According to a report just released by the UK’s Manky Magistrates Commission the nation’s Plod Squads cannot be trusted to hand out summary justice and will act as “Prosecutor, Judge and Jury” if given further God-like powers to issue on-the-spot fines for simple civil offences – and more serious crimes such as arson, rape or putting your wheelie bin out too early.
In what the Twatsford Valley Police Federation termed ‘an extraordinary and wholly unwarranted attack’ on their integrity and professionalism the Manky Magistrates Commission pronounced it is a “certainty” that officers will misuse powers because they cannot be “relied on” to handle them appropriately and have even less idea about the law than magistrates themselves.
The magistrate’s comments have been made as part of a response to the Government’s plans to allow police to issue £60 fixed penalties for jaywalking through to £500 for driving under the influence of ‘whatever’ – to fixed fines of £1,000 to £5,000 for first offence arrests for armed robbery and premeditated murder.
Plods have been accused of increasingly dealing with offences using on-the-spot fines as an easy way to hit the government’s crime targets and generate massive amounts of ready cash to pay the police station’s utility bills, patrol car fuel costs and everyday operating expenses – and keep new offenders out of already-chocker-block full prisons.
However the Manky Magistrates Commission is worried that the number of offences now dealt with by the national Plod Squad in this manner is keeping some very serious offenders and outright nasty gits from appearing in the courts – and doing magistrates out of a job as a result.
They cited as a typical example the recent armed robbery at Mr. Oppenslimer’s De Queers Jewellers in London’s Blonde Street where the felons made off with a haul of £45 million in cash, precious metals, gemstones, jewellery and scratch cards – only to be cornered by a series of police road blocks where they threw up their hands and declared “It’s a fair cop!”
To the robber’s surprise, while their haul was seized they were only hit with a £3,000 on-the-spot fine and a 200 hour community service order – each – plus issued with Asbo’s to stay out of jewellery stores for twelve months.
Conversely police leaders insist that the use of the fines, which have risen sharply under the New Labour regime since Lord Peter Scandalson became official Business Secretary, have helped to reduce hours of boring paperwork and free up officers’ time so they could concentrate their attentions on saving Western civilisation from imminent destruction by scrutinising the comings and goings of dodgy foreigners and Jolly Jihadi terrorist cadres.
Hence the Commission’s negative report now leaves two of the key bodies charged by the government with responsibility for tackling crime and administering justice at loggerheads.
Opposition MPs expressed surprise that magistrates would have accused police of being untrustworthy and ignorant of the law when they themselves had zero training in the science of jurisprudence and whose diverse professional career backgrounds ranged from retired shopkeepers, school teachers and Freemasons who couldn’t play golf.