Tuesday 31 January 2017

NEWS IN BRIEF 31/1/17

POLICE CALL CENTRES STILL MESSING UP
It's rather unfortunate that it took a Freedom Of Information request from the BBC to prise the truth out of Police Scotland but at least now we know that there have been 82 'notable incidents' or 'near misses' due to call handling errors since April last year.

This demonstrates to the public that police have NOT learned any lessons from the M9 tragedy.

Lives are still being put at risk by Police Scotland.

And it comes as absolutely NO surprise to anyone who knows Police Scotland and how they operate.

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/police-scotland-warned-call-handling-errors-cost-lives/

TITANIC EXPERT TO HELP POLICE SCOTLAND
Untrustworthy Police Scotland have come up with a new idea to help them with budget problems, increasingly disgruntled officers, call centre bungles, and the illegal spying fiasco.

They’ve brought in a hypnotherapist called Kevin McPhillips.

Oh and MrPhillips also happens to have written a book called “Titanic: Enterprise and Risk”.

Apparently he's going to teach our boys and girls in blue how to “Take account of the icebergs, and adjust accordingly”.

I’ll let you make your own jokes up…

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14959272.Titanic_expert_hired_to_help___39_sinking__39__Police_Scotland/?ref=rss

WHEN IS A £17 MILLION PROFIT REALLY A £43 MILLION LOSS?
Great news! Police Scotland have managed to claw back £17 million in costs from their failed i6 police supercomputer project.

This is wonderful news and a fantastic result for police and…oh, no, wait a minute, hang on.

I’ve just remembered.

The failed i6 IT system cost £60 million...and untrustworthy Police Scotland have refused to tell us how much it cost them to scrap it.

So…by my calculations, if we have thrown £60 million of public money at i6, then scrapped it, and then got £17 million back from the i6 contractors, that really means that police have wasted £43 million of our money on i6.

Phew, when it comes to hiding the evidence and distorting the facts it’s pretty hard to beat untrustworthy Police Scotland.

But then again, every innocent person who has been wrongly arrested by police can already testify to that…

...literally.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/741470/scotland-police-millions-failed-computer-project-budget

CROWN OFFICE TO PROSECUTE POLICE?
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has completed a review into Police Scotland’s handling of the M9 tragedy.

Their findings have now been passed to the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service for their consideration as to whether Police Scotland should be prosecuted for the call centre failings and the subsequent handling of the tragedy and…

Oh, what’s the point, just join the dots..

HSE + Police Scotland + Crown office = no arrests and no prosecutions.

Yes dear readers, we already know how this one's gonna turn out...

http://www.shponline.co.uk/police-face-possible-health-and-safety-charge-over-m9-crash/

Sunday 29 January 2017

Police Spin Hits A New Low

Don't you just love it when untrustworthy Police Scotland tell us that they've come up with a new super-duper initiative but when you actually look at it closer it just makes you shake your head in disbelief?

Well, it seems police in Orkney have come up with a great new idea.

They held an open event at the Warehouse Buildings in Stromness between 4pm until 7pm on Thursday, December 8 where the public could go along and find out more about how the police service works.

They are also making a dedicated public service counter (shared with Orkney Islands Council), where the of the public can go to for information and police assistance.

Plus they also plan to hold bi-weekly police 'surgeries', where members of the public can call in to speak directly with a police officer.

Sounds fantastic eh?

Oh, and in case you think you may have heard of this sort of 'initiative' somewhere before i.e. places where the public can go and talk to police and report crimes and stuff, you'd be right.

We used to call them Police Stations.

That was before the idiots at Police Scotland closed 'em all down of course.

Struth!

http://www.orcadian.co.uk/police-scotland-welcomed-warehouse-buildings/

Thursday 26 January 2017

Police Go To Court To Stop The Public Looking At Their Spending

Police Scotland spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money on so-called 'informants' each year but have refused a public request to reveal exactly how much they spend and how many informants they pay.

