Wednesday 1 November 2017

If You Dare To Criticise Police They Will Target You

This started off as a rather amusing story in the Evening Times where police in Dumfries & Galloway managed to turn the tables on a member of the public who tried to have a wee pop at them on Facebook.

Callum Smith took a photo of a police car in a car park which cops had inconsiderately and badly parked on yellow diagonals.

Nothing unusual in that. Hey, we've all witnessed Police Scotland officers parking illegally. We've all witnessed police exceeding the speed limit while not on a blue light call.

And I'm sure we've all, like Callum, been more than a little bit peeved to see police officers getting away with doing things which we know fine well they'd issue us a ticket for.

Dumfries police quickly responded to Callum's Facebook pic of the badly parked police car and criticism of them...by posting their own pic of Callum, 5 years ago, parking badly in the exact same car park!

So what started out as Callum having a pop at the police for their bad parking ended up with police showing Callum up for doing the exact same thing. Touche as they say in France.

All in all, it was a rather amusing story and, I'm sure everyone agrees, pretty much a "fair cop".

One thing bothers me about this story though.

That pic the police published showing Callum parking badly in that same car park was from 5 years ago.

Let's think about this for a moment.

Callum sees police doing something wrong.

He then takes a pic of it and complains about it to police (quite rightly).

But instead of police bosses apologising or seeking out the offending officers and giving them a stern warning about their behaviour, police start searching around to see if they can find any "dirt" on Callum, the complainer.

Sorry to be a bit of a killjoy, but that's the real story here and it's very, very important.

Because it shows that if you dare to complain about a Scottish police officer, be assured his colleagues will hunt you down and pursue you instead.

It's well known (and I've reported here before) that Police Scotland have more than 800 million photos and video footage from traffic cameras on their databases that they refuse to delete. Most are photos of innocent law-abiding members of the public going about their daily business. Police have no legitimate reason to keep these pics but they still refuse to delete them.

It's also well known that Police Scotland also keep intelligence files on innocent members of the public. For example, if you fall out with your next door neighbour, then the next time it's your birthday and you have some friends round to dinner he could complain to police that your music is a bit loud and you're a noisy neighbour. That false allegation then gets added to your intelligence file even though no charges were brought against you because you didn't do anything wrong. It just sits there in your file that a complaint against you was once made but no charges brought. So even though you have done absolutely nothing wrong but police now have you "marked" as a potentially anti-social person.

But why, I hear you ask, do police keep these intelligence files containing every little thing about you, no matter how big or small, and no matter whether you've ever committed a crime or done anything wrong or not?

Well, the answer is that police keep it to use for a thing we call "bundling".

Bundling is a secret trick untrustworthy Police Scotland and the corrupt Crown office use to great effect to get prosecutions against otherwise innocent members of the public.

They keep a record of everything about you and everything you do so that one day if they want to arrest you for something and don't have enough evidence that you've actually committed any crime they can "bundle" some other stuff from your intelligence file to help tip the balance of evidence more in their favour and make you look more like a baddie.

You see, Police need to make lots of arrests and charge lots of people to show the public "that they're doing a good job" keeping the bad guys off the streets.

But if you haven't done anything wrong - or certainly nothing bad enough to justify an arrest and a charge - the Procurator Fiscal may be unwilling to take it to trial. So...police dig up any dirt they can find from your past, no matter how insignificant (from your intelligence file) in the hope that it'll boost an otherwise weak  charge and encourage the PF to proceed with a prosecution against you.

For example, if you were to make a simple, minor, and honest mistake while driving, police would use, say, a pic from years ago of you parked on a double-yellow to "help along" an otherwise dodgy charge. They pull out all the stops to show you in a bad light. Anything to justify an arrest or a charge or a ticket.

And that folks is what this story is really all about.

I'm sure many people are laughing at Callum having the tables turned on him by the police. Hey, I must admit I had a laugh myself at the story (come on, he did deserve it after all didn't he)?!

But the fact that police can - and do - expend so much time and effort to target you if you dare to criticise them or complain about them is something that we simply cannot overlook.

These types of police tactics are widespread and they're nothing short of sinister.

Very sinister.



http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/15543850.Man_calls_Police_Scotland_out_over_dodgy_parking___but_quickly_wishes_he_hadn___t/

Tuesday 31 October 2017

Perverting The Course Of Justice And Sexual Misconduct BY THE POLICE

Any and all types of behaviour of sexual misconduct should be unacceptable to all of us in a modern civilised society.

Similarly, attempting to pervert the course of justice is also unacceptable in our society today and anyone caught pursuing these sorts of criminal behaviours should be exposed to the full impact of the law. Police should be called immediately.

Except, well, in this case the sexual misconduct and perverting the course of justice I'm talking about here is actually being done BY THE POLICE!

This is the shocking news that allegations of sexual misconduct and attempts to pervert the course of justice are among 683 complaints that have been made about Police Scotland officers of in the last 7 months.

And it’s not just members of the public who are complaining about police officers who are committing crimes.

More than 60 of the complaints have come from Police Scotland’s internal whistleblowing system.

That's right folks, even the police are complaining about the police!

So how many of these complaints do you reckon will be fully investigated and upheld?

Yeah, me too.

Move along now, nothing to see here…



http://www.scotsman.com/news/figures-show-700-complaints-made-about-police-scotland-officers-1-4563734

Police Leave Man Lying Dead For TWO Days In His Vehicle Despite Calls From TWO Members Of The Public

The headline says it all I'm afraid.

Police Leave Man Lying Dead For TWO Days In His Vehicle Despite Calls From TWO Members Of The Public.

Sound familiar?

Sadly, it all sounds far too familiar.

So tell me dear readers. How do you, the Scottish public, feel this new centralised Police Scotland project idea where you phone up a call-centre and report things to police is going?

Yeah, thought so.

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/man-found-dead-lay-two-days-call-police-scotland/

The Ladyboys Of Kincardine Police Station

The residents of Kincardine are more than a little peeved that Police Scotland have permanently closed down their main square Police Station in an attempt to save money.

They are understandably upset that they now have to phone a call-centre if they want help from police. For residents, that personal touch and feeling of safety they used to get from local policing and the station in Kincardine has all but been eroded from the town now.

They are also upset that while police refuse to spend money on their local station, the main police headquarters at Tulliallan Castle have just splashed out £63,000 on a new lift. Not to mention the £400,000 they've recently spent/wasted on seven new inspectors (see my last post).

I know I should be using this news to make comment about how untrustworthy Police Scotland choose to waste our money etc but, well, I’m sorry, I can’t, I just can’t.

Because the one thing that I just can’t get out of my head is the pics that accompanied the Kincardine police station news story in Scotland's Sunday Post newspaper.

Because they show posters in the window of the police station inviting visitors to go see the Ladyboys of Bankok and the Chinese State Circus!

Priceless.

Make up your own jokes by the way ;-)







https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/police-scotland-set-to-spend-63000-on-repairing-lift-at-hq-while-closing-a-nearby-station-to-save-money/

Police Waste More Than Half A Million Quid Of OUR Money

The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act's new stop and search reforms will cost Police Scotland more than £500,000.

Well, when I say it will cost Police Scotland more than £500k, what I really mean is it will cost us, the taxpayers, more than £500k.

And it's money you might as well throw down the drain.

I reported on this very issue and told my readers about this more than a year and a half ago (see http://moroculous.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/youll-never-stop-police-stop-and-search.html).

You see, no matter how much you try to legislate to stop untrustworthy Police Scotland from targeting our children with their heavy-handed and illegal stop and search tactics, police will never change.

In my article last year I reported how police had been hauled over the coals for their unscrupulous tactics in the stopping and searching of children and were told to stop it. But they didn't.

Instead, they simply latched on to another law which allows them to stop and search children if they suspected them of having alcohol.

So their stopping and searching of our children continued in exactly the same way as before, just under a different guise. Ahhh, business as usual at Police Scotland.

We are now told that the new stop and search reforms (excuse me while I laugh) will require around £100,000 to be spent on retraining officers and replacing forms and manuals (excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor, I'm in hysterics now)!

But wait a minute. I thought they said that it will cost in excess of £500,000?

So what's the other £400,000 for?

Well, errmm, it's to employ 7 new inspectors.

Aha, now it all makes sense.

They spend more than half a million quid of our money on a law that untrustworthy Police Scotland officers will just ignore anyway, and in addition to that, create a few jobs for the boys in the process.

