#paulclarke - Judgement Day - late breaking information
CF posted several times last month on Clarke, the bloke who faces a five year jail sentence for handing in a gun he found at his local police station.
Radio 4 featured the story on the Today programme this morning, the potential major miscarriage of justice being deemed nearly as interesting as the temporary retirement of an old Irish DJ.
Diligent listeners will have picked up on an extra piece of information on this sorry tale. CF had already been told of this rumour, but specifically asked not to pass it on. It's highly relevant.
Paul Clarke claims that he had been harassed by the police for some time before the shotgun incident, and that his house had been 'turned over' by the police on no less than 5 separate occasions.
On one occasion, claims Clarke, an officer had left a warrant card there, later returning and threatening him with arrest for the possession of it.
Bloody hell. That changes things, just a bit, doesn't it? Gives us a better insight into the feelings between Clarke and the police, certainly.
So, in a climate of police oppression, where you'd already been threatened with arrest for possession of something that was - either accidentally or deliberately - 'planted' on your premises, what would you do if a shotgun suddenly appeared in your garden?
Would you follow exactly the police official guidelines, the only 'legal' option, and ring 999 immediately? If you were Paul Clarke, who'd had 5 visits to that house already that year?
Would you 'phone the police - the same police you might suspect put it there in the first place - and tell them you had a gun? Would you? In the circumstances Clarke was in, with the history he had?
Would you?
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12 comments:
In a word, NO. But then I wouldn't trust the plods to look after squashed worms.. :-(
Interesting...
I find myself wondering just who it was who dumped that gun more and more!
Perhaps the warrant card wasn't the only item planted? But then they wouldn't do anything like that - would they?
The motto of our local plod is salus populi nostra merces (or something very similar) - does it mean what I think it means?
ROFL.
So what has this Calrk done?
I am not saying this kind of thing doe not happen, but NORMALLY there is a bloody good reason behind it, and not just because the Plod do not like your choice in hair colour.
Or "Clarke", even. :-( fucking type writter always gets it bloody wrong.
The key phrase is 'Paul Clarke claims'. So it's unsubstantiated.
The Police have a lot less power, with regard to prosecutions, than people think - the decision to take a case to court is made by CPS and, believe me, the CPS are FAR from hand-in-glove with the Police. I could go as far as to say it's quite the opposite - the Police are frequently frustrated by what they see as CPS intransigency with the referring of cases for prosecution.
After the sentencing, Police and CPS normally answer questions from the media. Why don't we just wait and see before passing judgement?
@von spreuth
Well, if this was also Paul Clarke, you could see how the police might take more than average interest in him.
Thanks CF, for keeping us updated on this story.
Who is this Paul Clarke that we should all believe everything he says. Was his house turned over, were things 'planted' there and was he really threatened with arrest? Who knows what happened? Does Paul have an over active imagination. Is he someone who thinks he's always being got at or is he good citizen doing the right thing and getting into a big mess?
And that's the point. This discussion seems to be based on a lot of ifs, buts and hearsay. Sounds like we have as much of a clue as you're average plod.
The Police have posted a full summary of the case on their website, and include some VERY interesting facts that I, for one, was unaware of. This sentence from the Police posting is revelatory, in my opinion.
From the posting:
'He then went to Reigate Police Station for a meeting on a wholly unrelated matter and did not mention the weapon before or during the meeting. At the end of a meeting he produced the weapon which had been concealed in his trousers.'
Link: http://bit.ly/7FDPTW
Now that's what I'm talkin about!
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