At first glance it makes sense that police would want to keep this quiet because when it comes to something as sensitive as informants police really wouldn't want that sort of information revealed to all and sundry.

But upon closer inspection we see that police haven't actually been asked for any in-depth information on their informants at all.

All they have been asked is how much of taxpayers money have they spent on Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) and how many informants have they had since the new force began in 2013. Two simple figures. How much and how many. Was it £100k, £200k, £300k? Was that paid to 100 informants, 200, 500?

No individual details, no names, no pack drills, just general numbers.

It's called transparency.

The Scottish public simply want to know how police managed to blew £400,000 of our money in two years on this and if it was money properly, appropriately and legally spent.

And it makes sense that we would want some transparency from Police Scotland about this.

Especially when just a few short years ago we caught police using valuable resources to try and infiltrate such things as campaigner Tilly Gifford's environmental group who were - wait for it - opposing aviation expansion.

Hardly serious organised crime!

Besides, Tilly had - and still has - a perfectly legal right to campaign against aeroplanes and emissions and environmental issues and all that kinda stuff if she so wishes. Whatever floats your boat, as they say.  It's not as if she's some sort of Scottish mafia Don.

So not only have untrustworthy Police Scotland spent at least £400,000 of our money on, well, we don't know what, we now discover that police are also going to spend even more of our money on going to court to prevent us from finding out how they spent the £400k.

And police don't go to court to try and stop investigations in to their behaviour for nothing, believe me.

They've got something to hide from us, for sure.

How ironic that police are using our money to pay for a court case to stop us finding out what they're doing with our money.

I think it's a scandal.

And so does the Scottish Information Commissioner (SIC), because he has been quoted as saying: "The Commissioner fails to see how disclosure of the information requested would place anyone at the remotest risk of identification, or provide any Serious Organised Crime Groups with the remotest indication that it has been infiltrated, as claimed by Police Scotland."

He's quite correct.

No proper, bonafide, individual criminal informant will be put at risk in any way whatsoever by police releasing the wide-ranging general information we're asking for. Not one.

So it seems Police Scotland are far more worried that we, the public, might just find out that they are squandering public money that could be put to far better use, especially in times of austerity for all.

Or worse, perhaps police are hiding the fact that they are using public money to target the public who speak out against them and criticise them.

For all we know, police could be illegally spying on the public and don't want the public to know.

Just as they didn't want us to know when they illegally spied on journalists who were trying to hold police to account...

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14945138.Police_Scotland_in_court_bid_to_block_the_release_of_informant_details/

Saturday 21 January 2017

Former Deputy Chief Constable Takes £90k A Year From Charity

The social care charity Turning Point Scotland - which provides support to disabled people, homeless people and those with addictions - have appointed a new chief executive.

His name is Neil Richardson.

Hang on, where have I heard that name before?

Ah yes, I remember now. He used to be called Deputy Chief Constable Neil Richardson and he was the one who was up to his neck in untrustworthy Police Scotland's illegal spying row.

He retired from the police in May 2016 so is now available to pocket £90,000 a year from the charity in exchange for giving them his 30 plus years of 'expertise'. Hopefully after trousering the £90k there will be some money left to actually go to help the people in the charity.

It's not clear exactly what 'expertise' he is bringing from his 30 years as a copper that will help with disability, homelessness and addiction so we can only guess...

Perhaps he's advising how to throw a spit-hood over a disabled person's head?

Maybe it's how to cure homelessness by arresting everyone sleeping in doorways and charging them with loitering?

Or perhaps it's throwing every drug addict in jail so they're forced to go 'cold turkey' and it'll get them off the smack (side note - I wonder why nobody's ever thought of this one before...woops, it's probably because there's more drugs inside our jails than outside them).

How ironic that he should become the head of a social care charity.

Because as a top copper he was embroiled in a scandal that saw police illegally spy on people's social lives, he didn't care that it was illegal, and the only charitable thing he ever did for the Scottish public was to walk out of the police force before we threw him out.

