Traditional East-End Villains (more torture in the community)

This lot - Adnan Kyani, Mohammed Nawaz, Douglas Poku, Benjamin Boakye, Andrew Boateng and Yaw Darko-Kwakye - got 34 years for kidnap and torture. Between six of them. Let me see, that's 34 halved is seventeen, divided by six - about 2 years 9 months each after you knock off the 18 days.

Yaw Darko-Kwakye ?

If you shouted his name at him in the street you'd be jailed for racist abuse.

Well, I'm Shocked

A former police officer has been jailed for two-and-a-half years after admitting four counts of sexual activity with a 15-year-old boy.

Mark Brigham was serving with the Metropolitan Police when the incident took place in Portsmouth, in 2008.

The victim's family asked Brigham, a lesbian and gay liaison officer, for advice after their son came out as homosexual, the court heard.

You simply can't trust anyone these days, can you ?

Yes, It's Honour-Based Homophobia !

Allegedly. I'll let you be the judge.

A gay man accused of murdering his former lover by dousing him in petrol and setting him on fire has said his Muslim friend tried to frame him after finding out he was homosexual.

Nadim Kurrimbukus, 25, also known as Adam, denies setting fire to 23-year-old Charlie Davies outside his home in Templedene Avenue, Staines, at 11.20pm on June 14 last year. His co-accused Yusuf Dulloo, 27, said in a police interview he drove with Kurrimbukus to Mr Davies’ home on the same night and heard a scream after his friend had left the car, but he denied any knowledge of the attack.

But the following day they met at Hounslow train station where Kurrimbukus confessed to him that he “lit the guy”, Dulloo told detectives. Kurrimbukus, a former West Thames College and Isleworth and Syon School pupil, told Kingston Crown Court this week that his Muslim friend was lying to punish him after discovering he was gay.

Dressed smartly in a suit and tie and wearing glasses, he said: “In Islam you are not allowed to be gay. There’s such a thing as an honour killing. Dulloo’s lying as a punishment. He is trying to punish me after he found out about my sexuality.”

Hmm. I suppose it's worth a try.


(the late Charlie Davis)

More Torture In The Community

I suppose, unlike many other victims, they did at least survive.

Hounslow Council has won its appeal against a High Court ruling which awarded almost £100,000 in damages to a vulnerable couple who suffered physical and sexual abuse in their own flat by a gang of youths.

A top judge today ruled that despite the suffering the couple endured at the hands of four youths, Hounslow Council could not be blamed for what had happened.

At the initial High hearing last May, Judge Maddison said a lack of communication between council departments had led to the couple, who both have learning difficulties, being subjected to a weekend-long assault in late 2000.

The couple - referred to only as X and Y in court - were made to perform sex acts on each other, drink their own urine and eat the faeces of one of the gang members, who threatened to stab them if they did not comply.

The traumatic assaults were carried out at the couple’s council-owned flat, often witnessed by Y’s children, who are now in their teens.

A number of the assailants had been living in the flat for months before the attack after the couple tried to befriend them.

During last year’s hearing Judge Maddison said the council had acted "negligently" in its handling of the situation.

He said the council should have transferred the family to other housing and a social worker had written to the director of housing before the assault asking whether a "catastrophe" had to occur before it happened.

The couple were awarded £97,000 damages by the court.

However, the Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, today said the couple had made the mistake of being kind to the youths and overturned the ruling leaving the couple without a penny.

Hounslow Council today said it was pleased the judge had praised social worker Tajinder Hayre, who was responsible for the couple, ruling she was blameless in the incident.

A spokeswoman added: “This is an extremely sad case, and we have every sympathy for the claimants, who were subjected to an appalling ordeal.

"We are also pleased to note that the Court of Appeal praised the social worker involved for her 'impeccable behaviour'."

This "in the community" stuff is a godsend for councils. If the couple had been living in some local equivalent of Barnsley Hall, they would be unlikely to have had (presumably heavily state-subsidised) children, but if they'd been abused in the care of the local authority someone would be responsible for them. As it is, the highest courts in the land are telling them they're on their own :

A social worker had told police the vulnerable pair were being exploited, but was informed that no action could be taken unless the couple complained themselves.
The council employee had also called for the couple to be rehoused. Lawyers for the couple argued the social worker should have realised they were in danger and had them moved.

Hounslow Council took their case to the Appeal Court which ruled the council had no duty of care to the couple. Sir Anthony Clarke, who headed the appeal judges, said: "There is an important difference between a case where children assert that a duty of care is owed to them and a case like this where the claimants are adults living in the community, albeit vulnerable adults."

And what of their torturers ? The trial didn't seem to make the headlines - maybe there wasn't one. (Apparently three presumably anonymous 'youths' were sent down - more distressing details in this story)

As I said last time someone was tortured then murdered, a few months back :

I'm sure there were dark sides to the old "homes" and "loony-bins", where those who were once called 'simples' or 'naturals' often ended up (in the absence of devoted, fit and time-rich relatives). But there's little evidence of their inmates being tortured to death.

Doubtless the heartbreaking details will unfold in due course. If the past is any guide to the future, his torturers and killers will turn out to be well-known locally, "known to social services" and the law, and with habits including petty crime, assault and drug abuse. It's quite possible that at least one of them will be female.

Hmm ...

Photo : Harpymarx


What's the officer on the left thinking as he furtively eyeballs her bare midriff ?

And They Say The Law Has No Sense Of Humour ...

BBC.

A man and a woman have been jailed over the death of an innocent shopper in a queue-jumping row in south London. Southwark Crown Court heard Antonette Richardson called Tony Virasami to a Sainsbury's store in Merton where he hit Kevin Tripp, a bystander who had nothing to do with the dispute. Father-of-one Mr Tripp, 57, from Colliers Wood, south-west London, died when the "almighty blow" caused him to fall and fracture his skull, causing bleeding on the brain.

Richardson was jailed for 18 months and ex-boyfriend Virasami received four years for manslaughter.

So far so bog-standard. They've been on remand since last June, so she'll walk free (halve the sentence and knock off I think another 18 days - one of Labour's prison-emptying ideas) and he'll do another year or so. Less than two years for killing a stranger in an utterly unprovoked attack.

It's this bit that gets me :

Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said the sentences reflected the "shock and concern felt by the public at large".

Quite the comedian, isn't he ?

Deflation ?

Petrol's going up by 2p, having crept up from around 86p to 93p or so already this year, water rates by over 4%, council tax by 3% (and that's presented as a triumph of frugality). Food prices are rising, as is the price of everything we import.

It's a pity the protesters in London today will be the usual suspects - hideously white, hideously middle-class, hideously 'left', if you can call it that, hideously tax-funded.

I'm sure there are lots of Brits who will be going to work today but are just as cross with our glorious leaders, but with more reason.

"On a lighter note" ... how a bright and savvy programmer facilitated the sub-prime disaster by creating better software to facilitate the slicing and dicing of mortgages into bonds (there are other factors, of course).