It's just yet another reason why Police Scotland are facing a £47million budget gap this year.

It's also why a generation of youngsters with long memories have grown up to hate the police. And in adulthood, most now refuse to co-operate with the police to help them with crime fighting.

You reap what you sow Police Scotland, you reap what you sow.



https://stv.tv/news/scotland/1400375-stop-and-search-reforms-to-cost-police-scotland-500-000/

DI David Moran: ”The whole problem with Police Scotland is the lack of accountability.”

Detective Inspector David Moran is a former murder squad detective.

His own force launched an illegal spying operation against him, wrongly believing that he was the police officer who leaked information to the newspapers about the Emma Caldwell murder enquiry.

He wasn't. His police colleagues got it wrong.

DI Moran was a fine upstanding, dedicated and conscientious police officer (unlike his superiors who purposely targeted him and made him a scapegoat for their failings).

I empathise with DI Moran.

He has now discovered to his cost - just as I did - that Police Scotland do not properly investigate anything nowadays.

Instead, they form an opinion on who they think the bad guy is and run with it, even when it later becomes clear that their guess was wrong and they backed the wrong horse so to speak.

They refuse to admit when they are wrong and prefer to see an innocent man hung out to dry (or thrown in prison) rather than admit that they messed up and made a mistake.

Their partners in the corrupt Crown Office are in on the game too. The COPFS and the police work hand in hand to get prosecutions and you can guarantee that the COPFS will always back-up their police buddies to the hilt. Procurator Fiscals even turn a blind eye when police officers lie in court. It's nothing short of shocking.

DI Moran, like me, is not the first person - nor will he be the last - to be fitted up and let down badly by untrustworthy Police Scotland and the corrupt Crown office. He has discovered, just as I did, that there is actually more honour among thieves than there is among police officers and procurator fiscals in Scotland today.

It's a sad state of affairs.

Let's be clear. Corruption exists everywhere in many organisations BUT it only exists because those at the top ALLOW it to exist.

And this is where DI Moran hits the nail firmly on the head when he is quoted as saying ”The whole problem with Police Scotland is the lack of accountability”.

That quote tells us EVERYTHING that is wrong with Police Scotland.

They are accountable to no-one and in recent years have become a law unto themselves (as have their partners in the corrupt Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service).

Oh, don't get me wrong, talk to any of these untrustworthy Police Scotland chiefs or corrupt Crown office procurator fiscals and they'll all sing from the same sheet and tell you how they are accountable. They'll reel off a list of rules and regulations and guidelines and tell you about the public bodies who they answer to and are responsible for their oversight.

But it's all bluster.

I've been through the whole gambit of trying to make Police Scotland and the Crown Office accountable for what they did to me and rest assured, the bodies who are supposed to oversee them do not have the authority to do anything. Nothing. They have no teeth and no clout.

And this situation doesn't exist by accident. Because in essence, what it's all designed to do is give the Scottish public the illusion that police and fiscals are accountable, but in reality their overseeing bodies have no power or influence to do anything meaningful or purposeful and cannot root out and counter their corruption in any way.

And boy don't untrustworthy Police Scotland and the corrupt COPFS know this and use it to their advantage!

The end result is that good coppers like DI Moran end their illustrious careers with a cloud hanging over them. Everywhere they go there are people whispering "no smoke without fire" and all that kinda stuff.

It's a disgraceful way to treat a good honest copper with so many years of good honest service.

And it's another slap in the face to the good honest public of Scotland who have to suffer all the good honest coppers leaving the force in their droves and being left with the dregs of humanity to police our streets.

It's sickening.



http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/former-detective-targeted-emma-caldwell-11428316

Monday 14 August 2017

14 Year Old Child Receives Serious Injuries During Arrest

STV news have reported that Police Scotland are to be investigated over their arrest of a 14-year-old boy in Cumbernauld who received serious injuries while police were arresting him.

At the time of writing, we have no more details about this so it is presently unknown whether police officers accidentily caused harm to the child during the arrest or whether police bullied the child by ganging up on him, causing him injury.

What we do know however is that untrustworthy Police Scotland have already come under heavy criticism for targeting our children in the streets with their dubious stop and search tactics. There is little doubt that the police certainly view 14 year old children as easy targets to be stopped, searched, and hassled. No wonder a generation of kids have grown up hating Police Scotland and no longer help them. You reap what you sow Police Scotland.

Hopefully the full circumstances of this incident will come out and be made public soon.

At least we can be confident that if police have behaved inappropriately and bullied this child in any way, our Chief Constable Phil 'Gormless' will quickly step up to the mark and condemn his officers.

Then again, perhaps not.

Because at the moment Chief Constable Phil 'Gormless' is already facing allegations of bullying himself...

https://stv.tv/news/west-central/1395506-boy-14-seriously-injured-during-arrest-by-police/

Public Have Lost Faith In Police Scotland

It's the worst kept secret in the country...the general public have completely lost faith in Police Scotland.

But bizarrely, untrustworthy Police Scotland are still running around like headless chickens trying to figure out why we have lost faith in them.

Don't they read the papers?!!

All in the very the same week, a bunch of newspapers - the Herald, the Telegraph, the National, and even the little Falkirk Herald - have spelled out what's wrong with Police Scotland, yet police chiefs still have no clue what's wrong never mind how to stop the rot.

The Herald - The public are sitting shaking their heads in disbelief as police stumble along in to blunder after blunder:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15459209.Public_losing_faith_in_Police_Scotland_after__series_of_blunders_/?ref=rss

Telegraph - Staff cuts mean less police out on the streets. You never see a policeman now, no wonder the public have lost faith in them:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/10/scottish-police-less-visible-public-staff-budget-cuts/

The National - Police are spending £1,000 a day defending themselves in legal battles (police don't say why but, ahem, I'm sure you can guess!):

http://www.thenational.scot/news/15470700.Police_Scotland____spends___1k_a_day_to_fight_legal_battles___/

The Falkirk Herald - Police failings rear their ugly head yet again...and police bosses trot out the same old excuses again for their failings:

http://www.falkirkherald.co.uk/news/crime/lessons-must-be-learned-from-latest-police-probe-1-4527731

Now, I know standards have fallen dramatically in Police Scotland's recruitment requirements lately but surely there must be at least one policeman out there who can read?

Anyone?

Hello?

Thursday 10 August 2017

Lord Advocates Cringing, Embarrassing (And Hollow) Apology

The Lord Advocate James ‘the big bad’ Wolffe has had to issue a cringing and embarrassing apology after no less than THREE top judges - Lord Malcolm, Lady Dorrian, and Lord Glenniehave - severely criticised the conduct of a Crown Office Advocate Depute for his questioning in a sensitive rape case.

Advocate Depute Ross Macfarlane behaved so badly during the trial that the judge even had to warn the jury to ignore parts of the evidence.

Following on from the Lord Advocate's apology, a Crown Office spokesman also said: “We accept that the conduct of this case did not reflect the high standards expected by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and was not representative of the general ethos and culture of the organisation”.

What a load of old tosh.

The Crown Office must think the Scottish Public are stupid.

I prefer the more honest and direct comments of a senior lawyer with knowledge of the case who stated:

It was clear that the advocate depute was going too far in his bid to secure a conviction, and I am afraid that is becoming typical of many of our prosecutors”.

Let’s cut to the chase here.

The Crown Office lost their way many years ago when they introduced their (covert) policy of chasing prosecution targets instead of criminals. This policy has created a fertile ground for bias, corruption, and incompetence to enter in to their ranks and the wider justice system as a whole.

Of course, it doesn’t help that Crown Office Procurator Fiscals are essentially a bunch of failed solicitors who would never ‘cut it’ out there in private practice so are forced to take low paid Crown Office positions just to be in a job. When you have a Crown Office full of bottom-of-the-barrel misfit lawyers who are selected from the lowest parts of the legal food-chain it’s no surprise that corruption is rife and incompetence is the order of the day.

I distinctly remember a few years ago when I was the victim of a false accuser and had to go to trial to prove my innocence.

Not only did I have to take on my false accuser, I also had to take on a Crown Office mired in incompetence and corruption.

There were quite a number of police officers involved in my case (who's help I had originally enlisted), yet the Crown Office point blank REFUSED to cite any of the police officers who could prove that I had done nothing wrong. Instead, they carefully cherry-picked officers they thought would help them secure a prosecution and ignored all of the police officers who had made statements saying that I had done absolutely nothing wrong.