Happy retirement Neil.

Ka-ching.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14907037.Retired_spy_row_deputy_chief_constable_to_head_Scots_social_care_charity/

Thursday 19 January 2017

Police Scotland Wrongly Arrest 1362 INNOCENT people

Crown Office figures out recently show that 1362 INNOCENT members of the public were arrested and then released in the past three years by blundering Police Scotland.

Shockingly, police wrongly arrested them all in a so-called 'domestic violence' crackdown introduced by that idiot and menace in a uniform, ex-chief constable Sir Stephen 'I've got an ego as big as a' House.

Sir Stephen - widely regarded as the worst chief constable in the history of Scottish policing - instructed his officers to jail someone at every alleged domestic abuse call-out, no matter the circumstances.

As a result, 1362 innocent members of the public were taken in to custody by police and thrown in to a jail cell even when there was no evidence that any domestic abuse had taken place.

Stephen House and his motley crew of Police Scotland officers irresponsibly caused the opening of flood gates that lead to an unprecedented barrage of false accusers - mainly disgruntled girlfriends and wives - making false complaints to police just to cause trouble for their ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands.

Judges such as Sheriff McFarlane are now beginning to jail these false accusers (see article) and not before time I might add. However it's a national disgrace that 1362 innocent members of the public who did absolutely nothing wrong and should never have been arrested had to suffer first.

The Scottish police and Crown office should hang their heads in shame.

False accusers have had a field day thanks to this police and Crown office policy. A succession of despicable, cruel, and vindictive false accusers were able to wreak havoc on their completely innocent husbands and boyfriends while being completely supported by Police Scotland and a Crown office desperate to achieve performance targets and desperate to show the public how 'tough' they are on so-called 'domestic abuse' cases.

Every innocent person police arrested spent a minimum of a night in jail, and if the arrest happened to be on a Friday, the innocent person remained locked up all weekend until the courts opened on Monday.

Police officers blindly accepted every false accusers made-up story without question so they could make an arrest as per instructions from their superiors. There was no discretion. There were no investigations in to the accusers story to see if it was true or not. Arrests were regularly made without there being a single shred of evidence that any wrongdoing had actually taken place.

Every single one of the 1362 people wrongly arrested were completely innocent and had to be eventually released by police or had their cases dropped or thrown out of court.

And I know how those 1362 innocent people feel.

Because I was one of them...

I was the innocent victim of a very cruel, false accuser, an ex-girlfriend (who, it turns out, had made the same accusation against her previous boyfriend - police never bothered to check).

At the height of this brutal "throw 'em all in jail" policy (which police and the Crown office are still conducting by the way - hence this article), it was common knowledge in police circles that officers over in Edinburgh had complained to the chief constable that the cells in Edinburgh were bursting at the seams with 'doms' (police-speak for people arrested on domestic related matters).

And Chief Constable House's response to them?

He ordered them to keep arresting and 'bus' them all over to Glasgow's Aitkenhead Road station if the Edinburgh cells were full. There was to be no let up. Police must keep arresting people at every call-out of a domestic nature and must throw someone in jail regardless.

The idea was that the 'lock 'em all up' policy would help show the public that police take domestic abuse cases extremely seriously and are being very pro-active in protecting us all from the scourge of domestic abuse.

Advertising on billboards, newspapers, radio, twitter, and facebook were all very impressive and a steady stream of high ranking officers were super keen to get their faces on the BBC news offering a string of carefully rehearsed soundbites telling us how wonderful a job police were doing at keeping us all safe.

In reality though, it was nothing more than a cynical publicity stunt by chief constable Stephen House solely intended to garner favourable headlines in the press for an already under fire police force seriously mired in corruption.

And it was done at the expense of 1362 innocent members of the Scottish public who will never help or trust the police ever again.

But police didn't care.

