The Judge RANTS!
Date: 31/03/10
Police In Backhander Shock!
Watch this footage from the protests against the G20 meeting in London last year:
Update: Hmmm, the clip (around the ear?) is no longer available. I wonder who got them to do that?
In the first half, we see a young black demonstrator who wanted to get something to eat. He was not going to be allowed to, because the Metropolitan Police had 'kettled' the protestors; that is, they were keeping them penned up in a confined area to prevent them protesting, and they weren't going to let them out for anything, even to go for a piss.
When the young man insists on trying to exercise his fundamental rights in what our rulers insist is a 'free' country, he is viciously assaulted by a cop.
A young woman called Nicola Fisher makes a very strong verbal protest to another officer present, one Sergeant Delroy Smellie (and no, I'm not making shit up!).
Smellie's reaction is first to deliver a backhand slap to the face of Ms Fisher, a woman who looks scarcely more than half the cop's size; then, when she insists on continuing to protest, he takes his baton and smashes her across the legs with it.
In court, Smellie claimed that he believed that Fisher 'posed a threat to himself and fellow officers'. Yes, a small woman posed a threat to a bunch of tooled-up brick shithouses. He also said that he believed Fisher was carrying weapons. Well, if you count a carton of orange juice and a small digital camera as 'weapons', I suppose you probably would feel under threat - from everything.
It should come as no surprise, then, that District Judge Daphne Wickham today acquitted Sergeant Smellie of assault. She opined that Smellie's use of the baton was 'correct' and 'measured', and that poor Stinky, sorry, Smellie had had "...a mere seven seconds to react".
Try an experiment with me, chums. I want you to count - in a moderate tempo - from one to seven.....
One...
...Two...
...Three...
...Four...
...Five...
...Six...
...Seven.
There. Now, perhaps you might feel that that would be more than enough time to be able to figure out that, a) you were facing an adversary who was about two-thirds your height and a third of your weight, and b) that she was carrying a carton of orange juice and a digital camera rather than, say, half a house-brick and a small sewing kit.
If so, you might also come to the conclusion that Sergeant Smellie is spectacularly slow on the uptake even for a member of the 'Territorial Support Group (TSG)', the successors of the infamous 'Special Patrol Group' implicated in acts of violence against unarmed members of the public in the late Seventies and early Eighties.
Smellie refused to talk to the press afterwards, claiming, "I have a reputation to protect".
Oh, you have, Sarge, you have indeed. However, let me be the first to reassure you that your reputation as a power-mad thuggish little cunt is beyond anyone's capability to damage.
What it also means, in a wider context, is that nearly twelve months after the event depicted above, plus the killing of Ian Tomlinson, and despite the well-documented use of violence, and despite the myriad complaints to the ever more risibly titled 'Independent Police Complaints Commission', not one single cop has been convicted of any illegal actions during the G20 protests.
The police, especially the Met, and more especially still groups like the TSG, are beyond all effective control, and their misconduct is beyond all effective remedy. The courts, too, seem to be incapable of defending us against them. Indeed, in the case of the protestors against Israel's murderous assault on Gaza last year, the courts seem to take a perverted pleasure in passing extreme sentences on people convicted of comparatively minor offences.
Here too, the police played their part by denying that they had exculpatory video evidence in the case of one defendant right up until two days before his trial was due to start. Had some of that 'non-existant' footage not turned up on YouTube, yet another innocent man would have been imprisoned. Perhaps that is another reason why those set in power over us want to grab as much power over the internet as possible (see the wretched crook Mandelson's 'Digital Economy Bill' currently being rushed through Parliament for possible evidence of this).
Don't protest, don't raise your voice against the wrongdoings of state agents, don't try to get anything without paying a friendly, party-funding corporation for the privilege. That way, you can sleep soundly in your bed - and sleepwalk securely through your days.
