One of the two handsome escapees
Uncle Dave posted the beginning of this fiasco, yesterday — here. The reaction of officials with more brains than the Derbyshire police followed.
Pictures of two murderers on the run from jail were released last night after the Lord Chancellor criticised a police force for suggesting that the Human Rights Act prevented their publication.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton, QC, dismissed the suggestions by Derbyshire police as “absolute nonsense” and demanded an explanation of their refusal to release the pictures.
“When you are dealing with two convicted murderers, both of whom have absconded, it is utterly obvious that there is no public interest arising out of the Human Rights Act which prevents publication,” Lord Falconer said.
The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) also said yesterday that the photos should be published if the men were considered a danger to the public. It said that the Human Rights Act explicitly allowed police to print “wanted” pictures if it was in the public interest.
Fortunately, public welfare, public access to information, seems to override privacy for criminals. This time.
Thanks, Joshua.
Good to know that there’s at least somebody with common sense left in the UK.
More likely the police were trying bullshit the public that the human rights act prevents them from protecting them.
#3, I have a deep seated fear you may be correct.
Of course there is always a small possibility that the reporting was crap: Derbyshire police response
#2
So Pedro… You gonna fess up and say you were wrong about “human rights activists” or are you gonna pretend you never said anything stupid in the first place and just make a stab at this Lord Falconer (who did what you wanted to have done in the first place)?
Seriously man…
#5
They still could have released the photos when the press asked for it. After all, these were two convicted murderers.
– – – – –
Slighty on and off topic… you guys gotta read this story. Someone stole a freaking urinal in London.
#7 If memory serves me right, didn’t someone steal a urinal from Ernest Hemmingway’s place in Key West or was it he stole one from the bar he frequented.
Back on topic: ‘Police reason for not issuing photos of runaway killers ‘is just nonsense’
#9
I had no idea, so I checked Google. It appears that he had a urinal from a pub in his backyard. I couldn’t find if it got stolen or not.
#5…..sorry….that self covering of arse won’t cut it. The media in Britian have this one correct. The spokesperson for the Derbyshire police is on tape as having made the original statement listing the Human Rights Act as the basis for their decision. They attempted to cover themselves by stating the prisonors were due to be released and weren’t considered dangerous by authorities anymore. Even this statement on their website, that you linked, is just plain stupid. Since when do you decide that just because you THINK they are no longer in your jurisdiction that you don’t need to warn citizens of who they are, and what they look like. These men are convicted murderers. Just because they served 10 years of their *life* sentances without killing someone else, dosen’t make the potential risk disappear. Do you or would you TRUST a couple guys who have committed unprovoked murder in the past, and are so stupid that they walk away from an open prison just a few months before being released legally????
I don’t even want to get into the fact that 2 cold blooded murderers were sentenced to ***life*** terms and are?were set to be released in 10 years. Were they sentanced to 5 Monarch butterfly lifetimes??? Life should mean just that…life….at minimum it should be 30 or 35 years before they can be released. This is why so many people still want execution for these kinds of crimes. They know that people like this will be back on the streets before the dirt hardens on their murdered victims graves. I’m against capital punishment, but when I red this stuff, I have to wonder who is standing up for the victims of murder and the ordinary citizens.
#11, joshua
The US is unique among western countries in it’s approach to punishment. Most other western countries take a rehabilitation attitude while the American approach is vengeance and dehumanization.
#13….Mr. Fusion…While I can’t speak to France or Germany’s prison’s, I can to the UK’s….they make all the right sounds about rehab and correct treatment of prisons, they are no better, maybe as bad as our prisons. When the lighter sentences were introduced in the UK, they were supposed to be coupled with intensive rehab…..it never happened. The goverment got their sound bite, and another wonderous program was announced with much fan fare, then they just forgot about it all until recently. Because of the missing criminal immigrents, people are noticing the prison system in the UK again. Yesterday the goverment admitted it has no idea how many prisioners have escaped and are still out loose.
The prisons in the UK make ours look like Trump Towers in comparison.
And Lord Falconer is an idiot. But I have to admit, he caught which way the political wind was blowing on this deal really fast and steped up. He’s the fool that helped bring in the Human Rights Act in the Uk. It was him and Tony Blair. Since they allowed it to be insituted all kinds of outragous stuff has been perpatrated on the citizens of the UK……this fiasco is just the latest.