Every police officer was still ordered to make an arrest every time they attended any domestic related call-out, no matter whether a crime had been committed or not. And if it wasn't a domestic related incident, officers were expected to do their utmost to shoehorn it in to being one just so they could make that all important arrest.

Astonishing.

Any officer who did NOT make an arrest was sent back out to homes to handcuff and arrest someone.

In one case a couple were arguing over moving house and were overhead and reported by a neighbour. By the time the police arrived, the couple were sitting down together having dinner, yet one of them left the house in handcuffs!

In another case, a woman pleaded with the Crown office not to prosecute her husband, telling them that police had arrested him for no reason and he had not domestically abused her in any way, shape, or form. The Crown office refused and told her they were going ahead with the prosecution regardless. When the woman then told the Crown office she would not then be a witness in court to something that did not happen, the Crown office issued a warrant for her arrest to ensure she testified! You couldn't make it up as they say.

In my case, my ex-girlfriend changed the locks on two of my properties so she could steal all the contents of both properties and keep them all for herself. She had no legal right to do this and after discussing the matter beforehand with police and making sure it was ok to do so, I drilled through the locks. Police had also advised me to make sure my ex-girlfriend wasn't present at the property when I drilled the locks so as not to cause any confrontation with her. It was good advice from police, and I followed their advice to the letter.

Yet as soon as I drilled the locks I was arrested!

Turns out my ex-girlfriend made a complaint to police that my drilling of the locks had greatly upset her. Of course she conveniently left out the bit about her being nowhere near the property at the time, and that I owned the property and all the contents (and that I had a perfectly legal right to force an entry to recover my own possessions).

In truth, the only thing that greatly upset my ex-girlfriend was that she had planned to steal all my stuff and sell it and was unhappy that I was trying to stop her.

(*Side Note - I never did manage to successfully drill through the locks to gain entry. After I was arrested the trial took a year to get to court - during which time my ex-girlfriend did sell all my stuff and I lost everything. To date, police refuse to arrest her for making a false statement to them and refuse to arrest her for stealing and selling all my stuff. They say it's a 'civil law' matter and nothing to do with police, even though it's illegal to make a false statement to police (which she did) and they have never investigated in to her false statement, and the theft of my stuff and having to defend my innocence in court has caused me a considerable amount of 'fear', 'stress', 'alarm', not to mention money too. Funny how the law only works one way with police eh?!).

Long story short, the bottom line here is that my ex-girlfriend, and the PC Plods she made her complaint to, spotted a bit of an opportunity. Although this was nothing more than a simple property dispute, the two parties involved used to be in a relationship in the past, so they reckoned they could bend, twist, and spin it in to having some sort of 'domestic' element to it - and get an arrest out of it.

So I, and another 1362 innocent people like me, found ourselves labelled as 'domestic abusers' and behind bars for absolutely nothing.

Not nice.

In the end, Sheriff Douglas Brown threw the case out of Hamilton Sheriff Court with a 'no case to answer' verdict (which is even better than a 'not guilty' because it means there wasn't even a case against me to answer to in the first place)!

I didn't even have to give evidence or go in to the witness stand to defend myself, nothing. The judge threw the case right out of court. I was completely cleared of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

I took on the might of Police Scotland, the Crown office, and a lying, false accusing, ex-girlfriend in a court of law and I won - the truth came out.

Even Sheriff Brown stated in court that this was a property dispute, not a criminal matter, and that "Mr Campbell should never have been brought before a criminal court" (that's a direct quote from Sheriff Brown by the way).

The issue I have with all of this is that I, as an innocent member of the public, should never have been locked up for a full weekend in a jail cell, I should not have had to borrow thousands of pounds to pay solicitors fees, and I should not have had the stress of being in the dock in a court of law having to prove my innocence just so police could fulfil performance targets, work in line with their advertising and PR campaigns, and boost their flagging popularity. It's just not right.

I did nothing wrong and 1632 others just like me who police wrongly arrested did nothing wrong too.

