Huguenot

I' m not sure that wee, witty and cute girls who don't believe in climate change should be allowed to volunteer for anything that doesn't involve painting a bridge. Thus I find it an absolute menace that I should be considering asking her help on how she does all these things on twitter. Do you have to keep looking at the page to see all these things?

The lights are on but no-ones home...

A bonus is a discretionary incentive. The clue regarding the unions is in your use of the word 'entitle'. How often do you hear that word bandied about by militant tub thumpers? Crow and his bullies have managed to turn a discretionary incentive into a grasping entitelment poisoned by threats and menaces. Your language is all wrong on this Chippy - nobody is 'entitled' to a bonus. It's an incentive an organisation may choose to pay if they have sufficient funds and feel staff have gone beyond expectations. Within the private sector it's got nothing to do with the general public what bonuses are paid. It is only within the public sector, where that tax payer is the shareholder, where the general public get a say. This includes those banks that have currently got joe public as the majority shareholder because of bail-outs.

You still using the CPZ as a vehicle for your personal persecution of James Barber, buddug? If some of the challenges others have made are not party political, then why are they singling out the Lib Dems? As gsirrett pointed out, there are 6 others who are never named or their party affiliation cited?

You've tried Zovirax?

Not at all Parkdrive - the only thing I'm concerned about is justice. With that in mind it's about evidence and proportionality. It is not sufficient to assume that the 'victim' is telling the truth unless the legal process has been pursued. The personal statement appears to sidestep this process and it makes me concerned. I have no sympathy for the criminal - I merely want justice to be done.

So far as I know the judge is required to take into account the impact of a crime in sentencing, but not the victim's views on what the sentence should be. The personal statement is an opportunity for the victim to share this information from a personal perespective. However the statement is also weighted by the fact that it doesn't take place under cross-examination, and hence it's diificult to interpret its validity. I'm concerned that the victim statement may generate sentencing decisions based on the best creative writing.

This is Anne Williams' own words: "Kevin did not die from traumatic asphyxia or in an accident. I will not pick up his death certificate until we get the cause of death put right and the accidental death verdict struck down." Make no mistake - this is not a perition for an inquest to find out the answers to Annasfield's questions, this is another attempt to try and 'prove' that the police set out to murder her son and other Liverpool supporters and then covered it up.

There was undoubtedly a police cover up, but that doesn't make the police guilty of deliberately trying to kill Liverpool fans. It makes them cowards and fools. No news there. The obvious answer to most of the questions Annasfield has posed is 'general incompetence' - that fact that many Liverpool fans will not accept this answer means that they want a different one. I suspect that they will not rest until the 'different' one is a declaration that Liverpool fans were deliberately targeted and murdered. This question is typical of that "Anne Williams wants to know why Liverpool were given the smaller end of the ground when our support was almost double what Forest's was that day." The subtext to the question is the suggestion that there was an advanced plan, a conspiracy months in creation, to put Liverpool fans in the smaller end in order to kill them. Anne Williams' quest to change the verdict on Kevin from accidental death to unlawful killing is an example of this.

When I was the victim of an unprovoked group assault in a street that left me hospitalised and stitches across my face I got plenty of help. Victim Support were the main source of help (with offers for medical help and so on), the two policemen on my case were regularly in contact and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board was generous. I don't accept that the victim has 'sod all', and it wasn't my experience. The view that many are beyond redemption is to vague to be unfounded, but nevertheless at least two examples of 'redeemed' offenders are here on this thread.

The Hillsborough disaster was awful on so many levels, and the treatment of both the victims and their reputations added a further terrible contribution to the whole situation. However, Mrs. Williams essentially wants to turn the finding on Kevin Williams from 'accidental death' to 'unlawful killing': "The appropriate standard of proof is that the unlawful killing must be beyond reasonable doubt. This is when the evidence was so overwhelmingly obvious that death would result, that no other thing is taken into account." This means that she wants the court to find that the police deliberately engineered a situation where Liverpool fans would be killed, knowing that they would be killed as a result. This is such an extraordinary misanthropic claim that I do not believe this particular e-petition should be supported. Even the European Court of Human Rights - so traditionally opposed to the Britsh establishment - rejected her case. People who care enough about Anne Williams to sign this petition might actually wonder whether the kind thing to do would be to try and defuse the situation rather than inflame it.

Well that's an interesting example KK. The maximum penalty for attempted murder is also life imprisonment, so it's a technicality that has no difference in execution. British law depends heavily on something called 'mens rea' which means that you had to have the intent to commit a crime, or be aware that you actions were reasonably likely to result in a crime in order to be found criminally liable. That's why accidentally knocking over a cyclist is not 'murder', and a pretty girl cannot be found guilty of murder for distracting the driver's attention. The mental health problems this person has suffered are exceptional, so the burglar could not have any reasonable expectation that they were going to result from his crime, and hence he can't be found responsible for it.

I'll be interested to learn what this extra workload is - it's frankly difficult to imagine these feckless extortionists doing anything above and beyond sitting on their fat arses doing as little as possible all day. As for bonusing the police.... what a surprise, greedy unions demand yet more money from the taxpayer just to do the job they're already paid to do. Who's next? Don't forget Chippy - you're stealing money out of the pockets of the readers of this forum with this racket.

