Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
  • Similar to the spitting law problem
  • BermBandit
    Free Member

    So what are the chances of this getting to court?

    Firstly, lets be clear this is not an anti gypsy thread, so please elts not go down that route.

    My reason for posting it is really as an addendum to the spitting thread where quite rightly folk are pointing out the gaping holes in our legal system, (or perhaps the proposal) making it unworkable.

    My example is summed up in the article by the phrase “of no fixed abode”. In the main our legal system is based on property, and property being in a fixed location, and that fact tying an individual to a location. This is how the itinerant community manage to operate pretty much entirely outside of the law. I have little doubt that the individual in this report will not possess Tax, MOT, Insurance, or probably a licence and so on. (Before anyone shoots me down, think about it. How do you get insurance or a licence when you don’t have an address, the system is just not designed that way).

    Ultimately the strong liklihood is that by the time any decision is made on prosecution the person involved will be 30 sites further on and totally untraceable.

    So surely its about time the law makers woke up to reality and legislated in a way that was reasoned and possible to apply. That is my pointand the specific example is so as to consider a general point. Please discuss, (but without xenophobic input).

    joemarshall
    Free Member

    Surely travellers do have insurance though. Otherwise any time they annoyed the police, they’d take all their vans away. As to how you get things when you don’t have an address, you get an address (friend or organisation that have an address, or live on a permanent site, or own a house somewhere).

    If you are in a situation where you’re pretty darned likely to get hassle from the police even if you’re not a criminal, then you’d be stupid not to be squeaky clean on the most obvious things that let them hassle you.

    fisha
    Free Member

    Quite often vans are registered to an address/person ( which is often in another part of the country ) with the insurance then listing the person as a named driver allowed to drive the van. People are normally able to provide a valid driving license showing their details too. My experience has generally been that they have a fixed abode / base address they use for what you describe, but travel around most of the time.

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    konabunny
    Free Member

    this is not an anti gypsy thread

    It is, though – there’s no suggestion in the article that the vehicle is untaxed, unMOT’d, or uninsured, and no suggestion that the driver is unlicensed. You’re simply assuming that to be the case because the driver is (presumably) a Traveller.

    There is also nothing in the article or your post to indicate that there is, actually, any “gaping hole in our legal system” which is making the law “unworkable”. You don’t actually know of any reason why it’s not possible to tax, MOT or insure vehicles, or obtain a licence, with no fixed address. You’ve just assumed that there is because “the itinerant community manage to operate pretty much entirely outside of the law”, which is a strange assertion, because the high degree of interaction with the justice system travellers have would rather point to the opposite.

    Your thread, sir, is just cheap gypsy-baiting.

    poly
    Free Member

    I would suggest the easiest way to sort this is to have a law that people who are not trusted to (or cannot demonstrate to the courts that they can) comply with the normal conditions of cooperating with the justice system are liable to temporary imprisonment pending their trial…

    …oh hang on thats been the case for hundreds of years. Hint: We call it the Bail Act – and being unable to provide an address is one of the reasons why Bail can be refused.

    BermBandit
    Free Member

    Your thread, sir, is just cheap gypsy-baiting.

    Oh contraire! Your post sir, is merely cheap PC madness ignoring reality.

    There is absolutely no way you can get insurance cover etc without an address. If you don’t believe me I suggest you try it, its easy enough call any company and try to arrange insurance. I guarantee you will not get past the address question. ditto applying for a licence, tax or anything else.

    Anyway, if indeed this individual did have a contact address, and if indeed the bail act were likely to be a problem he would have given it wouldn’t he? Not declared himself to be of no fixed abode.

    In respect of why don’t the police take their vehicle off them? The answer is a self evident combination of:- a) they have to catch them, which is easier said than done, b) they often do when they do, c) it means that the only way the Police have of releiving their problem is for them to move on from their patch. No transport and they are stuck with them.

    Now then the point of the thread is that our legal system really cannot cope with these sort of things. Try substituting traveller for homeless person if you can’t handle it. Its the same issue.

    konabunny
    Free Member

    Oh contraire! Your post sir, is merely cheap PC madness ignoring reality.

    It’s not “reality”, though. You have no idea what the reality of this case is. There are no facts underlying your rant – you have just assumed facts and invented a legal dilemma based on circular reasoning.

    BermBandit
    Free Member

    It’s not “reality”, though.

    Actually it is, as we will find as the case unravels, but thats not the point. The point is that our legal system is peppered with really fundamental weaknesses. The example I propose is just one.

    Think: Bailed until October. Under pressure even before the incident occurred to move on in July. The two things do not and will not match up. The fact is the fella in question doesn’t know where he’ll be next week, let alone October, so the old bill, who frankly struggle to find their own backside with the lights on and using both hands, have no chance. So what chance of a conclusion? Remember the child that died is someones on that same site, so there are two sides to the story. Its not about victimising Travellers, they also don’t receive much justice by the same token.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    Firstly, lets be clear this is not an anti gypsy thread, so please elts not go down that route…. This is how the itinerant community manage to operate pretty much entirely outside of the law.

    TBH you cannot attack an entire way of life and a people then ask us not to talk about the people you attack nor accuse you of attacking them

    Has you said – how do you insure a vehicle if you are an itinerant worker then fair enough but that is not what you have done.

    TBH it is not anti gypsy in the same way the EDL are not actually racist

    The way to get insurance etc has been explained to you

    Everyone needs an address for insurance and driving licences etc
    I used my folks address when i was a lawless itinerant without a legal drivable vehicle

    Your post sir, is merely cheap PC madness ignoring reality.

    You will be claiming this is not a dig next I assume

    joemarshall
    Free Member

    There is absolutely no way you can get insurance cover etc without an address. If you don’t believe me I suggest you try it, its easy enough call any company and try to arrange insurance. I guarantee you will not get past the address question. ditto applying for a licence, tax or anything else.

