A Few Observations 2

I guess a lot of us read other blogs and some recent posts have particularly caught my eye. The first is courtesy of the Justice of the Peace blog and an item ostensibly about statistics and Freedom of Information obligations in particular. But what genuinely shocked me about this was the information gleaned from Lancashire Police that 74 officers had been accused of sexual offences over the last six years. Now even allowing for the fact that some of these allegations would no doubt be malicious and in 28 instances no further action was taken, 27 officers either resigned or were dismissed, 8 were given warnings or received disciplinary action, 9 were awaiting court action and one was jailed. Others cases are still pending. 

Now I have to say it isn't entirely clear to me if all these instances do in fact reflect allegations of offences as opposed to what might be termed lapses in professional standards, but even so it strikes me as pretty worrying. These are the figures for just one force and there are some 42 others. It also relates only to sexual matters, not other offence categories. I somehow can't get this into perspective when thinking about a well known police website that continually takes a pop at liberal hand-wringers. I know the timing is unfortunate, coinciding as it does with a fair degree of banter about close protection officers giving very close service to those being protected and undercover officers seemingly being given the 'nod and a wink' for sexual activity with those being spied upon. It's 'just part of the job' apparently, but I suddenly feel very uncomfortable with emerging evidence of a certain police ethos. Or have I lost the plot?

I suspect I might be on safer ground in commenting on this very worrying offence highlighted on the Law and Lawyers blogsite. A partially-sighted 92 year-old woman assaulted and robbed of £30 in her own home, having been targeted before. Who could do such a thing and why? I suspect the answer sadly is almost invariably connected to drugs, or just possibly alcohol, but this is not as likely in my view. The author speculates as to the appropriate charge if indeed the person being held on suspicion is prosecuted and I have to say without hesitation it should be robbery.

If I was writing a PSR on such a case I'm fairly sure that it would be an instance where custody would be deemed almost certainly inevitable. I think it has to be, even though the perpetrator will no doubt have had a troubled childhood, will have been damaged by it and drifted inexorably into a chaotic drug-addicted life-style that cannot be funded in any legitimate way. Such people can become so desperate and only concerned with funding their next 'fix' that normal boundaries of behaviour seem to disappear. I think this type of offence is quite unusual though and I've never come across it. What it says to me is that as a society we must do more for young people from damaged backgrounds in reaching them earlier and reform our current ridiculous and failing drug treatment policy.