Before we can condone holding information of innocent people, we must review the systems

While MP expenses are stealing the headlines with "cheque book journalism", I think the leak is potentially a well positioned distraction from the concepts of DNA Databases and ID Cards.

I happen to be a supporter of DNA databases and ID Cards. But I do not advocate them in a country where the Police Service are maintained by target meeting. If we provide the police with a DNA database of every citizen, you can gurrantee that the hierarchy of the Police will feel the pressure to induce more and more use of the system in order to gain funding each year.

But a system that provides a deterrent in both evidence collection and in punishment is of practical use for a democracy.

The other conditions ought to be that DNA evidence is maintained correctly in the chain of command before being submitted, that correct PACE proceedures are met and that DNA evidence is NOT the sole evidence on which to base a prosecution case. Any more than a single witness or character evidence should be.

But the police and the CPS are without morals when faced with the options of hitting targets and getting good press or not hitting targets.

The same applies to the Local Authorities and NHS. Public services should be based on quality and fairness, not revenue and quantative data. This is one Thatcher Legacy I cannot support.

Lateral Applications of the Law (part two)

In one day we have seen a shift in common law that could bear dramatic implications on criminal law in this country.

The conviction of a paedophile without identifying the victim could negate the rights of victims.

If you can prosecute a man for rape when there is no identifiable victim, can you prosecute anyone without a victim? If two blokes have a drunken scuffle and get caught on cctv can they both be prosecuted without the other's consent for abh?

What about the implications of consent? If someone films a "rape fantasy" with his girlfriend and it is seized by police, can they prosecute him for rape?
[I know consent is a tentative issue with the new Criminal Justice Act and redefinitions of pornogrphy but this goes further]

How about if the victim comes forward? There cannot be a retrial. She can never get recompnse.

to make all crimes victimless is a frightening prospect,trial by jury requires both sides of the story, not some clever barristers and a confession.

[This is a bit left wing for me, but i believe in the maintenance of justice, and there is the potential here for justice to lose the basis of it's creation]

Lateral Applications of the Law (part one)

Prosecution and regulation of technological advances are becoming woefullly inconsistant.

[T]he men were found guilty of providing a conduit for others to break the law, rather than breaching copyright themselves

In no other areas do we prosecute someone for providing a conduit. The most obvious correlation is with cars, a metaphor raised by a lawyer in the pirate bay case, with an interesting example of persecution as governments desperately attempt to keep control.

The idea that providing a server, or a hosting service for a website is ilegal even though you have no control over the content of the site is comparable for suing car manufacturers for making cars that can break the law. But noone is suing the car munufacturers, yet the government is insisting on further penalising motorists.

The power of the lateral application of the aw is previlant here. Will we see the judgement becoming more widely interpreted to prosecute the manufacturers of knives because someone is stabbed? Or the shops that stock the knives and provide the conduit to the public?

It's a frightening vague interpretation of law and should be reined in immediately.

Sorry, is Protesting Ilegal Now?

There are a hundred articles on the 114 people arrested today in Nottingham in
"the biggest pre-emptive raid on environmental campaigners in UK history, arresting 114 people believed to be planning direct action at a coal-fired power station."

The Guardian lauches in with emotive statements such as the police "seized "specialist equipment" which turns out to be "bolt cutters". About as specialist as jodphurs are to a horse rider then.

People arranging to protest is not an arrestable offence, but as is becoming all to clear of late, the police use any legislative powers they can, including arresting people"on suspicion of planning to cause criminal damage to a power station.

Correct me if I am wrong, and I am not so subtley indicating my legal training here again, but inchoate offences require the offender to be within the proximity of committing the offence. The people arrested were not at the power station, they were not going to the power station and they are highly unlikely to be charged with anything given our waste of a prosecution service [note, while I do not think they *should* be arrested, the CPS are lacking in sufficient balls to charge anyone unless there is a 99% chance of convition]

So what we are seeing is a large demonstration of the public services to deter protests in the environmental sector. Because the Tomalinson situation wasnt a deterent!

It is NOT ilegal to protest in the UK and long may it remain so, but if the police have such wide ranging powers as provided by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 without regulation, we may see more and more of this sort of nonsense.

Invasive or ridiculous?

While the highway code and PACE continue to grow to catch the mediocre and banal and turn it into crime, they have now introduced further pilots to catch drivers unaware.

I am really really amused by this.

Anyone seen driving while distracted - eating at the wheel, playing with the radio or applying make-up for instance - is filmed by the cameras.

Do they think drivers are so distracted as to not notice a a 12ft (3.6m) mast with a camera attached?

When they criminalise picking your nose while driving, something I see more frequently than anything else, I might get a bit pissy. But for now I am just going to laugh.