The Crown Office deviously and underhandedly tried to play on the fact that I was defending myself. They knew I could not cite these officers myself as I did not have a legal facility called ’caution’ (which is pronounced ‘kay-shun’). Their idea was that by only having prosecution witnesses at the trial the Crown would tip the balance of evidence firmly in their favour and secure a conviction (against an innocent man)! What evil and corrupt individuals we have in the Crown Office!

Thankfully I stood up to them and they failed. My case got thrown out in spectacular fashion.

However the fact still remains that the Crown Office sought to pervert the course of justice and the Procurator Fiscals in my case clearly went far too far just to try and secure a conviction (against an innocent man).

Disgusting behaviour by the Crown Office.

For example, in court, the Sheriff asked Procurator Fiscal Depute Sarah McCall if she would help me cite witnesses as I was unable to do so myself (the Sheriff realised that you cannot get a fair trial if all the witnesses are only for the prosecution and you're not allowed to bring in any defence witnesses).

PF Depute McCall readily agreed without hesitation (these PF's really like to 'sook up' to Sheriffs every chance they get and rarely refuse a request from a Sheriff in a case). She even asked me - in the court room and in front of others - for a list of the witnesses I'd like cited (which I handed to her there and then).

But as soon as the court had recessed and the Sheriff was well out of sight, the PF then backtracked and refused to cite my witnesses.

Furthermore, at the next intermediary diet, she lied in court to the Sheriff (a different Sheriff) that she had agreed to cite any witnesses for me at all!

She took a gamble that the Sheriff from before probably hadn't put it in his notes that she had agreed to calmly witnesses so the new Sheriff that day would have been unaware of the commitment and undertaking she gave to the court the last time.

Yes folks, these corrupt PF's don't even mind lying in a court of law and lying to a Sheriff as long as it helps their case and helps them get a prosecution.

Astonishing.

Furthermore, when I objected to this to the new Sheriff, the corrupt and despicable PF Depute Sarah McCall was asked by the new Sheriff to explain why she had recanted on the citing of witnesses in my case. As well as completely denying she had promised the old Sheriff she would cite witnesses, she also retorted in court that “It’s not the Crown’s job to help Mr Campbell with his defence”.

Ermm, no, but it IS the Crown’s job to pursue truth and justice and to act with honesty and integrity.

It's also the Crown's job to drop prosecutions where they know from the evidence that they have in their possession that the person they're pursuing is innocent and there is no likelihood whatsoever of a conviction.

Bear in mind that my case was thrown out with a 'no case to answer' verdict which means it should never have even got as far as a court of law.

She knew that I had no facilities to cite those particular police witnesses who had already made statements to the PF in which they said that I had done nothing wrong. She had all those statements showing I had done nothing wrong in her file. She knew every word that was in all those  statements but did NOT want those police officers coming in to court and telling the court the truth.

Her good buddy and colleague, fellow corrupt Procurator Fiscal Callum Forsyth got in on the action too and refused to hand over the contents of my mobile phone...which he knew all to well actually cleared me of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

The reason he knew the mobile phone proved my innocence was because he had it interrogated by police computer forensics so had all the text messages and records from the phone extracted. As if that's not bad enough, the records from my phone - which PF Forsyth refused to hand over to the defence even though he wasn't going to use it as evidence himself - actually showed that I was the victim.

Interestingly, this was also a fact that was highlighted by Sheriff Douglas Brown as he was throwing the case out. Sheriff Brown held the phone records in his hand and said <quote> "the only abuse in this case has come from the complainer" <unquote>.

PF Forsyth, a despicable piece of human waste and space, knew fine well that the mobile phone records proved me innocent...so he refused to hand them over to the defence. And all this despite the fact that the Crown would NOT be using it as Crown production evidence themselves.

Disgraceful.

But incredibly, I still managed to beat 'em. I managed to get a Sheriff to order corrupt Procurator Fiscal Calum Forsyth to hand those phone records over. I shouldn't have had to go to these lengths though.

It's a sad day for the Scottish public when you have to force the Crown Office to act honestly, truthfully, and with integrity.

See what I mean now about corrupt PF's in the Crown Office 'hiding' evidence they don't want the court to see, just so they can get a prosecution against someone they KNOW to be innocent?!

In these types of cases the Crown has a duty to the Scottish public to drop cases where they know they are pursuing an innocent person. But they don't.

They are happy to see innocent members of the public prosecuted and thrown in jail rather than admit they made a mistake and started proceedings against the wrong person. They don't mind lying, cheating, and hiding evidence to do it either. They'll do anything rather than admit they made a mistake (Lockerbie, Emma Caldwell, Glasgow Bin Lorry anyone)?

The Crown should not be hiding evidence they don’t like and don't want the court to see. The Crown should not be actively seeking to exclude witnesses from a court room who can prove that a person is innocent. The Crown should not be trying to pervert justice.

But they do it every day.

I have personally watched first-hand as these nasty pieces of work attempt to use their privileged positions as Procurator Fiscals to pervert justice, constantly trying to tip the balance of evidence in to the Crown's favour in order to secure prosecutions against innocent members of the public.

I caught them at it, and I took them on. Which brings me to the next problem.

Because rest assured folks, the Crown Office don't like it when a layman like me with no legal background takes them on in court, proves them wrong, and wins a case against them.

Furthermore, they also absolutely hate it when you attempt to sue them afterwards because they are then forced to revisit the case and their mistakes are highlighted in a very public way for all the world to see.

Nope, they don't like that one bit!

As in many areas of corruption, the cover-up is what becomes far more serious than the initial situation itself.

For example, my trial and the case against me was a pretty small and insignificant affair in the grand scheme of things. My case consisted of not much more than a bit of sour grapes from a silly and disgruntled ex girlfriend who thought she'd make a false accusation against me to try and squeeze a few quid out of me.

It really didn’t take me very long in court to show her up to be a liar and get the case thrown out. As I recall, the trial was actually all over by lunch time(!) and she and her entourage were soon walking away from the court building with their heads bowed in shame. Serves them right. The Sheriff saw right through her and her cronies lies.

But the fights I had against the Crown Office, before, during, and after the trial as they relentlessly pursued this seriously flawed and failed prosecution against me was a different matter altogether.

The Crown Office used every resource at their fingertips to cover-up for the corruption that went on with a number of their Procurator Fiscals during my case. Interestingly, they had a budget of over £100 million a year to fight me, while I had nothing (except the truth) to fight them with. Yet I still won against them (or as I prefer to say, the truth won).

It's pretty damning when the Crown Office lose a case in court in which the Sheriff (in my case Sheriff Douglas Brown) states that <quote> "Mr Campbell should never have been brought before a criminal court" <unquote>.

Quite clearly something went SERIOUSLY wrong in the Crown Office that they even tried to lead such a case against me.

Yet every single complaint I made against the numerous Procurator Fiscals involved in my case who lied, cheated and covered up for each other at every turn were firmly batted right out of the park one by one.

The Crown Office took no responsibility for losing the case against me and no responsibility for bringing the failed case against me in the first place. Nothing. Not even an apology.

Their arrogance was nothing short of breath taking (oh, and did I mention that when you complain about the Crown Office they investigate themselves)!

So the moral of the story?

Even when you catch the Crown Office ‘at it’ they simply close ranks and cover for each other. It’s a closed-shop of incompetence, corruption, and cronyism and it is totally impenetrable.

And today we have just seen another example of it.

Three judges  - Lord Malcolm, Lady Dorrian, and Lord Glenniehave - have come slamming down on the Crown Office, yet all we get from the Lord Advocate is an insult to our intelligence with a statement saying it was just a one-off and is not how the Crown Office normally operate.

In other words, it's back to 'business as usual' at the Crown Office (or perhaps that should read 'corruption as usual' at the Crown Office).

In conclusion, the day that the Crown Office stopped the pursuit of truth and justice in favour of prosecution targets was the day that truth and justice in the Crown Office and in our great country ceased to exist.

While I’m pleased that three of our top judges have spoken out against the behaviour of the Crown Office and their motley crew of Procurator Fiscals, my experience of dealing with the Crown Office tells me that this is really only the tip of the iceberg.

The corrupt Crown Office must be abolished. It must be completely dismantled with immediate effect and a new justice system fit for the 21st century and fit to serve the Scottish public must be put in its place.

The Crown Office used to be a trustworthy, honest organisation where truth mattered, proper justice was pursued, and the Scottish public were protected.

