2006, said Mr Kafouris, he brushed against a boy while giving him a book. 'He said rather brusquely to me, "Don't touch me, you're a Christian". I found this very offensive.' Later that year, he said children aged eight and nine in his class praised the suicide bombers in the 9/11 attacks. 'In late November and December 2006, many various unacceptable and openly racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian remarks were being made by many and various children in Year 4,' he said. 'These included, "We want to be Islamic bombers when we grow up", "the Twin Towers bombers are heroes and martyrs", "we hate the Jews" and "we hate the Christians".'

And in January 2007, he claims some pupils 'expressed delight' that a child had died when a wall collapsed on him in London. When asked why, he said one of the children replied: 'Because he's English.' The following month, during a religious education lesson about Jonah and the whale, he claims one of the pupils asked if Jonah was a Jew, before shouting: 'I hate the Jews, they're our enemies.'

Mr Kafouris says he completed 'Racist Incident Reporting Sheets' and notified headmistress Jill Hankey in writing about each incident. But he claims his concerns were ignored because she wanted to maintain the school's 'good' Ofsted rating.

Mr Kafouris, who is unmarried and has no children, was also reprimanded for handling a discussion about religion with a child 'inappropriately', which he denies. He says assistant head Margaret Coleman accused him of shouting at pupils and telling them Muslims had produced suicide bombers - claims he rejects.

'I believe after I complained to the head about the racist and religious discrimination incidents, I suffered victimisation,' he says. 'I also suffered less favourable treatment and incurred harassment by the head and assistant head. 'The two people above created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, threatening, humiliating and offensive environment for me at my work.'

Mr Kafouris says the way he was treated brought on stress and depression, and that he was forced to take time off work. He was finally dismissed because of his absence, on April 30 this year. A spokesman for Tower Hamlets Council, on behalf of the school, said: 'The governing body stands by its decision and we believe all the correct procedures were followed.'

SOURCE



Hatred of Australia's big-two supermarkets

This is very reminiscent of the hatred that Leftists direct at Wal-Mart in America. Success is hated. And there is absolutely no substance in what they say below. There are smaller supermarket chains with different business models such as IGA (stressing convenience) and Aldi (stressing ultra-low prices) and there is nothing stopping anyone who wants to shop at one of those. They all have plenty of outlets. People go to Woolworths because they like the Woolworths model (lots of choice) and they obviously are prepared to pay for that. "Choice" just ASSUMES that price is all that matters. If that were so, everyone would be going to Aldi.

Note: "Choice" is similar to Britain's "Which". It is a consumer reports organization but has recently come under heavy Leftist influence: Another example of the Gramscian "long march"


AUSTRALIA has the highest grocery inflation in the Western world and our powerful supermarket duopoly has a big role to play, experts warn. Commanding up to 80 per cent of the nation's $90 billion grocery market and a large percentage of the fuel market, Coles and Woolworths have little incentive to discount, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says.

The stranglehold on the market came under fire this week when Coles announced a food-for-fuel promotion requiring customers to spend $300 on food to get a 40c per litre discount of fuel. Woolworths matched the offer within hours, The Courier-Mail reports. Independent petrol station owners claimed the move was designed to squeeze out the competition. The number of independent fuel stations has plummeted from 7000 to 5500 in five years. [It has been shrinking for decades]

Christopher Zinn, the spokesman for consumer group Choice, said petrol discounts shouldn't be taken at face value. "You always have to consider how the supermarkets subsidise this - they aren't giving things away out of the kindness of their hearts, you usually pay to make up for your savings elsewhere," Mr Zinn said.

At the end of last year the ACCC released its Grocery Inquiry, which concluded there were insufficient incentives for Coles and Woolworths to truly discount. The report also noted that Australia had the highest rate of grocery inflation of all OECD countries. The report said if one of the big players discounted, the other matched it quickly, meaning there was no good chance for either to win new customers from the discounting effort.

The Retailers Association national executive director Scott Driscoll said the retail war was not between Coles and Woolworths - it was "the big two versus everyone else". "There are no other developed countries in the world where two big players control the market to the extent these two do," Mr Driscoll said.

But Monash University's Australian Centre for Retail Studies program director Steve Ogden-Barnes said Coles and Woolworths were competing like never before, to the advantage of consumers. The expansion of ALDI had offered a sizeable alternative to the big names and enhanced competition. "We have seen the quality of robust competition in the marketplace improve to a quality we haven't seen in a long time," Mr Ogden-Barnes said. "Coles and Woolworths are responding to that and I think they are in a very public battle for their market share."

But he said the duopoly was here to stay and he urged consumers to make it "work for them" by studying catalogues and shopping around. "Put aside your loyalty and capitalise on the competitive environment," he said.

SOURCE



Australia: Fear of social worker terrorists

Cases where children are in REAL danger are "too hard" for most social workers so they concentrate on harassing middle class parents over minor infractions. So the woman below had grounds for her fears

THE family car has never been more sinister. Until the first baby expired from organ shutdown after being left to bake in a hot car, who knew such a thing could happen? Until gamblers without babysitters started leaving their children in carparks so they could play poker machines, who knew such neglect was taking place?

Back in the innocent Australia of the 1970s, the family car was considered an extension of the living room. As kids we played in them, made cubbies in them, slept in them and, yes, waited patiently for our parents in them. The car was a happy place, roads were quieter and the term "road rage" had not been coined. Not only were you not constrained by law to wear seatbelts during travel, kids frequently drove for long hauls while lying flat along the back parcel tray of the Holden HR, admiring the skyview through miniature venetian blinds.

If Dad hit the brakes, the fun increased as you tumbled from your makeshift perch and on to the backseat. And if your parents hopped out of the car to get supplies, we waited in the car, sometimes for hours, for them. In fact this writer has been known to joke that, for a time, she was a carpark orphan.

After playing 18 holes of golf with me along as their disinterested caddy, my parents would head into the golf club with their friends for refreshments and maybe to put a few dollars into the poker machines. After about 10 minutes, out my father would come with a KitKat and a packet of Smith's chips to pacify me as I waited alone, in the car, while they socialised with their mates. It wasn't against the law for me to be there. It was against the law for me to be inside the clubhouse.

Now a mother myself, I too feel the urge to just leave the kids in the car for a sec when I run in to post a letter, pay a bill, grab some milk or pay for petrol. This apparently makes me a bad mother - something I felt all too keenly when I left my unwell, sleeping child in the car while I dashed through rain into a bakery to order a christening cake.

When I returned there was a man taking down my number plate number and abusing me. Frightened I might never see my daughter again, I thanked him "for caring", dashed home and burst into tears as I waited for DOCs [the notorious NSW child welfare agency] to call.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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