So when are we, the 1632 innocents, going to get justice from you Police Scotland? When can we expect an apology from you? When can we see you arrest our false accusers for their crimes against us?

And it's not only me who's complaining about all this.

Watchdogs everywhere are slating untrustworthy Police Scotland and the Crown office for their corrupt abuse of power over this seriously flawed policy.

Kudos to solicitor Aamer Anwar who has said: "Zero tolerance was never intended to be a licence for police to detain in custody without evidence."

But sadly this is what happens when you have a police service and a Crown office that never admits when they've get it wrong, stick like glue to wrong decisions they make, can't be trusted to properly investigate things fully, are so dishonest and corrupt that they prosecute cases even when they know the accused person is innocent. And all because police officers and Procurator Fiscals are desperately striving to hit arrest and prosecution targets.

In their book, any innocent member of the Scottish public is fair game and a target. As long as police get an arrest that's all that matters to them.

They genuinely believe that if they get lots of arrests the Scottish public will think they are doing a great job of keeping us all safe.

It's a disgrace.

Police Scotland and the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service are a disgrace.

They are supposed to work for us, the Scottish public. We deserve, and demand, much better than the dishonest, unjust, and unfair policies of this current motley crew at Police Scotland and the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service.

So, are you still thinking of helping the police when they ask you for assistance?

Are you still thinking of going to court as a witness for the Procurator Fiscal when he asks you for assistance?

If so, bear in mind that you could be helping police and the Crown office arrest and prosecute (yet another) innocent person.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/182446/cops-wrongly-nick-1400-innocent-people-in-domestic-violence-crackdown/

Monday 16 January 2017

Police Scotland Strip-Searching Children

If you read the newspapers and watch TV (and read this blog) you'll probably know by now that Police Scotland have, for many years, been illegally stopping our children in the street and searching them without reason.

Regular readers of this blog will also know that when the police were hauled over the coals for these dodgy practices, instead of ceasing the practice, they simply changed tactics and used another different excuse, ahem, law to do the exact same thing to our children.

Yip, those crafty devils at Police Scotland just started using a law which allows them to stop and search children who they suspect of carrying alcohol.

What a surprise. Untrustworthy Police Scotland thumbing their noses at the Scottish public and simply using a different law to do exactly the same thing as they were doing before.Whod've thunk it eh

But what you probably don't know is that untrustworthy Police Scotland have also been strip-searching children.

The strip search involves the removal of all the child's clothing followed by a visual, external examination of their body.

This all came to light when the Metropolitan Police in London revealed that more than 4,500 children, some as young as 10, had been strip-searched over a five year period. That's a worrying statistic.

But hey, that's London police figures. What we really want to know is what are Police Scotland's child strip-search numbers?

Ermm, sorry, can't tell you that...

Because Police Scotland refuse to tell us. 

Police Scotland have declined a Freedom of Information request. 

Tam Baillie, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner in Scotland says "Strip-searching is, by its nature, a very intrusive procedure and should only be used in the most serious circumstances and always be regulated by strict safeguards. I am very concerned that Police Scotland is unable to produce data on the numbers of children and young people subject to this practice."

I completely agree with you Tam.

And I would also add that not only am I concerned that Police Scotland are unable to give us data on how many of our children they have strip-searched, I am also concerned as to why they will not give us data on how many of our children they have strip-searched.

The Hollie Greig case immediately comes to mind.

For those of you who don't know about this case, Hollie Greig was a child with learning difficulties who made serious allegations of child sex abuse to Aberdeen Police in 2000 and named 22 alleged abusers and 7 alleged victims (in addition to herself).

The alleged abusers include social workers, a judge, a senior police forensics officer, and two Head Teachers.

Aberdeen Police only interviewed TWO of the 22 named suspects and NONE of the 7 victims named by Hollie.

Now this could lead you to maybe think that there was perhaps no basis to Hollie's claims...

