Two events of a legal nature this week have left me feeling rather uncomfortable.
I suspect there's something going on but I don't really know what it is, and hence the uncomfortable feeling ...
Item One: The Death of Mark Duggan
The Independent Police Complaints Commission, the police watchdog investigating the death of Mark Duggan has called for the law to be changed after admitting that its "hands are tied" by legislation that means that a public coroner's inquest into the killing may never be held.
What?
Yet another example of a young man being shot by the Met. and then apparently no-one being punished for doing it.
Item Two: Edlington Child Attacks 2009
The education secretary, Michael Gove, has rejected an official report into the notorious Edlington attack in 2009, in which two young boys were sadistically tortured in South Yorkshire by two brothers with a history of family violence, and ordered a fresh inquiry.
The Department for Education's 159-page serious case review (SCR), published on Thursday, found that no-one could have reasonably predicted the "severity and extent" of the assaults on the two boys, but concluded the attack would have been "preventable" had officials taken "assertive and effective" action to address the brothers' escalating pattern of violence.
The relationship that bothers me is that in the first item there seems to be a 'technical fix' that allows the Met to get off, no questions asked. Can we wonder that, having been through this sort of thing before, the Black community in Tottenham felt agrieved initially and are now having to go through it all again. However, in item two there is a zealous politician who doesn't like the first Serious Case Review report and is pushing for further work to be done.
The two cases appear to be the polar opposite ends of the spectrum. Where the issue appears to be police violence against a young black man there's what appears to be a technicval cover-up. In the second, where no police staff are implicated and the victims and perpetrators are white, there is this strange pursuit of a different truth by a politician, almost as though the first report didn't get to the truth that the politician wanted.
Why is there no politician prepared to push hard to open the door to the truth in Item One?
I suspect there's something going on but I don't really know what it is, and hence the uncomfortable feeling ...
Item One: The Death of Mark Duggan
The Independent Police Complaints Commission, the police watchdog investigating the death of Mark Duggan has called for the law to be changed after admitting that its "hands are tied" by legislation that means that a public coroner's inquest into the killing may never be held.
What?
Yet another example of a young man being shot by the Met. and then apparently no-one being punished for doing it.
Item Two: Edlington Child Attacks 2009
The education secretary, Michael Gove, has rejected an official report into the notorious Edlington attack in 2009, in which two young boys were sadistically tortured in South Yorkshire by two brothers with a history of family violence, and ordered a fresh inquiry.
The Department for Education's 159-page serious case review (SCR), published on Thursday, found that no-one could have reasonably predicted the "severity and extent" of the assaults on the two boys, but concluded the attack would have been "preventable" had officials taken "assertive and effective" action to address the brothers' escalating pattern of violence.
The relationship that bothers me is that in the first item there seems to be a 'technical fix' that allows the Met to get off, no questions asked. Can we wonder that, having been through this sort of thing before, the Black community in Tottenham felt agrieved initially and are now having to go through it all again. However, in item two there is a zealous politician who doesn't like the first Serious Case Review report and is pushing for further work to be done.
The two cases appear to be the polar opposite ends of the spectrum. Where the issue appears to be police violence against a young black man there's what appears to be a technicval cover-up. In the second, where no police staff are implicated and the victims and perpetrators are white, there is this strange pursuit of a different truth by a politician, almost as though the first report didn't get to the truth that the politician wanted.
Why is there no politician prepared to push hard to open the door to the truth in Item One?
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