A homeless man who caused thousands of pounds of damage to a coffee shop has been given an antisocial behaviour order.Why hasn’t he just been arrested for criminal damage? Are there no witne…
Oh:
Lee Martin Coates, 25, broke into Caffe Nero in Savile Street, city centre, six times in eight months.It should be an open-and-shut-case then? Surely even the CPS couldn’t louse this one up?
He also smashed doors and windows at Queens Gardens police station last month before walking in and confessing to officers.
PC Russell Moore, antisocial behaviour officer for Hull, said: "By his own admission, he knows the system and he knows how to get a bed for the night in a cell.And then what..? Isn’t he ever sent to trial for it?
"He will break into somewhere, or break something, and then walk into the police station and say 'Now lock me up'."
PC Moore said the order was brought in to protect the public.How?
He said: "I would say protecting the jobs of the people who work at that café is equally as important as stopping him causing damage.Well, given how many ASBO breaches seem to be allowed before anyone takes action, if I worked at Caffe Nero I wouldn’t hold my breath…
"It seems almost warped to make an order for this reason, but how do you deal with someone who does this?"
"He is homeless, he is a drunk. There are more than enough adequate facilities in the city to deal with homeless people and he chooses not to access them.
"It seems like that is his lifestyle choice and we are stuck with him doing that, so we have to deal with him."
8 comments:
This is unbelievable. If you applied the same decision making process any kind of serial offender could commit a crime, then walk into a police station, confess and the police/CPS would say, 'oh,hoh! We see what you're up to and we aren't playing your game, be off with you, trying to play the system you cheeky scamp, well, no we're not playing and you're going to get an ASBO' How d'you like that eh?
Crazy. Bang the idiot up, put him inside or assess him properly and section him - either way he needs dealing with.....properly.
What is sad is that the officer actually seems to believe the shite he's spouting.
Once again, you don't have to make it up?
I am a serving Officer and can advise this is nothing new. 20 Years ago we used to get a chap following us round the town saying lock me up. He had done nothing wrong so we pointed out places he could get help but came back saying he had broken a window. Walked back and sure enough he had.
He was arrested and charged and got a small fine which he never paid. Endd up going to jail for non-payment, roughly a year after he caused the damage.
Officers' are generally frowned upon if they state what they believe. We are locked in a conformity which we don't believe in. Hence the Insp Gadget type blogs.
He will have been charged with the previous incidents but Human Rights means courts have to look at all options other than custody first. The man may not be right in the head and years ago we had mental institutions for them. Now we have only prison options.
It is not the individual officers fault, we didn't vote for this criminal justice system afterall. The officer concerned may be like us and wishing the bloke was locked up for 10 years. If he came out and said that he would be put through the liberal hand-wringers thresher and done for a discipline offence. Police state....having a laugh...it is the individual officer who is living under a 'state'.
Sounds very much as if this has been bunged in the "Too difficult" tray ..
Anonymous, whilst I sympathise with much of what you say and I am well aware of the conditions that police officers have to work under these days there are a couple of points I must make,
(1) There is clearly a growing divide between officers like yourself, who are clearly the right way up and can be classed as 'Old School' and the new generation - say post 1994. Soon, your generation will have gone. Even GAdget is banging his head against an ever growing wall. (Upwards and thickness wise).
(2) That an 'anti-social behaviour officer' is dealing with him which is not what ASBO's were designed for.
Policing is fucked in the UK. The UK is fucked.
@Ranter,
I appreciate your comment. Having been blindingly chasing administrative detections on behalf of the bosses who demanded detections on the most pathetic grounds, i am now able to start using my discretion again. A lot of us railed against the silliness of the Labour years, but in a hierarchical system, you have to do as your told unless it is unlawful. Doing dumb things on behalf of the bosses was not unlawful but i wish it had of been.
I have obtained one ASBO myself and it did prove effective. But that was only because the criminal justice system was not dealing properly with the repeated acts of criminality by that individual. Had they have done so, i would not have had to spend 2 days off the streets compiling all the evidence required to obtain the order. It was a last resort on behalf of the local residents and i felt embarrased that the courts were not supporting us.
I share your concerns, i have children and am constantly looking for countries where they might grow up in a safe and civilised manner. We are crying out for a leader of morals but we are stuck with politicians.
There are a lot of decent young people out there, but the job does require an element of experience and common-sense. Granted not all long-serving Officers have those qualities, but they are more likely to stand up and say no to the latest brainwave initiative from those on the ladders of leadership. If the police look bad from the outside, some of us look from within and are equally saddened. The potential is there for a great police service, but those at the top don't want it. They want privatisation so expect us to be assigned more nonesense which will then be used against us.
Regards to you all.
We're not 'stuck' with his lifestyle choice, we stuck him with our choice to wash our hands of people like him who cannot manage life.
Given that our jails already function as unofficial lunatic asylums and that he is actually asking to return to the safety of this institution, the cops should just do their job and do him (and the rest of the world) this kindness, since there is no other safe place for him to be. Whilst jails are not the right place, they are better than the nothing that is currently available...
Cops are getting used as gatekeepers, an accidental NICE for the mentally ill and end up shielding the system from the consequences of stupid policies.
Alinsky's rules for Radical advises this:
4. "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity."
Anti-social behaviour officer for Hull? A full-time job I would imagine.
"Crazy. Bang the idiot up, put him inside or assess him properly and section him - either way he needs dealing with.....properly."
But that's expensive and time consuming. Far better to bring him into the criminal justice system, I suppose.
Plenty of slack there, eh? :/
"...years ago we had mental institutions for them. Now we have only prison options."
Spot on!
"...we stuck him with our choice to wash our hands of people like him who cannot manage life."
Yup! Arguably the worst of Margaret Thatcher's government's policies.
"Anti-social behaviour officer for Hull? A full-time job I would imagine."
A whole platoon-full!
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