But 2 medical doctors and 2 clinical psychologists who examined her supported her allegations that she was sexually abused and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority examined Hollie’s allegations, accepted that she had been abused and awarded her £13,500 in compensation.

The Hollie Grieg case is still ongoing and the Scottish public are understandably concerned that a paedophile ring may exist which reaches far in to our justice system.

So when untrustworthy Police Scotland put blocks on transparency for no valid reason and refuse to tell the Scottish public how many of our children their officers are strip-searching it's little wonder public confidence in police is at an all-time low.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/1090084/police-scotland-unable-say-many-children-strip-searched/

Saturday 14 January 2017

Dodgy COPFS Are A Risk To The Criminal Justice System

The Crown office have finally admitted that they are in serious trouble.

The Procurators Fiscal Society have stated that their budget is down in real terms by 21.5% and that the criminal justice system faces a "huge risk" as a result of "unsustainable" pressure on COPFS staff.

They have also admitted that "there will inevitably be an impact on the wider justice system and the service provided to the public."

So if ever you are asked by the police or the Crown office to be a witness in a court case you really have to think long and hard about it before you decide to do it.

You could actually be helping to convict an innocent person because we all know that police - due to constraints on their resources and a culture within the force - do not investigate things properly and fully any more. They just form an opinion on who they think the bad guy is and try to make evidence fit that opinion.

And now the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service are giving you a very clear warning that there are huge risks in the system and it is inevitable that justice will be affected.

Could you live with that on your conscience?

http://www.scottishlegal.com/2016/11/14/unsustainable-pressure-on-copfs-poses-huge-risk-to-criminal-justice-system/

Thursday 12 January 2017

Police Criticise The COPFS

The Crown office is in a right a mess, and in more ways than one.

1. They are so inefficient they clog up the courts just to hit deadlines.

2. They let victims down.

3. They waste police officers’ time.

4. They're out of their depth in dealing with new crime-fighting technology.

But it's not me who's saying all this.

It's the POLICE themselves who are saying it!

Yes, this is the astonishing news that police have launched a scathing attack on their boss, friend and good ole' buddy the COPFS.

The Scottish Police Federation said the Crown office needs to significantly "up its game" in the way it deals with both victims and witnesses.

Police have completely humiliated the Crown office.

And I, for one, am delighted.

Because in the ancient art of war, divide and rule has always been the most effective weapon against an enemy. So to see untrustworthy Police Scotland and the corrupt Crown office get in to a spat with each other is a wondrous thing to behold.

These two corrupt-to-the-core organisations are usually patting each others backs with one hand while covering each others backsides with the other. But now the gloves seem to be off.

Let the blood-bath begin!

And when it's over, we, the Scottish public, can pick up the remnants of both these abysmal organisations and throw them in the dustbin where they belong.

Then, and only then, we can seriously set about constructing a proper, honest, decent, and true justice system fit for purpose, fit for the 21st century, and fit to serve the good people of Scotland.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14883529.Police_launch_scathing_attack_on_Scotland___s_prosecution_service_accusing_it_of_clogging_courts_to_hit_deadlines/?ref=rss

Tuesday 10 January 2017

City Treasurer Couldn't Organise A P*** Up In A Brewery

OK, so we all know that Glasgow Crooked City Council are always pleading poverty.

Well now GCC have come up with a new hair-brained scheme to raise money - via their Local Taxation Working Group...

City Treasurer Bailie Philip Braat is considering introducing a congestion charge on Glasgow's roads and a tourist tax on visitors.

Hmmm. I wonder if they've really thought this through?

You see the Glasgow economy is already suffering due to people staying away from shopping areas in the city centre because of sky-high parking charges, militant traffic wardens hiding behind corners, and those arrogant little community jobsworths that strut around like little hitlers wagging their fingers at every stray cat that walks by them.

And now GCC want to also charge you to drive in to Glasgow in the first place AND slap another charge on you if you're a visiting tourist!

