Chief constable caves to judges on disk grab Avon and Somerset Chief Constable, Colin Port, bowed to the law this week and returned computer disks seized by his force from computer forensic expert Jim Bates. However, reports from the High Court in London, suggest that Mr Port is determined to keep on expressing the point of view that had him hauled up in the first place …
The more this case goes on the more it looks liek a vendetta against Jim Bates by the Avon & Somerset police and Port in particular. Could this be related to the doubts about the Project Ore cases Bates had raised, namely the Police unwillingness to take into consideration fraudulent usage of credit cards which has ended up with potentially innocent people (ie the victims of the CC fraud) being put on the sex offenders register?
Either Port is thick (and I'd assume he isn't having reached the position he has) or he's a complete and utter cock.
If he thinks it's an abuse of the pictured child when the image is viewed by an expert witness, then it would equally be an abuse when a police officer views the image. Follow this to it's logical conclusion and it would be impossible to ever prosecute anybody for viewing these images since nobody would be able to look at the images without commiting an offence. This is such nonsense that it clearly isn't what Port thinks.
So what does he think? Well maybe he thinks only the police should be allowed to view the images and then instruct the court. In other words he appears to be one of those coppers who thinks that the police are the law and the legal profession an inconvenience. I think they are politely called "old fashioned coppers". Is Gene Hunt his hero?
Either way if he had reason to believe that anybody was up to no good then he would have had evidence to back up this belief which he could have presented to the court. Clearly he had no such evidence or he would have presented it to the court yesterday, so he must have been acting on one of those legendary police hunches. Which would support the supposition that he is an old fashioned copper. Whether or not he understands the laws on indecent images of children is something of a moot point. I'd be more concerned that a senior police officer doesn't seem to understand the Police and Criminal Evidence act. Or worse still he does understand it and doesn't think it applies to him.
anyone found in possession of such images without good grounds for doing so is committing a crime and likely to be punished accordingly. The law allows certain individuals to possess certain images at certain times: s.46 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 specifically allows an individual to retain an indecent image for the 'prevention, detection or investigation of crime, or 'for the purposes of criminal proceedings' – but only so long as they are working on such matters.
And therein lies the crux.
If the images are used as a reference library to match images in other cases then they are used for the detection/investigation of crime.
The police need to understand they are not the state. they and thier experts have bias, Other independant experts must be allowed to exist.
"Each time these images are viewed it is a fresh victimisation of the child,"
Wrong. The child is not involved, the abuser is not involved, there is no new victimisation. This doesn't detract from the severity of the initial incident which is depicted, and the full weight of the law should be brought to bear upon them, but it doesn't class as s new "abuse" either.
See the "Lost sale" arguement for copyright infringement for a (loose) analogy.
".... most notably in The Sun....."
I wonder if this is the sort of appeals process that Harriet Harperson had in mind when she rattled on about the "court of public opinion" over Fred Badloser's pension?
Thought for the day: Is Max Clifford a barrister in the Court of Public Opinion?
If Bates was an expert witness for the prosecution, do you imagine Police Chief Port would be behaving this way?
The idea that the only expert witnesses that can be used are ones approved by the police (not the courts) is a sinister idea. The courts have said Bates is an expert witness, yet the police call for rules that take that right from the court???
All a but cynical really... Port returns the stuff with hours before the case is heard and swerves contempt as there was no time constraint in place. It's just a shame that the media is generally reporting this as "Port Cleared of contempt" - which doesn't really give the full story.
There's something really unpleasant about this man's behaviour and the manipulative way he has approached the press. It's also deeply worrying that a chief constable could act in such a smugly defiant way regarding a court ruling - if this wasn't all being done under the "think of the children" banner it's unlikely the avon police would have thought they'd have gotten away with it
Ok, so going on the information given above it would suggest that Mr Bates DOES have some indecent images in his posession but that this is allowed due to the nature of his work. Given the definition provided this is ok for as long as the images are needed in the prevention or ongoing prosecution of others who posses/seek to posses such images. So, using that, Mr Bates must have been involved with the Police in some capacity surely? If so what is the Chief Constables issue?
I can only assume, and this is my assumption and in no way suggesting as fact, that in the opinion of the Chief Constable that Mr Bates possed the images that were NOT connected to the prevention/detection of like images. IF this is the case, Mr Bates must have been able to demonstrate to the court adequately that they were in connection with his work so again, what is the issue for the chief constable here? If the work of Mr Bates detects people who supply/demand such images I would argue that the retention of already created images would be justified. After all, as regretable as it is that the images he posses are in existance, its all after the event and cannot help the child in the picture other than to prevent reoccurence. And Im guessing we're not talking hundreds of images here?
I dont really know enough about what Mr Bates' "Professional Duties" are that would require him to need said images but clearly the Judge was satisfied. Anyone help me out here?
It's sad to see that even the supposedly level-headed law enforcement community being gripped by the usual public hysteria...
I was going to say "surprising" instead of "sad" but then I hardly think this surprises anyone.
Something is definietly seriously wrong when even the police fail to comply with a court order.
They should fire him for being an idiot. There are courts that interpret the law and there is police that enforces it. Over. Police cannot, and in any circumstances shouldn't, interpret the law. That's way too dangerous in the long term.
Also, how often we can see somebody who has no clue trying to be smart? How often Mr. Port?
