Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - crime

The wheels of Justice turn slowly indeed

2010-08-20T13:26:00+01:00

I spent this morning at Cambridge Crown Court to see the sentencing of the guy that burgled us last month. This was a novelty for me as this is the first time I've been burgled and the perpetrator was caught. I did see him briefly when his name was called out by the defence counsel for a consultation before the court sat. He came out of the consultation room quite fast and as it turned out later in court was under the misapprehension he was there for a pre-sentencing session. This explains that when dully appointed hour rolled around and the case called there were just the clerks and a few bemused counsels waiting for him to turn up. The court didn't seem particularly concerned and had already postponed one trial hearing as the defendants couldn't be found.

I did hang around for one sentencing of someone who had plead guilty an assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The prosecution and defence counsels summarised the facts of what was essentially a pub fight that one person had decided to continue after having been kicked out of the pub. The victim had ended up with a few cuts and bruises ("out of luck more than anything else") and there was some discussion about whether the cheek bone had actually been fractured. The defendant did have a previous history of assault although as he'd just turned 18 this was his first time in front of the crown court. While the judge did say the case had passed the threshold for custody she in the end awarded a two year community supervision order, 80 hours of community service and an order to attend an anger management course. She seemed persuaded not to award custody on the basis the defendant had been looking for work and had a supportive family (who were in the public gallery). Hopefully this near miss of jail time will be enough to put the guy on a more positive track.

As for "our" guy I did briefly ask the counsel what was likely to happen. It seemed unlikely having left the court he would come back for sentencing today. There will most likely be a warrant put out for his arrest and the mater will get picked up later. One can hope he won't just walk out before the next hearing. I don't know if not turning up will attract extra punishment but the signs on the walls made it clear you could get up to 2 years in custody just for taking photos in court, one would assume missing your appearance attracts more?

While you were out...

2010-07-12T21:00:00+01:00

On Sunday we headed down to the Shelford Feast to catch up with my parents and generally enjoy beer in the sunshine. However while we were out thieving scumbags attempted to break into our house. Apparently there is a bit of a spate of break-ins around fete times as it offers a weekend opportunity when houses are generally empty during the day.

They started by trying to leaver the back door open. However the multi-point lock system held up well. They did however put enough force into it to wedge one of the lock point so solidly that even when we unlocked the door we couldn't get in. They also attacked the patio door with some sort of heavy implement. Although the window is fairly smashed up the laminate finish held it together to thwart their attempt. Unfortunately they didn't leave empty handed as after forcing the lock on the garage they left with Fliss' old mountain bike (fortunately we had taken our brand new bikes with us to ride to Shelford). They also forced the lock on one of the outbuildings but as far as I can tell they didn't nick anything from what is essentially our walk-in LARP wardrobe.

The police turned up fairly quickly followed fairly shortly by the "method of entry" specialist. There was much discussion about the subtle and the not-so-subtle way to gain entry. After the subtle way failed we declined the more direct method to wait for the insurance authorised engineer to turn up. Eventually the SOCO turned up (offering to wear his sunglasses if it would us feel better :-) and managed to get some potential evidence from the scene. Hopefully it won't have been in vain.

Our lovely neighbours put us up and allowed us to watch the World Cup final while we waited for the engineer to turn up and get us into the house. It's a shame the game was so disappointing.

All in all the experience wasn't too bad, the Police (2 officers responsible for most of the villages to the north of Cambridge) were especially helpful. I've been burgled before so from my point of view I can write this of as a failed attack, Fliss however has a slightly different perspective. Overall we are happy* that the house withstood the attack however we will however be reviewing security to make the place even more fortress like. While Cambridge is not like Manchester this has been a reminder of some of the downsides to our relatively exposed rural setting.

* modulo the hassle that is inevitable with dealing with insurance companies and the magic vaporware cover.

It's not a crime if the Police don't get involved

2009-07-22T14:51:00+01:00

We went to our (hopefully) last mortgage meeting yesterday to finalise the application so we can buy a house. The meeting went fairly well although because of my "special" employment status the application now has to go off to the banks underwriting department to ensure they don't lend out irresponsibly to people who can't afford it. Hopefully we will find out tomorrow.

On coming out of the meeting I noticed the passenger side of my car was looking a little odd. There was a streak of white across the tyres and a couple of large gouges in the front bumper. Some twat badger had obviously failed parking 101 and buggered off without leaving their insurance details. Annoyed I phoned up the Police on the non-emergency number to report the incident only to be told I had to report it in person at a Police station within 24 hours, bringing by log book/MOT with me. Helpfully the only Police station now open was in the centre of town as our local station shuts a 16:00. "They have visitor parking"* I was told as parking anywhere in Cambridge is an exercise in frustration the best of times. So at the peak of rush hour I drove into town and after circling the station twice eyeing the "No Visitor Parking" signs I finally found a free parking space up the road.

The first question the desk operative asked me was where the incident had taken place. On telling him I was parked in the HSBC customer car park he then told me it wasn't their problem. "It's a private car park see, so we won't deal with it". I was slightly credulous as even though IANAL I would think the nations finest would want to talk to me if I had damaged someones car no matter what the location was. After some to and fro discusion on the finer points of the law that neither of us are qualified to hold opinions on he finally relented and issued an Incident Number** grumbling "the system might not like it". He again reminded me the Police wouldn't do anything about it due to the private nature of the car park and helpfully reminding me as a private citizen I could do nothing about obtaining CCTV footage that may have caught the white vehicle leaving the scene between 15:25 and 16:20 on the day in question. Only the Police have the ability to collect evidence but seeing as they won't do any investigation of the matter there is no way to track down the affor mentioned miscreant who damaged my car. "After all it might have just been an accident and thats not illeagal", I had to refrain from pointing out that you couldn't assert that without invesigating the facts of the matter which as we already know wasn't going to happen. Having wasted an hour of my life I headed back home and retired to the pub to mutter about the decline of society with my friends.

So the lesson I took from yesterday is that if I ever feel like vandalising someones car I should do it on a private car park because apparently that is not a crime***.

* Quoted conversations are paraphrased and may not be verbatium.
** From what I can tell an Incident Number is just as useful from insurance purposes but I suspect carries the benefit of not showing up in any crime stats. Not that the Police would want to massage those.
*** Joke! I would not condone or incite anyone to treat the law with contempt even if it seems the Police would.