Law Enforcement?

I did not expect to start a thread in Cosmos, but I would be very interested in International opinion on this one.....................

I live in the top right hand corner of England, known as the North East..............we have regional police authorities, that have a regional watchdog over them.

The technical head of law and order in my country is the home secretary (deliberate lower case) who happens to be david blunkett..............

Now there was a nasty case recently, where a pervert molested and murdered two 11 year old girls.............he was their school's caretaker (handyman)

To get such a job, you should be vetted by the police in this country............he slipped through the net.................

A nice whitewash enquiry set up by our government has concluded that the police were at fault, and our home secretary wants to suspend the head of the local police, and is going to court to get it done.........because the watchdog committee will not do it for him..............

The "slight" problem is that the police force in this area were perceived to be under performing, and the new chief was brought in to rectify it..................he seems to have been making some inroads, but he is now being pursued by our allleged "home secretary", when the problem happened BEFORE he was appointed?

Also, should the chief of police vet the appointment of every school janitor?...........or might our Mr. scumkett be slightly out of order here?...........OH I forgot to mention..........he is the politically acceptable blind person in our government...........yes they are ALL stupid :D

Your comments would be appreciated

It sounds to me like it more politics than any thing else. This police chief probably has been making waves and has rocked some 'good ol boys' boat and they are using this situation as a means to remove him.

Unless they (your local goverment) actually has a law on the books that state a school janitor must be backgrounded and fully checked out, I don't see how they could even go after him. If they do have such a law, or guide line, then they should go after the person who is actually at fault, and not just some one who inherited the problem. He might not have had time to clean up his predessors mistakes yet.
That would be the same as processcuting a man for hit and run, because the car he just bought was involved in a hit and run two years before he bought it.

I am not sure what to make of the case though I have followed it somewhat on the mirror, guardian and some other sites. Is there some other reason why Mr B might be pursuing this police official?

The reason is very simple. This case has caused a public scandel in the UK and the goverment needs to find someone with a high profile to blame before there is a backlash in the next elections.

muracu has pretty much hit it right on the head... and if thats to be the case then it should go all the way to the top and blunkett should be held responsible.

Personally I think blunkett is a fool for trying this on - but then all he wants is to have the police as an extension of his political arm - and we all know where the formation of political police forces leads to - myself I think we're overdue for a civil war in the UK - I'd be quite happy to help get one started

In Massachusetts (at least) your employer is required by law to run a background check on you before you are allowed to work with children in any capacity, paid or volunteer. That means working as a teacher, camp counsellor, school janitor, school bus driver, etc.

But background checks can only provide so much information. If a person has no criminal past, their background chack will come up clean. Just because thay have a clean background check doesn't mean that they're not the scum of the Earth, either.

It would be interesting to know if this guy had a history of any kind.

I'm not trying to sound insensitive (believe me, this is a terrible tragedy, and I have to deal with perverted sickos like this all the time) but if his record was clear, what more could the police do?

Let's flip the situation:

Someone applies to be a janitor at a school. He has been laid off/sacked/whatever. His criminal check is completely clean, but because he's working near kids, the police are constantly checking up on him. Suppose his intentions were good and true? Haven't his rights been violated?

Hi, 11001001,

The rules are pretty much the same here for jobs in education, healthcare and local/national government.

We obviously have a major problem with our police computer intelligence systems, but it does leave a few issues.................like the Home Office was also strongly criticised for failing to give guidance over the last 10 years.................that's blunkett's responsibility :eek:

The fundamental problem is that the perp had been accused of various sexual offences since around 1995 BUT, he had not been convicted or cautioned, or even charged............Only cautions and convictions get onto the police national computer. Because the police discarded the records after a while, this never showed up. They would only have been written case notes at best.

A caution could only be given if the accuser was prepared to make a sworn stamement of the accusation....................

In this case, the allegations were regarding under age sex and rape.............unfortunately those are the kind of crimes that the victims or their parents don't want to pursue in many cases because of the publicity and trauma. Also, in the case od "date rape" it is generally one person's word against another?

From a constitutional viewpoint, it would not seem acceptable to hold "allegations" against people if they are not to be charged with them, and are not part of an ongoing investigation? Otherwise you destroy the whole principle of "innocent until proven guilty"

I believe that there is considerable misunderstanding of our Data Protection Act, amongst police forces in the UK, and that they probably discard some information prematurely. Another problem is that cases involving juveniles tend to involve our Social Services, more than being a straight police matter. The Social Services do not keep records of offenders, only victims.

At the moment I am afraid that it looks like a pretty shabby political move to me.

OH, for those who asked, we are talking about a career, full time police officer here..............it is NOT a political appointment, and the person concerned has not done anything controvercial that I can think of............

Cheers

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Originally posted here by 11001001
In Massachusetts (at least) your employer is required by law to run a background check on you before you are allowed to work with children in any capacity, paid or volunteer. That means working as a teacher, camp counsellor, school janitor, school bus driver, etc.

But background checks can only provide so much information. If a person has no criminal past, their background chack will come up clean. Just because thay have a clean background check doesn't mean that they're not the scum of the Earth, either.

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Same in California. (I think it is the same all over the US) I did the digital scan of fingerprints to work in a school district. Now the damn government has an electronic copy of my fingerprints for all time. (The digital scan goes through the FBI database of criminals) Guess I will have to wear gloves if I plan on committing crimes. :p

I think the officer in question has just been suspended anyway. We'll see now what happens.