Look, I'm well travelled. Believe me when I assure you that EVERY major city in the world bends over backwards to ATTRACT tourists and all the lovely money they bring with them. Tourism boosts local economies.

Dissuading tourists - and even Glaswegians themselves - from coming in to Glasgow is, well, it beggars belief.

It reminds me of a pub owner I knew many years ago who wasn't doing much business because his prices were much higher than the pub next door. His bright idea was to put his prices up even more, the idea being that he needed to make more money off of less customers (and no, I'm not making this up)!

Whatever you do Glasgow City Council, please, please, promise us you'll never, ever get in to the pub game.

Because your City Treasurer has just shown us all that he really couldn't organise a p*** up in a brewery.

http://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/taxes-including-tourist-levy-congestion-12160191

Saturday 7 January 2017

Young People Do Not Trust The Police

The charity Young Scot Police Scotland Youth Advisory Panel have been working with Police Scotland and advising them how they should treat and deal with young people.

Good news is that the charity have secured a number of promises from Police Scotland.

Police have promised that when it comes to interacting with young people, they will:

- Prioritise young people’s safety and protection

- Engage more with young people

- Offer advice about safety to prevent young people coming in to harm

- If charged will discuss with young people how their case will be dealt with and offer support regarding their needs regardless as to their background.

- If a young person is accused of misbehaviour, police will treat them fairly and make sure they understand their rights and the process.

Very impressive.

Only problem is I spoke to some youngsters from Shettleston, Glasgow - one of the poorest and most deprived areas in Scotland - and told them the good news that all the illegal stop and search and targeting they have been suffering for years from corrupt cops in untrustworthy Police Scotland is all about to change. Police are now going to be their friend.

They laughed.

Actually they laughed and responded with a few choice words which are, well, pretty much unprintable here.

Hmmm. Oh well, back to the drawing board Police Scotland.

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/charity-tells-police-to-get-its-priorities-right

Thursday 5 January 2017

Procurator Fiscal Lets Police Pals Off The Hook

If you or I were to do something illegal, and got caught, what do you think the Crown office would do to us?

Yip, they'd have us in the dock quicker than you can say "Book 'em Danno".


So what do you think the Crown office did when their buddies in the police were discovered to have "abused state power" in a raid on the offices of Holman Fenwick Willan LLP (police seized privileged documents that were not covered by their search warrant - even Lord Justice Gross ruled the police's warrant was of "excessive and unlawful width")?

Well, the Crown office (who are the police's boss, work with them every day and rely on them every day to help them prosecute cases) said:

"The Crown has taken careful note of the court's decision. It has taken steps, and will continue to take steps, along with the police and other reporting agencies, to ensure that the appropriate lessons are learned."

So there you have it.

Next time you break the law, just tell the Procurator Fiscal (and the Sheriff in the court he drags you in to) that you've "taken steps" and can assure them that you have learned "appropriate lessons" from the crimes you have committed.

Let me know how you get on y'all.

https://stv.tv/news/west-central/1370367-police-abused-state-power-in-rangers-fraud-case-raid/

Wednesday 4 January 2017

Glasgow City Councillors Coin In An Extra £400,000...For Themselves

Have you ever wondered why so many wealthy businessmen, solicitors, accountants, professional people etc give up their very lucrative careers to become councillors in Glasgow Crooked City Council and work for a paltry £16,234/year salary?

Is it simply a personal sacrifice that these wonderful publicly spirited and selfless individuals choose to bare just so that they can make life better for you and I?

Or could it perhaps be because a councillors job just happens to include immense power and authority (plus more brown envelopes than you can shake a stick at, nudge nudge wink wink)?

If you listened to our wonderful elected officials they would have you believe that they are dedicated to helping, supporting, and improving every facet of our lives in this great city.

And they also strive to save us money too.

