Asbo

[ophic]

Originally Posted by Milky Bar Kid

Whether you agree with it or not its law. The police didn't come up with it, the govt did.

We're quite aware where the buck stops. Unfortunately there only has to be "evidence", not proof, so innocent until proven guilty goes out the window.

It's no different from someone being arrested for a breach of the peace and being held in custody to appear at court.

[yorkie_chris]

Somebody screaming profanities in the high street in the prescense of uniformed coppers is one thing... the taking without consent of somebodies property and then holding it to ransom* based on some codgers whinging is a COMPLETELY different story.

*Presumably it would go to the same thieving scum storage yards where they'd charge you £100 to get it back.

A family here in Dublin got evicted from their council house. You have to be pretty bad to be thrown out of a council house. Apparently there were literally hundreds of complaints against them over the years.

So how is it that it takes years of complaints for knacker-*******s to have action taken against them, and this poor SV owner is about to get an ASBO and his bike impounded for changing his oil two, maybe three times a year?

There's gotta be something else going on... in the meantime, I'm thinking of writing a book called "How To Be A Knacker *******, Abuse the System and Get Away With Just About Everything".

Unfortunately people purposely did things like this in the past, resulting in the legislation being put in place. People got booked but then as soon as the cops left started doing it again, hence the seizures being brought into it in the ASB legislation.

It's not easy for Darren to prove that he isn't being anti-social. Darren, are there other neighbours around you? If so, did the cops speak to them? If not then if it happens again and they come to give you your ASB warning, ask them to go and speak to the other neighbours and find out what their views on it are. It'll either back you up, letting the cops go back to their boss and say that the other guy is clearly being unreasonable, or it will reveal that you have perhaps been unreasonable.

Either way it will help. If it shows that you are perhaps being unreasonable, and I am not saying you are, then you will be able to do something about it..ie, not do it again! Or, if it shows the other guy is being unreasonable then it might put a stop to the ASB legislation being utilised.

[ophic]

I think here is where the problem stems. Trying to legislate "reasonableness". Stuff it. If you break the law, get booked for it. If you're within the law, you don't. I'm not gonna have some copper or judge tell me what is reasonable. In fact, as long as I'm within the law, I can be as unreasonable as I like.

Well, according to the ASB legislation, he will have broken the law if the way he uses his motor vehicle causes alarm, annoyance or disturbance to members of the public.

[yorkie_chris]

Problem I see is that makes no allowance for members of the public being unreasonable in what causes them alarm or annoyance.
Which to me makes it an unjust law, which is no law at all.

It seems it could just be a way of handing out a £100+ fine without needing an admission of guilt or any burden of proof

[dyzio]

Originally Posted by Milky Bar Kid

Well, according to the ASB legislation, he will have broken the law if the way he uses his motor vehicle causes alarm, annoyance or disturbance to members of the public.

Not having a go at you here, but according to this you can report people for almost anything that annoys you.
Imagine, you let your bike warm up while you put your lid/gloves on and you can be in trouble for that! Darren said that his bike had the baffle in, so it was road legal.

Someone I know got into trouble for pulling wheelies in town. That's what an asbo should be issued for (and was in this case), not the one discussed here.

Originally Posted by Milky Bar Kid

It's no different from someone being arrested for a breach of the peace and being held in custody to appear at court.

But would you arrest somebody for breach of the peace if somebody phoned to say their neighbour was shouting in the street and causing a nuisance, but when you arrived all was quiet, and the alleged offender told you that he had been fixing his roof whilst his friend was holding the ladder, and they have been shouting instructions to each other?

I expect not, for breach of the peace you'd normally need to witness a disturbance yourself, that was more ominous than somebody just going about their business (ie: running a motorbike engine on the driveway, or shouting up a ladder).

It's a completely different level of offence, and a different level of evidence and judgement required by the police officer.

Police shouldn't be allowed to go around seizing very expensive pieces of property, and something that the person possibly relies upon heavily to get to work, etc, based upon the fact that they believe and sympathise with a grumpy neighbour who may or may not be telling the truth.

I know police don't make the law which I why I wrote "He could have rot holes in the window frames for all the legislators know" and "What are we [the royal we, as in - society] turning the police into". I'm not blaming the police for anything, but police are human beings with emotions, mood swings, individual opinions, and other personal influences. Maybe the police officer involved also has problems with a neighbour revving a motorbike, are they going to remain impartial? There's a reason the highest court in the land has a jury made of several people, it to try to ensure justice is served. Individual police officers IMO should not be making a judgement call on whether to seize somebody's perfectly legal motorbike (yes it had no Tax or MOT, but was on private land so committed no offence in that respect)

I also realise that it's the law whether or not I like it. But just because it's the law, that doesn't mean it's right, or it makes sense, or that I have to like it.

Don't forget that I've just had a year of being screwed by a police officer who made a bad judgement call, then neither knew the laws he was dealing with or prepared the case properly. It was a young guy and he needed to learn somehow as Bluepete pointed out to me on Sunday (though really IMO he should be learning certain basics in a classroom, before he goes out to test his new skills on an innocent member of the public!), but the copper who spoke to Darren could just as easily have been a young pup too. I need to be careful not to allow that to cloud my opinion of the police forces as a whole, but I do know how "human" an individual police officer can be, and therefore I'm very wary about giving individual police officers too many powers. Society needs to be careful not to view somebody as some sort of superior being who has better judgement than anybody else, just because we have put them in a uniform. Police are fallible, just like the rest of us.