Crime


VIP abuse ‘liars’ to be investigated after seven-year delay

I wrote a novel, ‘Solstice’, partly inspired by the claims about VIP child abuse rings. Finding out they were all lies led to me unpublishing the book. It’s taken the Metropolitan Police two more years to investigate some of the liars.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66389708?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA


A Pyramid of Bullshit

A California man has been sentenced to 6 years and 9 months for a scam where he took money from investors for non-existent anaerobic digestors at big dairy farms. In classic pyramid scheme style, money from later investors paid out imaginary dividends to earlier ones.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/27/us-man-cow-dung-scam-prison


The e-bike Wild West

I’m back to kicking around ideas for Another Summer of Hate, my next novel. One possible plot thread would involve the death of a kid on an e-bike, so I’m following the news about the incidents so far this year. (And one of them happened close to where I used to live, so there’s that as well.)

I don’t like the repeated suggestions in this article that it would somehow be perfectly safe to chase riders who wore helmets. Protective headgear, bike helmets in particular, provide limited protection against a limited range of injuries. They are not the magical lifesavers some people think they are (see also the zombie Helmet Debate, recently returned to eat the brains of politicians).

Criminal gangs, and reckless kids, use e-bikes. There is no straightforward way to deal with them, and I hope Police are deciding how, and whether, to pursue them based on more than just what’s on their heads.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/16/softer-tactics-calls-for-uk-ban-police-chases-of-children-on-e-bikes-deaths


Licensed to litter (and commit other minor offences)

So, the government has revealed that MI5 agents can commit crime in UK in pursuit of their duties. There’s been no detail released, yet, of just how serious those crimes can be, or any of the more detailed guidelines.

In Bond-like stories, the MI5 agents become daring cat burglars, whilst in Le Carre land, retired agents live in fear of their misdemeanours in the line of duty being used as blackmail them into off the books espionage.


Who’d have thought that Police cuts would lead to an increase in crime?

I’ve heard of people being told that the crime against them won’t be investigated because the sum stolen was too low. Even though the criminal had cleared out their bank account. If they were wealthier, perhaps the Police would have investigated, but poor folks aren’t covered because the return is too low.

Something to remember when I get started on the next Rain and Bullets story.

Crime is rising in the region as crooks ‘take advantage’ of policing cuts, force insiders and fed-up victims have told the Manchester Evening News.

Home Office figures show that crime rose by 31 per cent – an additional 70,000 crimes – in the year up to June 2017.

The statistic represents a crime report every two minutes.

Source: ‘We can’t keep up’ – crime rising as crooks take advantage of police cuts – Manchester Evening News


Forensics lab ‘manipulation’ could mean ‘hundreds were wrongly convicted’ – police chief

This has been sitting in an open tab for a while. It could make for a good plot point in a future Ran & Bullets storyline. I must investigate further.

People could have been wrongly convicted following allegations of “data manipulation” at a forensics lab in Manchester, a police chief constable has warned.The head of the Dorset force, Debbie Simpson, said 484 cases were being reviewed after a criminal probe was launched into the matter.Two men have been arrested by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) over allegations that hundreds of cases handled by Randox Testing Services were affected by what the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) called “data manipulation”.

Source: Forensics lab ‘manipulation’ could mean ‘hundreds were wrongly convicted’ – police chief | Granada – ITV News


Lock, Stock and two infra-red equipped drones

It looks like Guy Ritchie’s first (and best) film needs an update. Nowadays the geezers robbing or “taxing” the dope growers would use a drone to fly around and spot the heat signatures of cannabis farms.

“They are fair game,” he said. “It is not like I’m using my drone to see if people have nice televisions. I am just after drugs to steal and sell, if you break the law then you enter me and my drone’s world.

“Half the time we don’t even need to use violence to get the crop. Growing cannabis has gone mainstream and the people growing it are not gangsters, especially in places like Halesowen, Cradley Heath and Oldbury.”

via Shropshire criminals ‘using unmanned drones and infrared cameras to find illegal cannabis farms’ – and then steal from the growers – Home News – UK – The Independent.