I can understand your desire to find a hate figure to blame, but mental illness is mental illness. There doesn't need to be anybody to blame. I don't think you can be to blame for triggering it unless there was a reasonable expectation that your behaviour would trigger it. I don't think a lifetime's mental health problems is a normal outcome of what sounds like a relatively smmall incident as you have described it, so no, the scrote should not be punished for anything other than the crime which he committed.

Exactly - a bonus is paid for going over and above expectations in your performance. If these guys are working harder, or longer or with extra care - then great, give them a bonus. Crucially, the union makes no such claim - they simply say the drivers will be under 'more pressure'. It's bollocks - it's a ransom demand. That union needs to be broken - or the drivers to be made key workers who can't strike.

Gamerr does have some bizarre things for sale - sky+ boxes, unidentifiable expensive leather goods (where did you buy it then?), complete works of Will Shakespeare, leather sofa... An ebay daytrader?? :))

It's just a ransom demand isn't it? It's not like because the trains are heavier they have to pull harder. They're just hardened criminals Chippy, and this is why nobody likes a union.

Where's Chippy?

"I need new chain rings, casette and chain once a year - cheapest Campag would be around ?110" The rest are independent of gears, yeah? Wheel, brakes and tyres? So 2 quid a week - less than the cost of half a pint? Come on, you're not making a bicycle decision on that basis? How much extra did you pay for your tight shorts? It's just COOL to be single speed ;-) I'm only teasing - so don't get stressed!

I had my last 'problem' before I was 18 - I shoplifted low value items initially but escalated to high value electronics, I never actually wanted them, but the buzz was great. I always gave them away. I got caught for ticket fraud around the same time, but hell, I was skint and a long way from home and they were going to move the train around anyhow. I did non-domestic burglary once overseas, but the guys had my passport and I needed it back and I figured a little bit of recompense for the stress they'd put me through was deserved. Mainly people used commonsense, and without agreeing with me they put me straight. The only time I spent in the cells was for arson, but to this day I don't know who it was, and I'd have disapproved. Did I deserve time for those? Yes probably - but there'd be a few less people employed in the world were it not for the fact that nobody destroyed my life before I was even 18. Since then I've paid more tax than most people - for using my wits more constructively. If I'd have suffered unintelligent treatment you'd just have had one more psychotic criminal mastermind after you ;-) The last time I was a victim it was for $12,500. Makes my Tandy stereo mixing desk pale into insignificance. It was a white collar crime, and I can't get it back through legal means. But I gave them a smile, ruffled their hair, and reminded them to pay their dues. I'll get it back. ;-)

I know Jeremy, we seem to have beome a bit polarised! Parkdrive, what bit was offensive exactly? Saying that you were having a go at Muslims (you were) or saying that you would find Sharia Law attractive (with your absolutist approach to crime and punishment you clearly would). If you look for offence, you can find it everywhere - it doesn't mean that it is intended or implied. The fact that your friend has had mental health problems is not an issue in the sentencing of the criminal. All petty burglaries should be sentenced according to the crime committed.

So far as I know the choice to run a third series is not being made by the BBC, who have made budget available. The choice is being made by Cumberbatch and Freeman who currently do not have sufficent time available simultaneously to make the next series. Spooks was in desperate danger of jumping the shark, with views dropping from 8m to 4.5m. The producers probably decided they needed some new characters and ideas to play with - and basically a new programme!

I'm not sure why you're using this as an excuse to have ago at Muslim's Parkdrive, I'm sure a bit of Sharia Law would be right up your alley? I note that you have absolutely no idea why the girls were given a suspended sentence, you only know what the Daily Mail told you - and all the Mail said was that they attempted to use their religion as mitigation, BUT not that it had any impact on the judgement. What the judge said was that the victim's boyfriend had been racially abusive and had been the first to use violence, and that the whole confrontation had been an escalation that built up over a period time, that may well have been initially created by the victim herself. I recognise that the truth of the affair may not be that interesting to you? I don't see there's a massive gulf between punishment and crime in general, seems to me to be a well worked intelligent compromise with decisions made by people informed of the full facts. I can see there's a massive gulf between what you perceive to be appropriate punishment and crime. However, if you think yourself an effective judge, jury and sentencer, you should probably spend some more time with the facts and less time focusing on people's religion?

Sit on it? http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/avb_core77_cutlerychair_osian.jpg

It was noticeable that the regulations on parking on corners in central ED (I lived on Crawthew Grove) weren't enforced until the installation of dropped kerbs. It was as if local government correctly guessed that the regulation couldn't be effectively policed until there was a 'visible' reminder of why parking on corners was dangerous - in this case the safe transit of roads by the young families, elderley and disabled that the dropped kerbs would assist. Even so there was outrage (on this forum) by people who felt that their right to park wherever they wished superceded the rights of anyone else to make safe use of our communal environment. Their response was to target wardens, and in one case actually subjecting them to abuse and intimidation (I don't remember if a physical attack was involved).