Now it is nothing but an untrustworthy, corrupt organisation where truth is ignored, proper justice is denied. Prosecution numbers are all they care about and the Scottish public are merely seen as fodder to be targeted to achieve those numbers.

http://www.thenational.scot/news/15457050.Lord_Advocate_issues_warning_to_prosecutors_after_top_judges_criticise_conduct_in_rape_trial/

Friday 4 August 2017

Chief Constable Investigated For Misconduct

Scotland's top cop, Chief Constable Phil 'Gormless' Gormley is being investigated for misconduct.

The specific allegation against him is of bullying.

Yes dear readers, difficult as it is to believe, it would appear it may be possible that there is a police officer out there who might, well, be a bully.

Who'd have of thunk it!

The Scottish public already know that Police Scotland is mired in corruption and has been for years.

The whole organisation is rotten to the core from the top to the bottom and decent, honest coppers are leaving the police service in their droves.

But like most corruption in public office, it didn't just happen overnight. It crept in very insipidly over a number of years and it now taints the whole culture of our policing system. Very few people noticed these erosions, even police officers themselves.

It happened in two distinct stages:

Stage 1:
The first sign that all was not well was when policing started to become political and police chiefs began to serve the interests of their political paymasters rather than the Scottish public.

While it is understandable that the police - like anyone I suppose - would want to cosy up to and endear themselves to the people who gave them the job in the first place (and who decide their wages, working conditions, and yearly budget etc) it is also wrong.

Very wrong.

The police have a sole duty to help, protect and support the Scottish public, not their political bosses or any other corporate organisations who happen to contribute to a politicians election campaign and later call in favours or seek to influence policy.

When police stopped focusing on serving the public, the whole police service went very rapidly in to decline. 

Politicians seeking re-election quickly realised one of the best strategies of a good re-election campaign was to demonstrate to voters that they have done a great job keeping the communities they represent safe.

To achieve this, the politicians put pressure on police to make lots of arrests so that they could point to crime figures and claim that they were being 'tough' on crime. Vote for me and I'll protect you from the bogeyman and all that kinda stuff.

All this did though was create a target based arrest culture within the police service in order to achieve these desired figures.

Little by little over a period of years, police officers who once upon a time used to help, protect and support the Scottish public were now actively seeking to target and arrest those same members of the public for the least little thing, anything, everything.

Any small technical insignificant misdemeanour of an otherwise innocent and law-abiding member of the public - which in days gone by would only warrant a stern but friendly and helpful warning from police - was now being seized on by police and used as an excuse to give out a tickets and even initiate a prosecution if at all possible.

No wonder good, honest, decent members of the public don't want to help the police any more, don't want to give statements or be witnesses in court. You reap what you sow Mr Plod.

Throughout all of this, a culture has grown which rages today like a wildfire. Scottish police officers go out on patrol every day and night desperately looking to find a crime in every nook and cranny. And they don't mind bending rules and shoe-horning any incident or situation to make it fit in to a statute just so they can justify an arrest. 

Of course, there's nothing wrong with police going out looking for crimes per se. It's part and parcel of what they should be doing.

The problem is when a police service is under pressure to make lots of arrests, the pursuit of hardened criminals tends to get pushed down the list of priorities because these sorts of investigations can be very lengthy and difficult to crack with low rates of arrest successes.

Which means ordinary otherwise law-abiding members of the public (the 'low-hanging fruit' if you like) become the main targets of the police.

Nowadays, when drivers see a police car in their rear-view mirror they immediately feel nervous and anxious and that's just plain wrong.

If you see a police car in your rear-view mirror you should feel safe, not intimidated.

When you actively seek to harm the very people you have a duty to protect you lose all legitimacy.

Police Scotland has lost the trust of the public. They have become an abject failure. Even those who work within the justice system - the police themselves, the crown office, the prison service, solicitors, and the politicians - all know this.

Stage 2:
The second stage of erosion in the functioning of Police Scotland is another area of corruption that has grown in similar way to the previous one.

It is the rampant practice that has evolved in policing of presuming guilt and rushing to arrest.

In the honest, good old days, police would receive a complaint (or be called to an incident). They would investigate the incident and send a report to the Procurator Fiscal, stating what happened, who was involved, and any evidence they discovered. The Procurator Fiscal would then make a decision based on the police report whether to make a prosecution or not. 

That process has completely changed now.

Nowadays police resources are so stretched and officers are under so much pressure from their superiors to make as many arrests as possible, police no longer spend time and effort to investigate anything. 

Instead, they just form an opinion on who they think the 'bad guy' might be and try to cobble together as much evidence as possible to support that opinion. They also discard any evidence that they think may undermine that opinion so that they have a better chance of getting a prosecution when they pass it all to the Procurator Fiscal.

It's quick, it's cheap, and it works out ok most of the time.

But it also goes against absolutely EVERYTHING policing should be about. 

Police should play NO part in deciding someone's guilt or innocence. That's the job of the courts. 

However police know all too well that the Procurator Fiscal is unlikely to lead a prosecution against a person police have arrested if there's evidence available that shows he may be innocent. So any evidence that may show that the 'bad guy' they've arrested may actually be innocent and may actually have done nothing wrong is ignored and/or not collected by police.

Police officers purposely (and illegally) go to great lengths to tip the balance of evidence firmly against the person they've arrested to ensure they get a good solid conviction.

It doesn't matter to police that they may have got the wrong guy and that evidence they ignored or 'binned' would have shown that they arrested was actually innocent. Arrests, convictions, and showing that they are being 'tough on crime' are all that matter to the police.

To them, the end always justifies the means.

When you have police officers all over our country working in this way - deciding day in and day out who's guilty and who's not and having carte-blanche to arrest anyone and everyone regardless of whether they have actually committed a crime or not - it's not difficult to see how police officers chests start to puff out, arrogance abounds, and a bullying mentality creeps in.

It's a plain and simple historical fact that every time a new law gives police new powers, police always end up abusing those powers. Always.

If police think they can get away with behaving like bullies, they will.

Conclusion:
So does it surprise me that Scotland's top cop, the chief constable himself, is being accused of bullying?

No, not in the slightest.

He probably doesn't even view his behaviour as bullying or wrong in any way.

He probably sees it all as a perfectly normal way police chiefs go about doing their job.

He probably can't understand what the fuss is all about.

There's every chance that he hasn't even noticed the insipid erosion of morals, standards, and behaviour in his own police force over the years.

He has probably gone along with the flow himself for so long that he has completely missed this 'culture of corruption' which has mission creeped in to the police service.

But what annoys me most though is that while this very concerning investigation in to the behaviour of the country's top policeman is on-going, Phil 'Gormless' still continues to sit behind the comfy desk of his £212,000 a year job and works on as usual. 

Which is rather different to how you or I would be treated by police if we were suspected of wrong-doing.

Because when we ordinary members of the public are suspected of wrong-doing, we get slapped in handcuffs by police and thrown in to a grotty custody cell until such times as we can get to court and prove our innocence.

Yip, one law for 'em, and all that...



Tuesday 7 March 2017

Police Lie To Target Me

OK, a follow up to the last post (see previous post here if you arrived at this page from a search engine).

I'm just back from the tyre centre this afternoon where I got two professional tyre fitters to check my tyre - the tyre that police told me earlier today was over-inflated.

The tyre centre have measured my tyres pressure to be 28 psi.

I checked the handbook for the vehicle and it says that the manufacturers recommended pressure is 29 psi.

So the pressure in my tyre is pretty much spot on. It is absolutely NOT over-inflated (as police wrongly advised earlier today).

In fact, if you really want to split hairs, the tyre was, if anything, slightly under-inflated (although you would be really hard-pushed to even make that argument because 28 psi vs 29 psi is pretty much insignificant)!

Bottom line, police were wrong about the tyre.

Furthermore - and probably just as interesting to this story - when I told the tyre centre expert what police had advised me regarding the tyre (i.e. that it was over-inflated) he informed me that it's impossible to tell if a tyre is over-inflated without actually testing it with a proper measuring device.

So the questions are:

Why did the police officer advise me today that my tyre was over-inflated when it was not?

Why did the police officer tell me the tyre was over-inflated without checking it with a proper measuring device?

If I had acted on police's advice today and had taken some air out of the tyre it would have put me, and other road users, in danger.

Other questions are why did police really stop me? Why did police take my debit card off me? What do police have in my intelligence file? Why do they continue to treat me like this? Why do they still see me as 'a person of interest' after it was absolutely proved beyond any doubt that they'd got things all wrong and even a Sheriff told them so?

