The horrifying case of the Edlington child torturers was covered on last night's The World Tonight. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qtl3.
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If you want a classic example of the BBC's innate tendency towards bleeding-heart liberalism, this is it. The whole tenor of Robin Lustig's questioning to his first guest was of how the poor torturers could be reformed, after all they've suffered. "The adjective that is often used of children who behave in this way is that they are 'damaged'. The opposite of 'to damage' is 'to heal'. You are saying that children can be healed?", he asked finally. "I believe than children can be healed," his guest replied.
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That first guest was introduced thus: "I asked Pam Hibbert, who used to run a secure children's' home for violent offenders, how will they spend the coming days and weeks." He repeated these words at the end of the interview. But that's not all Pam Hibbert is, if you google about a bit. She's was also a director of policy at Barnardos and now heads the Standing Committee on Youth Justice. I'm puzzled as to why Robin introduced her as if she were a just someone who used to run a secure children's' home.
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She was followed by the usual sort of liberal criminologist who also pops up at these occasions, invited to react to David Cameron's speech about the case being another example of Broken Britain: Professor John Pitts of the University of Bedfordshire. He doesn't believe in 'evil', obviously. Unlike Mr Cameron, he sees them as 'extremely rare' 'isolated incidents', not indicative of social change taking place, unlike many other things. Here's Prof. Pitts from an interview with the Guardian (with a little censorship on my part!) to show where he's coming from:
"The idea that the market won - that it's beyond the power of government to intervene to affect the kind of social change [necessary] - ultimately, it's all predicated on a belief that if only you can link these places or these people back into the market, 'Bob's your uncle'. The current economic crisis tells you the market doesn't sort it. It f**** it up unbelievably."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jun/04/youthjustice
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This same edition ended with another of its trademark paeans to Latin American lefties, this time Bolivia's communistic president Evo Morales (Hugo Chavez's mini-me, pictured above being sworn in as the country's 'spiritual leader'). Reporter Andres Schipani heard from some of Morales most passionate supporters and his finance minister Luis Arce and presented the president's achievements in glowing terms. To be fair, a few seconds were given over to a more sceptical Harvard professor Gonzalo Chavez but the report's character can be best summed up by how it ended, with the sounds of crowds of Morales supporters crying "Evo! Evo!" Schipani might as well have joined in.
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If you want a classic example of the BBC's innate tendency towards bleeding-heart liberalism, this is it. The whole tenor of Robin Lustig's questioning to his first guest was of how the poor torturers could be reformed, after all they've suffered. "The adjective that is often used of children who behave in this way is that they are 'damaged'. The opposite of 'to damage' is 'to heal'. You are saying that children can be healed?", he asked finally. "I believe than children can be healed," his guest replied.
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That first guest was introduced thus: "I asked Pam Hibbert, who used to run a secure children's' home for violent offenders, how will they spend the coming days and weeks." He repeated these words at the end of the interview. But that's not all Pam Hibbert is, if you google about a bit. She's was also a director of policy at Barnardos and now heads the Standing Committee on Youth Justice. I'm puzzled as to why Robin introduced her as if she were a just someone who used to run a secure children's' home.
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She was followed by the usual sort of liberal criminologist who also pops up at these occasions, invited to react to David Cameron's speech about the case being another example of Broken Britain: Professor John Pitts of the University of Bedfordshire. He doesn't believe in 'evil', obviously. Unlike Mr Cameron, he sees them as 'extremely rare' 'isolated incidents', not indicative of social change taking place, unlike many other things. Here's Prof. Pitts from an interview with the Guardian (with a little censorship on my part!) to show where he's coming from:
"The idea that the market won - that it's beyond the power of government to intervene to affect the kind of social change [necessary] - ultimately, it's all predicated on a belief that if only you can link these places or these people back into the market, 'Bob's your uncle'. The current economic crisis tells you the market doesn't sort it. It f**** it up unbelievably."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jun/04/youthjustice
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This same edition ended with another of its trademark paeans to Latin American lefties, this time Bolivia's communistic president Evo Morales (Hugo Chavez's mini-me, pictured above being sworn in as the country's 'spiritual leader'). Reporter Andres Schipani heard from some of Morales most passionate supporters and his finance minister Luis Arce and presented the president's achievements in glowing terms. To be fair, a few seconds were given over to a more sceptical Harvard professor Gonzalo Chavez but the report's character can be best summed up by how it ended, with the sounds of crowds of Morales supporters crying "Evo! Evo!" Schipani might as well have joined in.
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From my own experiences I must say that it was a case of "like father, like son".
ReplyDeleteI joined the police in the 70s. I left after 12 years and then rejoined in 1993 before moving on to other things. In that brief period in 1993 I found myself all to often arresting the children of those that I'd arrested in the 70's.
It was a depressing tale of under achieving, alcohol abusing, drug taking, school dropout, and welfare benefit scrounging squalor. And, of course, they bred like rabbits from a very early age.
I don't pretend to know the answers, but then again neither do these hand wringing clowns that the BBC continuously dredge up.
I would suggest as a start that social services be grabbed by the scruff of the neck. Strip out all the deadbeat PC spouting old bags and corduroy wearing job fillers. Put it on a footing similar to the Spanish social services. Totally revamp the C&YP Act of 1989 or scrap it all together. Take any child of failing families into care and ruthlessly cut all benefits to the parents.
An example of these families was once quoted on the "Policeman's blog" run by David Copperfield, and one which any police officer could identify with. A PC goes to a well-known address with an arrest warrant. He lets himself in (as he always does) because the family couldn't be bothered to answer the door. He enters the house (in winter) which has all the windows open but the central heating on full blast. Steps over the dog shit in the hallway and goes into the lounge where the family are sitting on tatty worn furniture watching Trisha on their brand new 42 inch plasma TV whilst swigging cans of Strongbow. The ashtrays are overflowing onto the filthy carpet. One of the kids is sitting in a soiled nappy screaming......... Need I go on, except to say, you just know who’s picking up the tab for all of this.
Andy C (TPO)
This looks like a very interesting blog Andy, if one to raise your blood pressure a fair bit and lower your regard for judges!
ReplyDeletehttp://coppersblog.blogspot.com/
By coincidence as I moved to Calgary the original author of coppersblog resigned, went public, made Tony McNulty look like the numpty he is and then emmigrated to Edmonton (just up the road from us) wher he is now a Canadian police officer.
ReplyDeleteAndy C (TPO)
Apropos of nothing , I still laugh at David Vance on B-BBC describing Tony McNulty as the
ReplyDelete" Forces' Sweetheart ".
Remind me , what happened to McNulty ? Something to do with expenses, I think !