A few years ago - with halo's suspended above their heads - our councillors decided that there was too much money being wasted in council departments. These council departments were too big and too interconnected to be efficient and were haemorrhaging money at an alarming rate.

So they set about creating what is known as 'arms length companies'.

The idea was that individual council departments would now cease to be merely parts of the one big council entity and would now become individual separate companies. Departments would be entities in their own right and, as such, would have to stand up on their own financially.

In short, each former department would now become an 'arms length company' and would need to be profitable in it's own right.

On the face of it, it looked like a good idea and councillors were keen to boast to us how much money it would save us. For example, it was common knowledge that when many council departments got close to the end of their financial year they squandered all their left-over budget money on all sorts of stupid and wasteful stuff because, if they didn't, that surplus money would have to be returned to the coffers. Worse still, if a department had surplus money at the end of their year, they would have, in effect, shown that they don't need as much money to operate so would risk their budget being cut for the following year .

It all sounded good on the face of it.

But what councillors were not so keen to tell us was that councillors themselves would now be entitled to claim a 'salary' from these new independant 'arms length companies' for the work they do in them.

The  result?

In addition to their normal salaries, many councillors now get a very handy extra few quid for their 'work' in these companies.

£400,000 extra to be exact.

They include:

James Dornan: £17,046 for sitting on the board of the SECC.

Paul Rooney: £20,294 for the joint police board.

Alistair Watson: £20,294 for chairing the transport body SPT.

Elizabeth Cameron: £14,781 for being vice-chair of the Glasgow City Marketing Bureau.

Philip Braat: £15,836 as non-executive director of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC).

James Coleman: £12,062 for sitting on one of the city's health partnerships.

Gerry Leonard: £15,836 for chairing City Building

Paul Carey: £6335 for sitting on the board of City Markets plus £10,558 for chairing City Parking (more than £17k - nice)!

Ruth Simpson: £10,558 as chair of City Markets plus £15,836 for her role on Cordia LLP, (more than £26k in total - even nicer)!

Now I don't know about you, but everybody I know who has a job, any type of job, goes to work in the morning and, well, works all day in that job. They get paid to be there all day and to do whatever that job requires them to do while they're there. Pretty simple really.

I don't know any, say, mechanics, who work in a garage 5 or 6 days a week for £16,234/year but then demand another £10,000/year if the garage owner asks them to change a few Vauxhall gearboxes and another £15,000/year if they have to service a few Ford Fiestas.

What I mean is a job is a job, and a salary is a salary for that job. There are only so many hours in the day that you can work. So you turn up at your job, work those hours, and do whatever various tasks happen to be part of doing that job.

Councillors should be no different.

Yet, by simply by moving the structure of council departments around, our humble public servants - who we are expected to believe only care about us and selflessly work purely for our benefit at great sacrifice to themselves - are not only now pocketing their usual £16,234/year but they also share in a nice wee extra £400,000 wind fall too.

Nice work if you can get it.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12765976.Senior_Glasgow_councillors_share__pound_400_000_payments_for__apos_arm_apos_s_length_apos__organisations/

Sunday 1 January 2017

Police Can't Even Lie Convincingly

Ain't it good to know that since the M9 tragedy - where Police Scotland failed to respond for 3 days to a call reporting a car crash in which two people died - lessons have now been learned.

Yes folks, new processes have been put in place, responses improved, thorough investigations have been made in to the M9 failings, and they assure us that we, the Scottish public are now safer than ever before.

Except their assurances are nothing more than the usual sound-bites we've come to expect from the Police Scotland PR machine. Any ideas that things are better at untrustworthy Police Scotland and that we are safer are a load of old tosh.

It's Police Scotland lying to us yet again.

Because a BBC investigation has discovered that there have been more than 80 'near misses' - errors in police call handling - from April 2016 to December 2016.

These involve road traffic accidents, domestic abuse, assault and vulnerable children.

Police have learned NOTHING from the M9 tragedy.

Not even how to lie to us convincingly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-38186011