Word to the wise

You've no idea how true that actually is.

Thanks for the heads up on this, I will keep an eye out in the autistic world, as I do not trust this individual to keep within the terms of any order one iota.

yeah - well 'funny' in a way that causes no laughter here or anyplace else I know.

On or around Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:40:53 +0100, "William Tasso" enlightened us thusly:

teehee. actually, it involves a sea passage.

On or around Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:27:52 +0100, "Larry" enlightened us thusly:

seems not. Mind, I reckon (having had some contact with him face-to-face, that he's not evil but mentally deranged, and as such would be better served in a suitable institution rather than just being in jail.

I sent an email to Mike a couple of days ago - may be worth checking he got it.

Indeed.

Although you may very well be correct in this assessment, there are no such services for such folk, and given the impossible job being given to the Probation Service, re-offending is more likely.

Ah well then, my family would be amongst those taxpayers; that particular contribution to the Revenue Commissioners would be money well spent. Apart, that is, from the funds they wasted feeding the creep.

As far as I understand, the remission for pleading guilty is not so much to save work, but to spare the victim the ordeal of giving evidence (and worse, being cross examined by defence counsel) in open court.... a process which I have seen described as being abused all over again. But the idea of the perpetrator being 'rewarded' for this sits uncomfortably with me, although I can see where they're coming from.

I do forsee a bit of a problem here though - none of us newbies are going to know who this guy is, if he resurfaces here; however 'old timers' on the board might think they recognise his posting style, if indeed he does post. And of course it's an unmoderated group so there's no control over who posts, anyway. But you're going to have to be pretty certain that you've identified him before you post a 'heads-up' on here, or there's a grave risk that some innocent poster is going to be fingered by accident. So excercise caution; McCarthy-ism is dead, let's keep it that way.

I had to google to find out what we're talking about and judging by what I've read, I would think that the chances of him re-offending and being locked up again are pretty high. The problem is, unless the Guards/Police are really on the ball, there's going to be another victim before that happens.

He was never very clever - it took a couple of posts by each of his aliases previously before someone worked it out IIRC.

In theory we've only got to catch him at it once this time i presume before it becomes a legal matter?.

Generally, yes, however there were a few that he managed to get get away with for quite some time - and now he's had expert tuition, may have more developed skills.

Depends. He was banned for life - in the UK - from owning a computer or camera. His past prolific postings made from a certain cybercafe in Dublin would not, if repeated, be any offence at all.

That was me that was ;-) Still remember almost spraying the screen with beer when I clocked his faux pas!

Silly Isles?

I shall view any people posting about disco's with suspicion unless i recognise the names then! (it was disco's that were his thing was it not?)

so hes banned from owning one but can legally use someone else's? That seems a bit pointless.

This was pointed out at the time, however the Judge (correctly in terms of scope of the law) acknowledged that he may need to use a computer in the future as a part of his employment, and therefore could not (questionably under English law anyway) ban him from the 'use' of. If that makes snese? :-)

|| On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:05:11 +0100, Ian Rawlings || wrote: || ||| ... ||| Funny how knicking relatively small amounts of loot from ||| banks and the taxman gets you worse sentences than rape or murder ||| eh. || || yeah - well 'funny' in a way that causes no laughter here or || anyplace else I know.

Can't find the source, but there was a case this week of a taxi driver who killed a pedestrian in a hit and run. Five (that's FIVE) months in prison.

Craig Sweeney, who abducted and sexually assaulted a three-year-old girl in Cardiff (there's a lot more to this, but keep it simple) - eligible for parole after five years, by the time they had done all the necessary calculations*.

Twenty years for stealing someone's money.

We are living in a mad house.

• Given "Life". Judge decides life means 18 years. One-third deduction for a guilty plea (even though caught in the act) gives 12 years. Half the sentence before eligible for parole, 6 years. Time spent on remand leaves just over five years. The last one I can understand and seems fair. The rest - can anyone explain those with a straight face? Serious question.

Those appear to be the rules, and it would seem that the judge doesn't have a whole lot to do with it, given that they have to follow rules laid down by various agencies patching the law here and there for administrative convenience mostly from the look of it.

Go on, don't shirk the issue - put the blame squarely where it lies. It's Bliar and his cronies - again.

I don't think it is entirely, as British law is patched here and there by just about every government that's ever existed in this country, there's no apparent focus, and changes seem to be made to reduce workload and cost rather than injustice.

The problem of course is that if you try to introduce protection to keep innocent people out of prison, you have to risk letting the guilty go free from time to time. Personally I think it's better to avoid imprisoning the innocent at the risk of letting the guilty go free, but Blair has recently said that he thinks that the emphasis should be placed on imprisoning the guilty, even if it means locking up the innocent by mistake. They're locking up so many innocent people by mistake these days that they've even decided to save costs by capping the compensation payments that you can get if you are thrown in the slammer by mistake, the compensation payments were costing them too much. Rather than try to stop locking up innocent people, instead they just limit the compensation payments paid to those who lose their careers, houses, families etc.

|| On 2006-07-14, Richard Brookman wrote: || ||| * Given "Life". Judge decides life means 18 years. One-third ||| deduction for a guilty plea (even though caught in the act) gives ||| 12 years. Half the sentence before eligible for parole, 6 years. ||| Time spent on remand leaves just over five years. The last one I ||| can understand and seems fair. The rest - can anyone explain those ||| with a straight face? Serious question. || || Those appear to be the rules, and it would seem that the judge || doesn't have a whole lot to do with it, given that they have to || follow rules laid down by various agencies patching the law here and || there for administrative convenience mostly from the look of it. || || -- || Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!

So why those rules? Who (with a straight face) said, in the dim and distant past, "A truly serious crime like child rape or murder deserves a life sentence, so let's make that - whaddya say - around the fifteen year mark, give or take?" Why call it "life" in the first place if it isn't?