Yes, I think Police Scotland have a few questions to answer...






Police Are Targetting Me (Exactly As I Predicted)

Hmmm, perhaps I should change my profession to 'clairvoyant'.

Because just two months ago I wrote a blog post about an interaction I had with police and it was a post which I knew the Police Scotland vultures would be very unhappy with. In it, I predicted that untrustworthy Police Scotland would soon 'target' me (again).

Police seem to like to stop me in my vehicle, no doubt in the hope that they can find something wrong with the vehicle or the paperwork and then charge me for something, anything.

I even correctly predicted the exact vehicle I would be driving when police stop me. (see original article here)

Yip, rest assured, police don't like it when innocent members of the public, like me, expose their lies and their corruption.

And sure enough, today, I was stopped by police...in the very vehicle I predicted I would be in (i.e. the one I know they have the registration number for - linked to my name - in their 'intelligence' file on me).

As has become usual when police stop me, the officer who flagged me down today (at 2:05am on 7/3/17 in Allison Street on the south-side of Glasgow) refused to give me a reason why he stopped me...well, apart from the "oh, it's just routine" standard answer police always give when they want to lie and hide their real reasons for stopping you <yawn>

I'm still not sure why he took my debit card from me and walked away with it and gave it to the other officer before then giving it back to me. I'm not sure if it was even legal for him to do that?

So as per usual, after Mr Plod trotted out his usual scripted responses and pathetic lies/excuses for why he had stopped me (which they all do to cover themselves), and then went on to find absolutely nothing wrong with my vehicle or it's paperwork. Nothing. Not a sausage!

I was then allowed to go on my merry way...

...but only after he advised that my front drivers side tyre was over-inflated (and no, I'm not making this up)!

So today, I have a message for untrustworthy Police Scotland:

"Hey guys, I hear you and I get it, I really do. I know you're still smarting because you got it wrong and arrested me, the wrong person, an innocent man, a few years ago and then refused to go after the criminal who committed a crime against me because it would cause the courts to re-visit and highlight your original bungled investigation - and you don't like being proved wrong never mind your mistakes being highlighted. Better a criminal go free so police can save face and avoid criticism eh? 

I know that I then instructed my solicitor to sue you and I also know how much you hate it when a member of the public criticises you and tries to sue you - you see it as a slap in the face to your authority rather than an opportunity to right your wrongs. Your arrogance, vindictiveness and corruption knows no bounds and doesn't allow you to admit mistakes. Instead of properly using your finite resources to catch real criminals, instead, you knowingly set about a pattern of vengeful behaviour against the people who dare to criticise you. You have no regard for the well being of the innocent members of the public who's lives you passively savage.

Believe me, I know you're hell-bent on hassling me forever more to 'punish' me for having the audacity to dare to expose the corruption in your ranks. I also know that your targeting of me will continue until you find something, anything, to pin on me, just so you can justify your past treatment and behaviour towards me (even though I proved you to be completely wrong in court). 

You may be surprised to hear me say that human beings get things wrong from time to time and I understand completely that police officers are no different - police officers are human beings too and they unfortunately get things wrong from time to time...but you need to be honest about it and admit it.  

Surely honesty from our police officers should be the absolute minimum the Scottish public should expect from you?

I'm so sorry that you were unable to find even so much as a faulty indicator bulb on my vehicle today and that everything regarding the vehicle was in absolute perfect working order (although goodness knows you tried as hard as you could to find a fault). I'm sorry that my vehicle turned out to be well maintained, completely ship-shape, and all the documentation totally in order. This must have been a great disappointment to you. 

Thank you for your wonderful advice that one of my front tyres is 'over-inflated', even though you did NOT check it with any kind of measuring gauge equipment (and why would you, you're not even white-tops/traffic-police so your judgement in this area is far from competent). 

But hey c'mon, let's get down to brass tacks here. This wasn't about giving me a bit of tyre pressure 'advice' at all. It was all about you covering your bahookie to justify stopping me. Yip, you had to find some sort of anomaly, something, anything, didn't you? You and I both know the real 'warning' you were sending in my direction don't we, nudge, nudge, wink, wink ;-) 

Finally, I'm not sure if too much air in a car tyre (which you didn't even bother to measure) makes me a criminal or even whether it is anywhere near to constituting a criminal act, but nevertheless please rest assured I have noted your comments and your 'warning',"

So, dear readers, on the wonderful advice of Police Scotland - who would appear to be extremely concerned for my personal safety while driving - I'm off to the tyre centre to have my tyre professionally checked and measured.

It looks absolutely fine to me, but I'll let you know how I get on and what the tyre centre say (guesses anyone)?

One thing is for sure though. My tyre certainly doesn't look as deflated as the expression on the face of the copper who stopped me today when he realised he couldn't find anything wrong with me, with my driving, with my paperwork, or with my vehicle.

Stay tuned for the next instalment.

Perhaps I'll run a quiz shortly entitled "How long do y'all reckon it'll be before I get stopped by police again"

Hmmmm.

http://moroculous.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/police-dont-want-public-to-surrender.html

Thursday 2 March 2017

Dodgy Times At The Green Investment Bank

The Green Investment Bank is to be privatised and the people of Scotland need to be better informed and made more aware of all the negotiations related to it's sale.

Not just because of the disaster that ensued when the Royal Mail was privatised (at a knock-down price which cost the public money) but because Strathclyde Pension Fund in Scotland has a sizeable stake in the Green Investment Bank and thousands of members of the Scottish public have their whole pension pot tied up in Strathclyde Pension Fund (part of Glasgow City Council).

These members of the public need to know that their money is safe and is being properly and ethically taken care of by the Glasgow City Council councillors who oversee Strathclyde Pension Fund.

Questions have already been raised after it was discovered that former investment banker Patricia Rodrigues - who helped set up the Green Investment Bank - now works for the Australian investor that is favourite to buy it.

But it isn't only a possible conflict of interest that's of concern here.

Serious concerns are being raised about possible ‘asset-stripping’ plans by the new owners (see article).

Then on top of that, MP’s have also raised serious concerns with Energy minister Nick Hurd that the bank, when sold, could then be perfectly free to back controversial fracking schemes (see article).

Hmmm, not very ‘Green’ eh?!

So when you add up worries about asset-stripping, worries about conflicts of interest, worries that the bank may claim to be ‘green’ while possibly supporting fracking, it becomes an ethics nightmare all round, especially considering what the bank is supposed to stand for.

It all sounds decidedly dodgy. 

Very dodgy indeed.

Bailie Philip Braat, chair of Strathclyde Pension Fund, said investing with the Green Investment Bank was “always going to be a good fit” for Strathclyde Pension Fund (see article).

With all the dodgy stuff that goes on there, I suppose he’s right on that one!

Saturday 25 February 2017

The Lord Advocate Is A Dangerous Idiot

Hot on the heels of the disgraceful false evidence given to the Holyrood Justice Committee by the Lord Advocate James 'the big bad' Wolffe, MSP's have now raised "serious concerns" about the country's justice system.

The Committee convener Margaret Mitchell has been absolutely scathing in her criticism of the Crown office. In addition to Crown office's failings regarding issues of resources and victim support Ms Mitchell says she has:

"unearthed some serious concerns…from the amount of time wasted through trials not proceeding on schedule, to the workload of prosecutors and the support offered to the victims and witnesses who appear at court".

She also added there was a "fundamental problem" over communications with victims of sexual assault in particular.

Conservative justice spokesman Douglas Ross pressed the Lord Advocate for "an overhaul of the justice system" in light of all the concerns raised. He said:

"I read the submission very carefully and was disappointed to see that a large bulk of what was submitted by the Crown Agent and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service basically said that the evidence that the committee had received was wrong and that there was no real concern. If that is the response to the evidence that has been heard over the five months of the inquiry, I worry whether - depending on what the Justice Committee puts in our report - anything will change or whether you will just be determined to say that small things can be tweaked but there will be no overhaul of the justice system of the kind that witness after witness has said is required."

Don't hold your breath Douglas.

Committee convener Margaret Mitchell followed up on Douglas Ross's point by saying:

"my initial reaction to the submission was that a lot of the evidence had not been taken on board. You might be hearing what is said, but are you really listening?"

No Margaret, they're not listening, and they never will. The Lord Advocate considers you to be beneath him. How dare you question him.

Even Crown office staff hate working there.

Staff surveys from within the Crown office's own ranks show that 40% of Crown Office staff do not wish to stay in the service in the long term.