Greater Manchester Police seize 3D printer used to make guns in raids, as well as crack cocaine, £2m of counterfeit goods, lethal weapons and high-powered cars – Manchester Evening News

Component parts of what could be the UK’s first-ever 3D gun were seized in Greater Manchester’s biggest-ever crackdown on gangs.

Police and other agencies have been involved in around 100 raids during a week of hush-hush operations, with more expected this morning. Fifty people have been arrested so far.

via Greater Manchester Police seize 3D printer used to make guns in raids, as well as crack cocaine, £2m of counterfeit goods, lethal weapons and high-powered cars – Manchester Evening News.


If only we didn’t let women do ‘men’s jobs’

We were talking about the shooting of two Police officers in Mottram and I pondered, “I wonder who’ll be the first to say it’s all because we’re letting women do men’s jobs?” Then I thought a second or so longer and said, “I bet it’s Carvath.”

It was Carvath- In a civilised society PC Fiona Bone and PC Nicola Hughes would still be alive | Richard Carvath.

Richard Carvath has a habit of taking down his posts, particularly the more stupid ones, so, just in case it disappears, here’s a taster of what he wrote-

It disgusts me that Bone and Hughes were sent out to respond to a burglary.  Look at the photo of Nicola Hughes above; she was a little girl who should never have been a police officer at all.  What kind of a society are we that we send out such young, small women to investigate burglaries, patrol our streets and respond to violent criminals (most of whom are men much stronger and harder than they)?  A sick society is what we are, sending the weak and vulnerable to do men’s work.  Women doing our frontline policing is wrong not only for the sake of the women involved but also for society’s sake, because we are all less safe when we have women rather than men trying to protect us from violent criminals.  The sad truth is that in a civilised society the female Fiona Bone and the female Nicola Hughes would still be with us, because if we were a civilised society we wouldn’t permit our women to engage in frontline policing at all.

In Carvath’s “civilised” society two Police officers would still be dead, because an unarmed man is just as vulnerable as an unarmed woman when faced with 10-16 shots and a grenade explosion. Unless, of course, Dick-world is controlled by patrols of Robocopish, heavily armed, God-fearing, hetero Cop heroes.


The Pink Panthers

The fractions of seconds flicker past on the CCTV footage from the Exelco store in Tokyo’s upmarket Ginza shopping district. As the clock races forward, an elegantly suited, tie-less western man enters through the front door and turns left towards a display cabinet. A second man walks in under an umbrella, his mouth and nose covered by a white anti-contamination mask. He reaches into a small rucksack and takes out a gun.

The seconds run by on the clock. The first man calmly opens a cabinet and picks out two items – a diamond-studded tiara and a jewelled necklace. The second man squirts a short burst of tear gas at the employees. Then they turn around and walk out. The clock shows 36.02 seconds.

This is the time it took the Pink Panther gang, the world’s premier “white glove” crooks, to commit one of the cleanest jewellery heists in Japanese history – netting almost £2m-worth of gold and precious stones. By the time the employees could react, the two men had disappeared. They were already weaving through Ginza’s heavy traffic on their getaway vehicles – later identified by police as bicycles.

The Guardian- The hunt for the Pink Panther gang.

There’s a story in this, for certain.


Do double yellow lines mean anything? 2

Do double yellow lines mean anything?

This is a Mercedes parked on double yellow lines and well up onto the pavement. Nothing so strange about that. But it’s parked right in front of the entrance to the Bootle Street Police station in the centre of Manchester. I’ve blanked out the number plate, because anyone who can get away with this obviously has a bit of clout, but if the Police would like to actually do their job…….

I know that parking on double yellows down a little used side street isn’t much of a crime, but doing it right outside the Police station shows a bit much arrogance and contempt for the law for my liking.


Man shot for wearing Barack Obama T-shirt

The scary thing is, this happened in London. A man wearing a Barack Obama t-shirt was harassed whilst shopping by a man who later came back with an airgun and shot him. The attacker was obviously an unhinged racist looking for a reason to attack someone, but the Obama-hate is the sort of thing I expect to see more of from the right wing nuts in the US. All the morons currently going all Godwin and equating him to Hitler will go into full on armed uprising fantasies if (when? please make it when) he wins the election.