Jailhouselawyer's Blog

"Blair wants 'super-Asbos' for violent thugs" is the headline of David Cracknell's article in The Sunday Times, (14 January 2007). It is irresponsible of this "Political Editor", and The Sunday Times, to print such a headline which is clearly untruthful. This becomes apparent upon reading the first paragraph: "Tony Blair is to mount a final assault on Britain's thug culture by introducing restrictions that will curb potential yobs' movements even before they have committed an offence".

I suspect that there is no such thing as a "Britain's thug culture". Even if some smart arsed social scientist proves me wrong in this respect, there is no justification for the State to infringe the civil liberties of innocent youths by placing restrictions on their freedom of movement. There is no such thing as a "potential yob", one either is or is not a yob. It is pure witchdoctory to predict who may offend in the future. The principle of innocent until proven guilty should not be removed nor should the principle be stood on its head. If someone has not committed an offence, then they are innocent and should be allowed to go about their law-abiding business unmolested by State interference.

It is quite frightening that Tony Blair is considering attempting to use the civil courts to impose Violent Offender Orders (VOOs), where the standard of proof is lower than under the criminal law needed for the criminal courts, and yet it is planned to make it a criminal offence to breach one of these VOOs imposed upon an innocent youth and the penalty could be 5 years in prison for not having committed any criminal offence. Our jails are already overcrowded with the guilty, adding to this 80,000 plus with how many innocents? This is plain madness. Tony Blair and John Reid should be locked up in a mental hospital before they do any more damage.