    Yet travellers do manage to get insurance for their vans. So either: a)they have an address, or b)they have a way of getting insurance without an address. If you google for ‘how do travellers get insurance’, there are various people explaining ways which it happens. You have to bear in mind, that like any group of people amongst whom there are a visible minority of dodgy geezers, like young men, there presumably are also a lot of them who don’t break the law, who will have considered things like how to tax and insure their vehicles so they don’t get in trouble with the police.

    And from what I read in a newspaper article about this, they DNA test & fingerprint people who don’t have a clear identity nowadays, and have a lot of contact with the travelling community in all areas for when they need to track someone down. So it’s all a bit of a myth, the idea that these groups of people who are extremely regularly in contact with the police are ever going to be completely anonymous and outside the law. If anything they’ll be easier to find than your average person.

    BermBandit
    Free Member

    Yet travellers do manage to get insurance for their vans

    I’m sure some do, as I said at the outset I was using this as an example, you could equally apply the same principle to the homeless. i.e. the legal system doesn’t work very well because they don’t have an address. I also made it very clear, not once, but twice that this was not about knocking travellers.

    TBH you cannot attack an entire way of life and a people then ask us not to talk about the people you attack nor accuse you of attacking them

    Where precisely did I do that? What I said was that the itinerant community, operate outside the law. They do. What do you think pitching up on someone elses land without permission is? That is their way of life. I’m not being judgemental about it, its a fact. There is also a contrary argument that they are forced to it by the shameful nimbyism that has resulted in the law being routinely broken by local authorities by failing to provide the requisite amount of pitches, but regardless, the outcome is outside the law. So before we go too much further could I just add that I live down the road from the site, and have close contact with someone who is involved, I do therefore have a slightly better than average understanding of it, and I have made no comment other than to say that its unlikely to go to court, which is true, everyone involved would acknowledge that. At this point in time the guy has not been charged with anything, and isn’t likely to be as I understand it…… I mean does traffic law even apply off road, other than SORN?? Can you be charged with causing death by dangerous driving away from the highway? If so where does that leave racing drivers and the owners of circuits??

    So when we are talking about assumptions and predjudices, may I suggest you take look in the mirror?

    Its entirely typical of the PC brigade on here that you all do precisely what you are accusing me of. I have not at any time suggested that there will be a deliberate attempt to evade the law. In fact it had not entered my mind until konabunny started pompously accusing me of all sorts. Actually, I was coming at it from precisely the opposite direction, and if you knew anything at all about the tragedy, as opposed to imposing your own interpretation on it that would have been obvious.

    What I am actually saying is that due to the way we operate our legal system travellers are forced into operating at best on the outskirts of legality and at worst totally without any protection from the law whatsoever, and that is a self evident truth, whether you like it or not. So the question is why do we persist with unworkable laws, and even propose new ones (spitting), which are self evidently not workable, as I made clear at the outset, this is not an anti traveller thread, I was just using a current news item to illustrate a situation where there are self evident failures. So stop being up yourselves and open your mind to thoughts that don’t include being holier than thou all the time, you never know you might like it.

    If anything what I am guilty of is assuming the best in people and not remembering that the opportuinity to tkae a poke at folk is rarely passed up on here.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    Yet travellers do manage to get insurance for their vans
    I’m sure some do……..What I said was that the itinerant community, operate outside the law. They do.

    You don’t seem to recall what you said

    Its entirely typical of the PC brigade on here that you all do precisely what you are accusing me of

    I have not said all travellers are outside that law, then accepted some are, then said I was right to suegest they all were
    The PC brigade [ which is obviously a derogatory term] have merely pointed out your poor use of fact and explained how they could have legal vehicles. We have tried to educate you whilst questioning your motives for the thread

    I have not at any time suggested that there will be a deliberate attempt to evade the law. In fact it had not entered my mind until konabunny started pompously accusing me of all sorts.

    Let me remind you of your opening post again as you seem to have forgotten it

    This is how the itinerant community manage to operate pretty much entirely outside of the law. …Ultimately the strong liklihood is that by the time any decision is made on prosecution the person involved will be 30 sites further on and totally untraceable.

    What they accidently broke the law then accidentally ran away ?

    So stop being up yourselves and open your mind to thoughts that don’t include being holier than thou all the time, you never know you might like it.

    They do say ignorance is bliss don’t they so who knows

    If anything what I am guilty of is assuming the best in people

    Presumably this includes the travellers who operate outside the law then? That is you assuming the best of them
    You gotta be trolling

    konabunny
    Free Member

    What I said was that the itinerant community, operate outside the law. They do.

    lol

    You should get a nice cup of tea, sit down, and really think hard about the inconsistency between your claim that itinerants operate outside the law and the fact that the driver was arrested and bailed.

    poly
    Free Member

    Berm Bandit – Member
    Bail granted, so lets knock that diversion on the head

    Not at all. The simple fact that Bail has been granted means that AN address via which he can be contacted has been provided and the officers were satisfied that it was appropriate. Standard conditions of bail usually require you to advise of any change of address immediately. If they were particularly concerned they may have asked for a report to police station requirement.

    The same thing happens with homeless people – sometimes they are remanded (no always unwillingly!) because they have no address, but sometimes they are able to provide a satisfactory address.

    I mean does traffic law even apply off road, other than SORN?? Can you be charged with causing death by dangerous driving away from the highway? If so where does that leave racing drivers and the owners of circuits??

    Any place which the public have access to.

    In reality its no harder for anyone who doesn’t own property or have a job to tie them to a location to disappear overnight if accused of a crime. Its not a good plan though.

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