COURT ORDERS YOUTH TO BUILD A MEMORIAL GARDEN …Er, IF YOU HAVE TIME!

When I read about the 16 year old yob who told officers at Ashton police station that he wished PCs Fiona Bone and PC Nicola Hughes had been stabbed instead of being shot ‘to make it more painful’ I couldn’t help thinking that the caution culture that has developed in this country, has sent the wrong message to young people and has totally failed to address the youth crime problem.

If you missed the story in last week’s Advertiser; this little charmer had earlier been arrested for carrying a ‘cosh type’ bar and for racially abusing an Asian Officer. He also shouted praise for Dale Cregan, the person charged with the PC’s murder.

Once in court, he admitted indecent behaviour, possessing an offensive weapon and using racially offensive threatening behaviour, for which he was handed an 18 month Youth Rehabilitation Order. This includes ‘taking a weapons prevention course’ carry out 24hours unpaid work, observe a 3 month 7pm-7am curfew and banned from an area of Dukinfield, with the proviso that he help build a memorial garden to the fallen officers, if time allows.

The problem here is that this little lout was subject to a previous court order at the time of his arrest; so that was really effective, wasn’t it!

So what happens if and when this apprentice serial offender fails to comply with his ‘Youth Rehabilitation Order’?

Well, if a young person fails to cooperate with the requirements set out in the Youth Rehabilitation Order they will:

·         Be asked to explain within 24 hours by telephone or letter the reason they have failed to comply with the requirements

·         If the reason they give is deemed unacceptable they will be issued with a warning

·         If the same individual receives three warnings they will have breached the Youth Rehabilitation Order and will be returned to court.

Presumably then the whole scenario starts again.

No wonder the police are leaving in droves. It must be so frustrating to have to keep arresting the same people 20-30-40 times until the day they commit that really serious crime that sees them incarcerated for 20 years to life.

In my opinion the problem became worse after the 60s because that's when we went soft on punishing criminals! Today we are reaping what was seeded by too many reformists and do-gooders resulting in too many illiterate people who didn't attend school and poor parenting and too many living on benefits, rather than working honestly. There are very few people with manners anymore. When the police do intervene it is normally heavy handed and with little sign of the common-sense touch of community policing as the days of old.

Over the last thirty years our "leaders" have taken the rights from teachers to punish children who are unruly in class. The police aren’t visible in our streets any longer because of lack of funding although we are heavily taxed for the expense.

The court system is a joke and the sad fact is that an ASBO is the only qualification some will ever get.

Politicians have a lot to answer for!