Astounding.

Even more astounding is that this idiot of a man James Wolffe still insists "I have absolute trust and confidence in those who prosecute on my behalf up and down the country".

Not only is the Lord Advocate an idiot, he's a dangerous one at that.

NEWS IN BRIEF 25/2/17

POLICE OFFICER HANDCUFFED
A Police Scotland officer in Aberdeen had to be released from handcuffs. Fortunately it didn't happen during any sort of romantic encounter although I'm sure it wouldn't be the first time that's happened!

It happened during officer safety training when the handcuffs "malfunctioned".

Police had to call in the fire brigade with bolt cutters to free the officer from his cuffs.

How embarrassing but with all the corruption in untrustworthy Police Scotland how lovely to see a police officer in handcuffs for a change.

And, as they say, if the glove fits...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-38571600

POLICE IGNORE THE LAW
Blundering Police Scotland make mistakes and mess up all the time. That’s why they had to pay out £1.27 Million in compensation to members of the public last year.

What a useless bunch.

So what happens to, say, the mugshots of innocent members of the public that the numptys at Police Scotland wrongly detain and arrest by mistake?

Well, the photographs should be destroyed.

But we now discover that they are NOT being deleted. Police keep 'em all.

Mugshots of thousands of innocent people are being held in an online database and are being kept by police for up to 12 years. That’s innocent people we're talking about here folks, not criminals, innocent members of the public.

Disgraceful.

As if that’s not bad enough, it turns out that the police have also completely ignored HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) who instructed them in no uncertain terms about their obligations in the regulation of biometric data.

This news comes after we learned last year that Police Scotland are also holding pictures from traffic cameras of 800 MILLION innocent Scottish motorists going about their daily business (and have refused to delete them).

This could not be more serious.

And untrustworthy Police Scotland’s lack of compliance with the law couldn’t be more predictable.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/lib-dems-demand-action-over-mugshots-of-innocents-held-by-police-1-4339796

ANOTHER BRIGHT IDEA
Chief Superintendent Paul Anderson, head of Police Scotland’s Tayside Division, has come up with a new bright idea.

He is creating new local policing teams that will have a named point-of-contact for members of the public and community groups.

Errrm, so, you mean going back the way policing used to be before the idiots at Police Scotland launched their failed experiment of a one-size-fits-all police force?

Sheez, gimme strength!

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/dundee/350301/video-tayside-police-revamp-designed-get-officers-right-back-part-community/

POLICE ACCUSED OF CRIMINAL NEGLECT
The Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC) has launched an investigation in to allegations of criminal neglect against officers serving with Police Scotland. That's officers plural. More than one.

Police Scotland has refused to reveal who the officers are and in which division they work.

No surprise there then.

Don't hold your breath for the results of the investigations.

Oh and don't book a seat in the courts public gallery expecting to see a police officers in the dock at the end of it all.

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/15047111.PIRC_launch_prove_into_allegation_of_criminal_neglect_against_officers_serving_with_Police_Scotland/

Sunday 19 February 2017

Lord Advocate James Wolffe Is A Bare-Faced Liar

Lord Advocate James 'the big bad' Wolffe has given evidence to Holyrood's Justice Committee in to the role of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (see article).

As head of the Crown office and the boss of every Procurator Fiscal in Scotland, he says that he "'has absolute confidence and trust" in the judgment of his prosecutors.

Yeah, well, he would say that wouldn't he.

But he then goes on to state that his Procurator Fiscals always exercise their own discretion when deciding which cases to take to court.

That's a bare-faced lie, and well he knows it. He should resign immediately.

Here's what a serving fiscal in his organisation recently said about being forced to run cases. It's completely at odds with what the Lord Advocate told the Scottish Parliament:

"Trial deputes are left between a rock and a hard place, either incurring the wrath of management or that of the public: “The trial depute, as an officer of the court, is then in a very stressful dilemma. He or she either has to be unprofessional and face criticism in the public forum of the court for presenting a poorly prepared case, or risk censure from management should he or she refuse to ‘run’ the case" (http://moroculous.blogspot.co.uk/p/serving-fiscal-blows-whistle.html).

Here's what another, former fiscal, says about having no discretion on running cases. Again, it's completely at odds with what James Wolffe told the Scottish Parliament:

"In my experience as a procurator fiscal working summary cases in the East of Scotland (many of which were domestic cases), there was absolutely a situation where cases involving a domestic element were marked for prosecution when the evidence was incredibly scant and conviction(s) unlikely. At the case marking stage, a fiscal would ensure that the case was marked as a “domestic” and one reason for this was so that other fiscals knew that they could not exercise any discretion with the initiated prosecution. It was going to be added to the court business and the prosecution had to be taken all the way and as far as possible. Better to try and fail than to not try at all was the mantra which we had to work to for these cases" (http://moroculous.blogspot.co.uk/p/httpwww.html).

When the Lord Advocate lies to the Scottish Parliament he lies to every single member of the Scottish public.

He is a disgrace.

And so is the COPFS, the corrupt organisation he heads.

The Crown office MUST be dismantled and replaced with a proper justice system, fit for purpose, fit for the 21st century, and fit to serve the Scottish public who deserve truth and honesty from their public servants.

Friday 17 February 2017

NEWS IN BRIEF 17/2/17

POLICE SCOTLAND TRAIN HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS
This may seem like old news because I already reported last year about Police Scotland making a bit of extra cash out of giving training to Saudi and Bahraini police forces.

But it now turns out that they provided the training to these countries police forces without carrying out any human rights checks to make sure the particular forces they were training did not use the death penalty or use torture against people accused of involvement in protests.

Police Scotland also did not check to see if the forces they were training in Saudi and Bahrain were involved in sentencing children to death (at the time of writing this article, at least three children are currently on death row and could face execution at any time).

Under UK Government policy, a formal assessment should be carried out before justice or security assistance is provided to states where it could contribute to the death penalty.

But a Freedom Of Information request to Police Scotland and the UK College of Policing has revealed that NO information was held on such assessments.

Ahhh, good ole' untrustworthy Police Scotland, at it again.

Not in our name you despicable bunch of tyrants and hypocrites.

Disgraceful.

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2016/12/21/police-scotland-trained-saudi-bahraini-officers-without-human-rights-checks

POLICE PREVENT CHILD ABUSER BEING RECOGNISED
In one of those 'you couldn't make it up' stories, Police Scotland officers pixellated out the eyes of a child abuse suspects photograph...because the victim said he would recognise the abusers eyes.

Ever get the feeling police don't really want to catch this particular child abuser?

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15002474.Obscuring_eyes_of_suspects_in_police_pictures____extraordinary___/?ref=rss

POLICE ARE PRAISED...BY POLICE!
In yet another of those 'you couldn't make it up' stories, we discover that Police Scotland have been praised to the hilt for their handling of the Hogmanay Rangers v Celtic match.

So who has praised our wonderful boys in blue? The fans? The club management? The supporters clubs? The local residents?

Ermm, no.

It's police themselves.

Yip, Chief Constable Phil 'Gormless' has said "I went out in uniform with officers throughout the match and saw what was a first-class policing operation and it passed off very well".

Nothing like blowing your own trumpet Phil eh?!

http://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/police-scotland-praised-over-handling-12424121

SCOTTISH POLICE AUTHORITY IN CHAOS
The Scottish Police Authority (SPA), the body who are supposed to hold Police Scotland to account is to be inspected itself by Audit Scotland following its descent into financial chaos.

It has been heavily criticised for weak leadership and accounting errors.

Hmmm. And they're the people who are supposed to be keeping an eye on Police Scotland.

Kinda says it all doesn't it.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/342449/under-fire-scottish-police-authority-faces-major-inspection-into-the-way-it-operates/

ARE POLICE PROTECTING THEIR OWN?
A serving police officer with Police Scotland is under investigation by the PIRC over claims of criminal conduct.

Serious stuff.

Wanna know the officers name? Yeah, so do I, but we’ve got no chance. The officer who is facing allegations including ‘criminal neglect of duty’ is not being named.

Contrast that against what would happen if you or I or any other member of the public were to be suspected and investigated for criminal wrongdoing.

Your name would be all over the newspapers, guaranteed.

But because this is a police officer we’re talking about here - one of their own if you will - the COPFS are staying tight-lipped and have said that “it would be inappropriate to comment”.

