eClaire

I spoke to a friend of mine today and learned something very interesting!

The courts and the police have been pinning the blame on the civilian run company, Reliance, for all the ‘escaped’ prisoners. Fact of the matter is in each police region there are around approx 2500 outstanding warrants for arrest which have not been dealt with and are currently sitting on someone’s desk!!!

Therefore the crims are getting away because of the inefficiency of the police service!!!

Idiots!!

SiPie

Or by climbing through the roof of prisoner transport vans

eClaire

On ONE occasion Si

imlach

While the build up of warrants is a disgrace, the point is that once in custody, Reliance are, according to the press, not doing too well in keeping them within custody

However, I suspect it's the usual press backlash. I'm sure that pre-Reliance, there were a fair few "escapees", but it isn't quite so interesting a political story as this one is....

I speak from experience of the press....all this MRSA stuff you read in the press is full of unbalanced, inaccurate, scaremongering.

eClaire

This was from a JP imlach.

imlach

I don't doubt you eC.

The whole Reliance story is more about getting Cathy Jamieson out, and showing up Labour in Scotland, rather than being worried about the odd neddly escaping from a van.....

Nathan L

From one of these 'idiots'.

Police officer arrests a person for an offence of say shoplifting.

Person is remanded in police custody then goes to court and gets bail.

Person fails to appear and a warrant is issued for arrest.

Police officer finds person and takes him before court only for the court to bail him again.

Person fails to appear and another warrant is issued.

It's simple really, if the court remanded people who were persistent offenders or bothered to remand people who fail to appear over and over again then all these thousands of warrants would not exist.

Nathan..

eClaire

Well shouldn't there be some form of practise in place to overcome this?! If this is a common problem surely the police should take heed and do something about it?

Nathan L

There is nothing we can do about it as the Police and courts are separate public bodies.

If a court issues a warrant we the 'constables' have the authority to detain the person and take them before the next available court in the area from which the warrant was issued.

Once the person is at the court our involvement ends. No matter what we say or do to try and get them to keep the person in custody it never happens anymore, what with prison overcrowding and the "Human Rights Act", which has no rights for the victim of crime

I have arrested one offender in my area about 10 times for failing to appear at court. His reason is that Sevenoaks (where the court is situated) is too far (10 miles) for him to travel and why should he have to pay his money for going to court to stand accused when Police officers will come and arrest him and take him there for free. All it needs is for the court to remand this to$$er a few times and this would not happen.

And it pi$$es us off as much as members of the public. Especially when they attend court to give evidence only for the **** not to turn up EVERY time.

Nathan..

PS Yes it is a sore point as we don't like the little ***** getting away with it either.

Peanuts

iTrader: (15)

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
thats the most laughable thing Ive read today.
discounting the higher courts because they are in a shambles.

didnt the magistrates court used to be called the police courts and arent they inextricably linked financially?
is it not true that the money raised from the magistrates couts is nicely shared out in brown paper bags between the magis. assoc., the treasury and the police?
I am wrong to mock, but trying to tell us that the two are completely seperate is a bit rich.

Nathan L

I think I could also apply that to your post, unless you want to share where you are getting your info from?

Are you trying to say we have any form of control or influence over the magistrates court? If so you are very, very wrong.

Nathan L

Is your PM box full?

lmsbman

e-clair

I don't know what the situation is in Scotland, coz you have a very different system up there. However, what Nathan says is quite true about England & Wales.

When criminals fail to appear at court a warrant is issued for their arrest. This info will be placed onto the PNC (Police National Computer), so that whenever that person comes to Police attention again, they can be arrested. It doesn't matter where they are.

However, a lot of the warrants that are being referred to here, are warrants for non-payment of fines. Due to the wonderful vagaries of the judicial system, the arresting officer has to have the warrant with him/her at the time of the arrest. This means that the fact that a warrant has been issued, can't be placed on PNC. So, unless the person is arrested for something else and the warrant is nearby, it can only be enforced by a warrants officer. They are trying their best, but are just snowed under, as there is too few of them.

The law needs changing so that these fine-defaulters can be arrested by anyone regardless of whether they have the warrant with them.

mad_dr

As far as I can see - it's pretty much a No-Win situation for the Police/Victims/Courts. If the criminal is bailed, chances are he'll abscond. Do we want the police to track him down? Of course we do, but that costs money, time and resources.

So - just keep the buggers in jail until they're proven innocent? Costs money! Also - not very fair if you're innocent afterall!

We need some kind of fast-track judicial system. House is robbed, police catch criminal, criminal goes to court that day, hearing takes place (maximum time limit for hearing enforced and dependant on type of crime being charged) guilty and sentenced or innocent and freed.

Flawless, surely?