Have the Police given up?

[Gromit]

Illegal immigrants disappear on way to detention centre

Nine illegal immigrants disappeared after they were given free train tickets by police and told to make their own way to a detention centre more than 60 miles away.

The men, who are from Afghanistan, were discovered by Cambridgeshire police under the back of a lorry in Fordham, near Newmarket.

They were apprehended by officers before being given train tickets and told by police to make their own way to an immigration facility in Croydon, Surrey.

But none of the men arrived at the centre and they have not been seen since.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml =/news/2008/03/11/nmigrants111.xml

Lighter sentences for 'desperate' thieves

Burglars and thieves who steal to fund an addiction to drugs, gambling or drink could escape jail even if they target a vulnerable victim such as an elderly shopkeeper, under new official guidelines.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml =/news/2008/03/11/nsentences111.xml

Has the country gone potty?

[shylock73]

Well, I ask you. What would you have done ,given the opportunity? What`s happening in this country nowadays?

[vehelpfulguy]

>Burglars and thieves who steal to fund an addiction to >drugs, gambling or drink could escape jail even if they >target a vulnerable victim such as an elderly shopkeeper, >under new official guidelines.

And of course, what is the first thing a burgler is going to say when he/she is caught.....

"Ive got an addiction to (insert your choice here)"

Why is it the honest law abiding citizens who get nothing and the law breakers are given all the help they can get.

I dont care if a burgler has an addiction to gambling, or anything else, if they are caught stick them in prison.

Not enough prisons - build more.

[Ripley58]

The first story would appear to be incompetent policing as the Border & Immigration people deny telling the police to fund the illegal immigrants rail fares and send them unescorted to a detention centre.

The second story is nothing new in my opinion. I think barristers have been using the addictions of their clients as mitigating circumstances for many years. It is a shame to see this being encouraged, however.

[Theland]

Incompetent and ineffective policing, (not necessarily individual officers who only follow orders), are, in my opinion, largely responsible for most of our woes today.
Stinking graffitti riddled estates ruled by yob gangs would not be like that if the coppers lifted every miscreant and the courts punished sensibly.

[helpmetoo]

once the police have informed the immigration authorities they are out of their care,

when i had to pick up some illegals from a police station and deliver them to a settlement unit i asked the police what happens if they jump and run on the way?

the answer was that they couldnt care less as the problem has been passed over,

needless to say they didnt run off, not much point in that, being an open palm tourist in the back of a truck and then not picking up your hand outs at the end of the european rainbow.

[anotheoldgit]

Heads should roll over this one, be them Home Office Officials, Border & Immigration Officials, or Police Chiefs.

The frightening part of all this that they just wasn't any ordinary illegal immigrants, but from a country where we have troops fighting.

Who is to say that these individuals are not members of the Taliban trying (and apparently succeeding in this case) to infiltrate into our country, to cause whatever dastardly deeds.

I thought we went into two wars to try and stop terrorism, and yet this sort of thing is allowed to happen. It would appear that the powers that be consider the ordinary citizen just as expendable as our troops.

[Yorkie580]

Immigration offences are not investigated by the police, they are investiagted by Immigration Officers.

Police are told all the time to release immigration prisoners so that they can report to an immigration centre.

The police have no option but to release them if the immigration authorities tell them to (it would be unlawful imprisonment otherwise).

I'm amazed it's taken so long for something like this to happen.

[naomi24]

You really couldn't make this one up!!!

[Thersites]

Since when has this God-forsaken ******** of a country ever been other than potty?