One rule for one......

I am getting a bit fed up of a complete imbalance in the way that we, the great general public, are treated particularly in relation to the law.

Take travellers for example - Travellers 'fly-tip mountain of rubbish near Olympic Park' | Daily Mail Online

If I dropped litter in the street, I would likely get fined (probably around £100 for a sweetie wrapper or something), yet these groups of travellers can go around the country and set up shop wherever they feel like it, pay nothing in respect of rent or taxes, and then leave an almighty mess behind them that either the land owner or us taxpayers have to pay a small fortune to clean up! Why are they not prosecuted as I would be if I did the same?

Another example - a long standing event in Scotland, the Jim Clark rally was not allowed to continue following the deaths of some spectators, at least until a fatal accident enquiry has been held. 2017 marks the third year of the event's absence. Yet - the Surrey Classic Cycle race has had fatalities for the last three years that I can think of (indeed, I am fairly sure that there is at least one fatality, participant/spectator/third party, every year that it has been in existence), with this year's event being a particularly nasty example, yet it is allowed to carry on regardless - why? In this case, I think I know why - cyclists apparently have impunity nowadays.

 

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We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson

Now, as a nation, we don't promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That's an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up. Barack Obama
Read more at: Barack Obama Quotes

 

As a lot of you know, we have had a lot of problems with travellers, over the years, in our village. Some have been awful and others have been OK. More bad than good but they're not all bad.

The pictures in the Mail look horrendous but I always view with a lot of scepticism anything the Mail publishes.

Looking at the pictures they have published I find them rather puzzling. The first one shows no travellers on site but an awful lot of rubbish. Then it shows quite a few travellers on site BUT no extra rubbish!!! Having looked futher, at the close-ups, they also appear to be taken to make it look worse when there is no evidence of anything having been added to the mess. You can actually see that they have taken the pictures at angles that make it look worse but are just a couple of sections of the original photo.

So, yes, it may have been dumped by travellers (quite likely) but it may also have been dumped by non-traveller flytippers prior to them deciding to use the site.

A personal opinion:- As far as I'm concerned, the Mail work very hard at stirring things up in all different ways and their reporting is weighted to make things look worse than they are. Some of the other 'papers' are almost as bad.

If I was reporting on that story then I would have waited until the pile of rubbish had grown higher whilst the travellers were on site. It might very well have been the case, if they had waited. Sloppy reporting, at the very least!

 

Fair comment, the Mail are a shower, and yes their reporting is more often than not, sloppy, however the fact remains that there are a number of travellers that operate outside the boundaries of the law, and never seem to be dealt with - yet if you, or I did the same thing, we would be hit with the full force of the law.

I am also really getting the hump with cyclists now too - I encounter loads of them on my evening commute, as you would imagine, driving through SW London, and take particular care to give them the space that they deserve. However, the vast majority of them are not giving the same courtesy to other road users. An example - yesterday evening, I was travelling along the road pictured below. I had passed through the pedestrian crossing, and as I did so a cyclist came out of the side road on the left without looking, slowing or stopping - they got to the junction and turned left right in front of me, and then left me to sort it all out!



If I pass a cyclist and do not give them sufficient space between my nearside and the kerb, I am liable (rightly) to be dealt with by law. If a cyclist undertakes me on the nearside with insufficient space, even if it were seen by a police officer, nothing would happen. I see so many cyclists running red lights, that it is a point of conversation when one does obey the rules of the road, and yet.... nothing is done.

 

I agree that the law does very little to control the problem

 

Its not just Travellers,its also MP's,Company directors,celebrities, high ranking public officials,sports stars,in fact uncle Tom Cobbly and all

 

It would do no good @Jiffy - it is part of daily life around here, and nobody has the balls to take them on.

 

I have had to deal with Travellers, the Police, and the Councils, over years and it's a bit more complex than just having the courage to deal with the Travellers. Firstly, Travellers know the Common Law inside out, and use it against "normal", rule ridden, law abiding communities. The Travellers know that settling into an area without permission is dealt with under the Trespass Laws and is a Civil Offence rather than a Criminal Offence. In theory, the Police can order them to leave an area if they have damaged land, used threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour to the Owner of the land, their family, employees or agents....or they have six or more vehicles, not Caravans, on the land. Don't get too excited about the last as I've never seen any charges regarding it, as the Travellers will, in most case, move a car or two off the site when the Police arrive to make it below 6. Having said that, Police will not take action unless pushed, leaving it usually to the Councils to take action.

The Police are in a bit of a forked stick, to be honest. They can only charge persons with offences, but they do not prosecute them, that is up to the Judiciary [usually at the Magistrates level]. They also have the Councils bearing down on them to ensure, if possible, that the Traveller's don't try to park in Town and City thereby placing the Council in a "sticky" position. So the Police have an unofficial policy of shepherding Travellers onto Industrial Estates [which they will deny, of course.]. Also, although procedures for gaining a Court Order have been speeded up, you can now get one in a day, it's usually Bailiffs, escorted by the Police, who enforce the order and have to handle the matter. Travellers cannot return to a area in defiance of a Court Order for 3 months.........and know it. They are very intelligent and more than likely have the entire season planned out on where to go, how long they will be allowed to stay and where next to move to.
All Travellers will not admit to having a fixed address and charging such people with offences means either placing the person in custody before they move on, and the cost of placing the family into safe accommodation and care while the case takes place. The Councils don't want the trouble and expense and the Travellers know it.
One last factor is that the Police get very little support and are usually under attack from the multitude of Human Rights Organisations when enforcing a Section 61 under the Criminal Justice and Order Act 1994.