Damning sentence

Hard to know who’s the real villain of this doomed canoe trip

'John and Anne Darwin, who last week began sentences of more than six years each for having defrauded insurance companies. That’s roughly what you’d get, on average, if you raped someone and 19 times longer than the average sentence for people convicted of knife crime.'

Home Alone

A good (it can happen) piece on the BBC News regarding the age limits and responsibilities of kids left at home unattended.

Especially with six summer weeks approaching.

However, a key question needs answering.

How on earth can you be prosecuted for 'breaking' a law on the basis of a 'legal' age limit that is not specified?

It is totally unacceptable to have laws that are 'vague' in this manner, and astounding that they are allowed to exist in this form if they can lead to a conviction.

In fact I'd be intrigued as to how a conviction could ever be derived on this basis.

Like many road-related 'laws', there are simply too many vague ways to not actually tell you what is or is not legal, but with the option of nabbing (usually with a fine) if the mood takes them.

Ain't law great? We seem to have more than one?

No link, but an email from Ch4 that is a neat summary of a situation, with their own take:

NAOMI'S RAGE SPARKS MEDIA CIRCUS
Naomi Campbell pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers and threatening behaviour. She has been sentenced to 200 hours community service, must pay £2,300 in fines and £200 compensation to each of the police officers. And the detail of what actually happened is pretty stunning, and she tried to make race an issue at the time. It occurs to me, the day after Big Brother aired the eviction of Alexandra for alleged threatening behaviour, that young black girls in Britain are not currently seeing the best role models.

I am less interested in the issues of race and/or role models, but certainly in the way the law works, and hence note this for future reference in case a precedent is required.

As I understand it she committed both assault... and battery... on a police officer, in a plane. The consequences for this action seem... interesting, all things considered.

Je t'accuse

I concern myself more and more with the ability of those enforcing the law seeming to be unaware of what it actually is:

The cult of free speech

Consequences

Sometimes it's hard to see who can win... or how.

I was watching a slot on an attempt to ban by law a city centre morning cattle market, primarily on nice grounds as it is near a residential area.

At first I thought this was another one, like some Heathrow protests, where a bunch of folk seemed to have only just realised what they live next to having moved in.

However, it transpires the complaints may well be fair as the noise has got worse, because of the all the lorries' reversing beepers. These of course are now mandated to exist... by law.

Go figure.