Yeah, one law for ‘em and all that…

https://stv.tv/news/scotland/1377824-police-officer-investigated-over-criminal-conduct-claims/

Wednesday 15 February 2017

Police Compensation Payouts Top £1.2 Million A Year

In 2013/14 Police Scotland paid out £1 Million in compensation.

In 2014/15 it was £1.17 Million in compensation.

In 2015/16 it was £1.27 Million in compensation.

As you can probably guess, this only came to light via a Freedom Of Information request. Hey, untrustworthy Police Scotland certainly didn't offer up the information on their own accord, that's for sure.

To put these figures in simpler terms, every single day in Scotland there is at least one incident which results in untrustworthy Police Scotland having to use taxpayers money to compensate innocent members of the public for errors and damage police have caused.

And we're not just talking about pay outs for police-car accidents which we already know happen regularly because of police's recklessness and carelessness.

It also includes payouts to innocent members of the public for, among other things, wrongful arrest and detention.

So why don't we hear more about the amount of our money police have to pay out in compensation every year?

Simple.

Police don't want you, the public, to know when they mess up and how much it costs us.

As if this isn't bad enough, police also gag members of the public from revealing how much compensation they get when they successfully sue police. When police (grudgingly) settle up with a member of the public they have caused damage to, the settlement is ALWAYS accompanied with a non-disclosure-agreement so that the member of the public they have wronged and who has successfully sued them cannot talk about it, ever.

Police feel that if the public were to learn how often they mess up, how often they get successfully sued, and the millions they regulalry get sued for, public confidence in police would be damaged.

It's untrustworthy Police Scotland's way of hoodwinking the public in to thinking they do a good job.

In truth, they do a very poor job and are an abomination of an organisation who should be disbanded immediately and replaced with a proper police service fit for purpose and the 21st century.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-38491433

Sunday 12 February 2017

It's Official - The Crown Office Is Full Of Sickos

When it comes to 'throwing a sickie' (taking days off due to illness), nobody does it like the corrupt Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service.

Yes folks, the COPFS are leaps and bounds above staff in all other areas of the civil service when it comes to taking days off on the sick.

Figures out show that sick days at the COPFS are up by 20% in just three years.

A Crown Office spokesman has been quoted as saying: "Staff welfare is of the utmost importance and support systems are in place to help staff deal with the demands of their role".

What a load of old tosh. I don't believe it for one minute.

Staff at the COPFS are under no more or no less pressure than anyone else who works in any other type of job in any other industry.

The real reason COPFS staff throw so many 'sickies' is so that no one single member of COPFS staff ever has to work exclusively on any one case.

When a member of staff throws a 'sickie', another member of staff has to step in to his/her shoes and cover the work in that case for the absent colleague.

And what that means is when the excrement eventually hits the ventilator when COPFS have messed up a case (which happens with alarming regularity) the screw-up can never be traced back to any one single person in COPFS so nobody can be blamed for the failures.

See how it all works now?

"Wasn't me, big boys did it and ran away."

Yip, avoid all blame at all costs.

It should be their motto because they've been working on this very basis and trotting out these lame excuses for their failures for decades.

https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/crown-office-staff-sick-days-up-by-a-fifth-in-three-years-figures-show/

Wednesday 8 February 2017

A Whole Justice System Under Pressure

Three separate articles here dear readers, all joined at the hip:

HOW TO HALVE THE COPFS BUDGET
The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) have had £4 million cut from their budget this year.

They will receive £109.5m in 2017, down from £113.5m last year.

Ready, steady, go...cue all the usual bleats and moans from the COPFS about how they're so hard done to and how much pressure they’re under etc <yawn>.

But I could halve their budget, and I could do it very easily.

All it would take is for the COPFS to start acting honestly and with integrity and drop cases against innocent members of the public who they know to be innocent when it becomes clear from Crown production evidence that there has been no crime committed. Cases that have no sufficiency of evidence should be dropped.

The present situation of blanket prosecutions against absolutely everyone and anyone regardless of the sufficiency of evidence is a nonsense. It is purely designed to save the COPFS face and keep up the pretence that their previous wrong decisions to arrest, charge, and prosecute were correct.

Going through with a prosecution against an innocent person which they know will fail in court due to insufficiency of evidence is a flawed strategy.

Oh yeah, it suits the COPFS to do it. Because dropping cases leaves the COPFS open to criticism, whereas allowing them to go to a prosecution in court (and ultimately failing in court) pushes the blame on to the court for failing to find the person guilty.

It lets the COPFS off the hook for the bad decisions they take.

See how it all works now?

Pursuing un-winnable cases against innocent members of the public costs money, a lot of money.

It also goes against everything the COPFS are supposed to stand for.

Their duty is to protect the public, not target the public.

They work for us and are supposed to represent us, not use us as fodder to achieve performance targets.

For goodness sake, it's hard enough in this day and age to put 'baddies' who are guilty of real crimes behind bars without having to also expend untold public money and resources trying to convince courts every day that innocent members of the public have committed crimes when they haven't.

So, can we ever expect the COPFS to stop targeting innocent members of the public and go after the baddies instead?

Nope. It won’t happen.

Because that's just how it is when you have a Procurator Fiscal service entirely made up of failed solicitors from the bottom of the legal food chain (who would never get a job in a proper lawyers firm). Covering up for incompetence, arrogance, waste, and the fear of being found out to be the professional failures they are will always be their priority, not the public.

The Scottish public deserve better than this money-wasting and space-wasting motley crew at COPFS.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14970300.Prosecution_service_faces___4m_reduction_despite_warnings_over_lack_of_resources/

POLICE SCOTLAND BUDGET FACES £80 MILLION SHORTFALL
A Scottish Police Authority (SPA) board meeting has revealed that Police Scotland are facing a net overspend of £17.5m this year.

Sounds bad enough, but we also have to remember and add the £55 Million of one-off reform cash given to the force.

Rough figures out suggest that they will be about £80 Million short of a 'sustainable' budget.

I could halve the Police Scotland budget, and very easily.

All they need to do is...oh, forget it. Just save yourself some time and read the post above and every time you see the words 'COPFS' just substitute it for 'Police Scotland'.

Job done.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/police-scotland-budget-about-80m-short-of-being-sustainable-1-4319876

SCOTTISH COURTS UNDER PRESSURE
Figures from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) show that adjournments in cases due to a lack of court time have increased by 66 per cent since 2011.

I could halve the budget, and very easily.

All they have to do is...

Ahhhh, I see you're already ahead of me...!

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/749444/Strain-starting-show-Scotland-court-system

Tuesday 7 February 2017

NEWS IN BRIEF 7/2/17

POLICE IGNORE DEAD MAN FOR DAYS?
The Police Investigations Review Commissioner (PIRC) is investigating Police Scotland after the body of a man was found in a van in Stirlingshire.

The full circumstances are still unknown but it's believed that he may have been there for days after police were alerted to the vehicle.

I'm sure there will be a thorough investigation by the PIRC, after which, I'm sure no police officer will ever see the inside of a court.

Yip, we all know how this one's gonna pan out...

https://stv.tv/news/stirling-central/1376210-man-found-dead-in-parked-van-days-after-report-to-police/

MAN DIES IN POLICE CUSTODY
Police Investigations & Review Commissioner (PIRC) are investigating in to the death of a man who became became unwell while being detained by Police Scotland and later died.

They will be looking in to how officers handled the arrest of the man in Saracen Street, Glasgow in December.

Any guesses how you think this one will pan out?

Yeah, thought so.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-news/385781/police-watchdog-to-investigate-after-suspect-detained-in-the-street-takes-ill-and-dies/

ANOTHER FAILED POLICE RESPONSE?
The Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (Pirc) have launched an inquiry in to the death of Elizabeth Bowe from St Andrews in September last year. Questions have been raised about the initial police response leading up to the incident.

Anyone seeing a pattern here?

Hmmmm.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/fife/349983/police-watchdog-pirc-submits-report-st-andrews-womans-death/

Saturday 4 February 2017

Why Procurator Fiscals ALWAYS Refuse To Admit They're Wrong

Lady Dorrian, Lord Menzies and Lord Drummond Young have rejected a request for private prosecutions against bin lorry driver Harry Clark (who killed 6 people) and Range Rover driver William Payne (who killed Laura Stewart and Mhairi Convy).

The public are understandably outraged and EVERYONE I have spoken to is agreed that Harry Clark and William Payne should never have been behind the wheel of a vehicle.

On the other side of the coin, I have been contacted by a member of the public who is diabetic and took a diabetic fit at the wheel of his car. It resulted, tragically, in a pedestrians death. He was jailed for 6 years.

He understandably wants to know why he was prosecuted while Harry Clark and William Payne were not?

It’s a perfectly reasonable question.

The Crown office go to great lengths to try to convince the public that every case is unique and the circumstances and legalities are different in every case, ad nauseam <yawn>.

But the public know only too well that the Crown office continually peddle this old well-worn lie in order to cover up for all the inconsistencies in everything they do and protect their own backsides for the incorrect decisions they make.

The Crown office really need to wake up to the fact that you can fool some of the people some of the time...

So why is there such a disparity in the cases of the bin lorry driver, the Range Rover driver, and the diabetic driver who contacted me?

Is the law wrong?

Is the law unclear?

No, the law is not wrong. The law actually is perfectly clear when it comes to these kinds of cases.

It’s incompetence and corruption within the Crown office that's the problem.

It begins with incompetence i.e. wrong decisions taken by the COPFS. The corruption then follows quickly afterwards when Procurator Fiscals close-ranks to cover up their colleagues' incompetence.

Incompetence is rife in the COPFS.

It is also sadly inevitable because of the very structure of the COPFS.

The Crown office is run entirely by third-rate failed lawyers who could never 'cut it' in the real world of private legal practice.

It's a sad fact of life that the top lawyers in Scotland - the cream of the crop in the legal profession - are out there busy earning fortunes in private practice.

So we, the public, are left with all the 'bottom of the barrel' solicitors who no law firm wants to take the jobs in Crown office. These failures are very lucky to have a job at all in the legal world, and the relief and gratitude that the Crown office have given them a job and an opportunity to scrape a living is written all over every single one of their faces when you talk to them. Yip, Perry Mason's they ain't!

The only time the Crown office attracts what could remotely be called any real talent is when an experienced solicitor who has made a nice few quid out in private practice decides to take the unusual step of taking a hit in salary to come work for the Crown office. Oh yeah, they will always claim they are doing it 'for the public good' but needless to say you soon discover that they are far from benevolent types and are usually eyeing up a knighthood, an OBE, or a judges job.

The the sort of 'talented' people the public could well do without.

The father of Laura Stewart - speaking out after judges rejected his request for a private prosecution - has said: “The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service from the very start nearly six years ago have done everything in their power to protect an early incorrect decision of non-prosecution, to protect the process, to protect their own self-importance and, in doing so, rather than admit they got it wrong, protected William Payne…”.

He is absolutely correct.

Corruption and incompetence is a deadly combination if ever there was one. And they are alive and well and in abundance in the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service.

If the Glasgow bin lorry and Range Rover cases have proved anything to the Scottish public it is that the Crown office corruptly stick like glue to incorrect decisions they have taken and refuse to budge no matter the circumstances.

They don't care if justice is denied to the public, they don't care if public opinion is entirely against them, and they don't care if the public have no confidence in them, just as long as they never have to admit they’re wrong.

And, hey, why would the Crown office ever admit they're wrong? After all, there’s no-one who can over-rule the Crown office and force them to change their wrong decisions. No one.

I know.

Because when I found myself the the victim of a false accuser, wrongly arrested by police and wrongly prosecuted by the Crown office, I took them on in a court of law...and I won. That's right, I stood up for truth, honesty, and justice and I defeated the might of the Crown office and proved their decision to prosecute me had been wrong.

The Sheriff at my trial even reprimanded the Crown office by saying “Mr Campbell should never have been brought before a criminal court” and that "the only abuse in this case has come from the complainer".

You can't get any more wrong than that!

So did the Crown office apologise to me when it was proved in court that that they had made an incorrect decision and had tried to prosecute the wrong person, the victim, an innocent man?

Nope.

Did the Crown office then go after my false accuser - the real criminal - and prosecute her for making false statement to police which resulted in me, an innocent member of the public, losing my liberty for 3 and a half days?

Nope.

My false accusers crimes and her abuse against me were IGNORED by the corrupt Crown office.

To this day a string of corrupt Procurator Fiscals have REFUSED to prosecute my false accuser.

Alarmingly, they have refused to even look at any of the documentary evidence we have of her crimes, informing me they don't want to see any evidence that proves she committed a crime because they have already made a decision not to prosecute her and will not go back on that decision no matter what. Sound familiar?

The evidence is still sitting in a file in a drawer in my house (and a copy is with my solicitors). Police and Crown office investigators were originally supposed to meet with me to look at the evidence and go over it and evaluate it but, curiously, then changed their mind.

To date, they still have not looked at one single piece of the criminal evidence in this case.

So how can this be?

Why would the Crown office NOT want to look at evidence of a crime?

Why would the Crown office NOT want to prosecute a criminal?

It's quite simple really.

You see, if the Crown office were to arrest and prosecute my false accuser it would be an admission that their earlier decision to lead a prosecution against me was the wrong decision. And the Crown office NEVER admit mistakes. Never.

So my criminal false accuser gets to go free rather than the Crown office have to admit they got it wrong.

In the world of the Procurator Fiscal this is considered an acceptable trade-off.

And just as Laura Stewarts father has discovered, when the Crown office make a decision and it turns out to be the wrong decision, there’s no going back. They stick like glue to the wrong decisions they make (and back each other up no matter what).

They use every resource at their disposal and invoke every privilege and power they possess to protect their earlier incorrect decision.

The result of all this?

Murderers go free.

Rapists go free.

Gangsters go free.

Drug dealers go free.

False accusers go free.

And all because the Crown office are too arrogant to say “Oops, we may have been a wee bit hasty with that decision, so in the interests of truth, honesty, and justice, we're going to take another look at it”.

Truth, honesty, and justice is of NO importance to the motley crew at the Crown office. It never has and it never will.

Procurator Fiscals only care about covering up their incompetence and saving face. Their arrogance knows no bounds.

Procurator Fiscals consider themselves far too clever to ever make a mistake. In their elitist world they are never wrong. Never.

When they lose a case they NEVER accept that the poor member of the public they wrongly tried to prosecute was innocent. Instead you'll hear them bemoan that "he/she got away with it".

Their arrogance and their ego is breathtaking.

The Crown office have nothing but contempt for the public. Procurator Fiscals believe they are of a higher social class than you and I, are better educated than you and I, and have a higher moral authority than you and I.

Crown office employees are well known for being insufferable snobs who look down their noses at everyone they come in to contact with (if you have ever spoken to a Procurator Fiscal for any length of time you'll know that their behaviour towards members of the public they come in to contact is just as worrying and perplexing as it is hilarious)!

Despite many Procurator Fiscals coming from humble backgrounds and being born and raised in poor areas, as soon as they walk through that door of the Crown office their whole demeanour changes. The chest puffs out, the attitude changes, any sense of truth and honesty evaporates, plus they all acquire this rather strange new-found plummy Morningside accent which they never had before!

In short, they become the self-appointed guardians of all that is pure and righteous. Legends in their own head, if you will. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And it starts the minute they walk through the door of the COPFS.

The fact that these individuals were already a million miles away from ever being Scotland's best or brightest solicitors (which is why they went to work in the Crown office in the first place) means that they quickly learn to toe the line and fit in to the corrupt culture in the COPFS or they'll be out of a job.

So your average Procurator Fiscal could fairly be described, in essence, as weak, incompetent, and just grateful to have a job in the legal profession. Even the ones who do realise that things are not right at the COPFS simply do not have the substance or character to speak out.

Instead they live their lives in court rooms up and down Scotland, stuck in a bizarre little bubble, completely removed from any sense of reality.

Procurator Fiscals genuinely believe that representing the public and working for the public good would be a lot easier if those pesky members of the public - who are too stupid to understand the ins and outs of the legal system anyway - would just leave them alone to get on with it.

Lockerbie, Emma Caldwell, Hollie Gregg, William Payne and Harry Clark, the scandalous list of Crown office failings goes on and on and on.

And guess what? The COPFS really don’t care. They stick two fingers up to the public. Likewise, they stick their ignorant and incompetent noses in the air and continue with business as usual, safe in the knowledge that there’s absolutely nothing you and I, the public, can do about their corruption and incompetence. Nothing.

As my local MSP told me, “if an MSP commits a crime the Crown office must be able to prosecute that politician without fear or favour, therefore MSP’s must not be allowed to interfere with the decisions of the Crown office”.

In other words, the Crown office are above the law, above Parliament, and above the public they are supposed to represent.

And my God don't they know it.