...that Jim Bates continues to hold these clowns to account. He is a very brave man. The police - and their powerful friends in other 'child protection' organisations - have acted against Mr Bates time and again, smearing him, attempting to assassinate his reputation and even implying he's been taking 'a more than professional interest' in his forensic work. It's outrageous - and the Judges - thank God - can see right through it (and I never imagined I'd be saying that about Judges).
One can only hope that in the end the media will finally admit the grave miscarriage of justice that was Operation Ore, report it fairly, fully and expose the crooked police officers behind it all for the spiteful, vindictive, mob-baiting cretins they are. This is what Jim Bates has been fighting for: justice for the many innocent (but completely ruined) people caught up in the paedo-hysteria of Ore - to have the police be brought to account for their wilful deceit and misinformation (at the time and ever since) and to recognise that a huge miscarriage of justice has occurred.
It is no wonder - and sadly no surprise at all - that the police have acted in such an underhand and wholly disreputable way towards Mr Bates. He knows too much and he must be silenced. I fear the 'vested interests' in this matter have not yet finished with Mr Bates and will return to (what is for them) potentially explosive 'unfinished business'...
Thanks to John Ozimek and The Reg for staying on this story since the start.
"We need a nationwide accreditation system"
An interesting idea. But it will need to apply to the police as well as independent experts.
If the material really is as sensitive as Mr Port's comments imply then it will need to be handled very carefully. Probably equivalent to classified material marked as Secret or Top Secret. Separate locked rooms. Separate safes for storage. No access to such areas to anyone without the accreditation. In essence the sort of resources needed by Special Branch.
And who is going to fund all these checks? And who is going to fund all this equipment?
Paha! Cloud cuckoo land. Eating too many strange mushrooms. Sampling the results of raids by the drug squad.
Which is the icon for loony nutter.
The Chief Constable should be in a court cell until he purges his contempt. And his local police authority should be reviewing his suitability to hold that office.
The problem is that the Police consider themselves to be above the law: receiving much milder punishment (if any) when they break it when in fact, because of the special trust placed in them by the public, punishments should be harsher for police that break the law.
How can the court not act when such a senior police man stands up and publicly and repeatedly treats them with utter contempt and is seen to get away with it?
I suspect the 'loophole' the chief constable wishes to close is the one where the Police get to decide who's an expert witness. His main point of contention seems to be that somebody, somewhere, has given this man the opportunity to look at something that the chief constable did not approve of - obviously a heinous offence ...
Mr Port would not have been shooting from the lip in all his interviews with "the Popular Press" so I can only assume that he has a sound legal basis for any comment. A legal basis no doubt paid for b the public purse. If not then his employers should be calling him in for a little chat regarding the bringing of his office into disrepute. If he has a sound basis then I'd suggest he re-visits his legal team and demands a refund... for dropping him in the doo dahhh.
Also, in his spat with Mr. Bates he seems to have incurred legal expenses. Will these be paid directly by him or will the National and local taxpayer pick up the tab? If he has been shooting from the lip and now expects the taxpayer to foot the bill then he is a sandwich short of a feast, not fit for office and should be dismissed or resign.
Why do some police, and not just in the middle & junior ranks, all to often demonstrate immense contempt for both the law and general public and then act as though it's not their fault and portray themselves, like MPs, as victims of the system?
...the Avon and Somerset force are going to have to get rid of this high-ranking liability sometime soon? He seems to be lacking so many different varieties of clue that it's difficult to know where to start with him. I mean even ACPO must be getting sick of him being such a wazzock by now?
"anyone found in possession of such images without good grounds for doing so is committing a crime and likely to be punished accordingly. The law allows certain individuals to possess certain images at certain times: s.46 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 specifically allows an individual to retain an indecent image for the 'prevention, detection or investigation of crime, or 'for the purposes of criminal proceedings' – but only so long as they are working on such matters."
So as soon as the courts told the filth that they should give the computer kit back they no longer had good grounds for possessing said hardware and accordingly said child porn contained therein.
So Port, and possibly a number of his officers, have committed a very serious offense here. Why are they not being investigated and prosecuted?
Preferably with one or two of his more violent customers.
Police officers do not make the law, they carry it out. If he has something to moan about he should complain at the next free masons meeting about the judge to grand silly handshake and not do his dirty laundry in public.
Put your hand up if you think Britain is turning into an Orwellian nightmare run by petty, bureaucratic, moronic, control freaks.
The costs for his debacle must run into 100's of thousands
1 cost of police time and resources to get a magistrate to issue unlawful warrant
2 cost of police time and resources to raid bates house (6 officers plus police cars and vans)
3 cost of lawyers to comminicate with bates lawyers over bail and other conditions
4 cost of juditial hearing (lawyers/2 judges/police time and resouces)
5 cost of application + lawyers for new warrant to re seize material from Port
6 cost of second warrant refusal (costs awarded to bates lawyers) police time and resources
7 cost of application of bates lawyers for contempt proceedings
8 cost of bates and lawyers commincations concerning returning of illegal seized material
9 cost of police and lawyers time and resources for contempt hearing.
10 cost of returning bates stuff to his solicitor's Police + resources
11 posible cost to variety of media sources
(there must be things I have missed)
and wait for it -------
yes you guessed didn't you ?
compensation to bates and his lawyers.
I do hope Avon and Somerset tax payers have very deep pockets.
If I was one of them, i'd sue Port for the money he has wasted.
Any police officer who thinks he's better than the legal system he's employed to enforce (NOT DICTATE) should be thrown out of the force immediately.
He's tried to break the rules and tried to cover it up in true Gov style with a tabloid smear campaign and he's still kicking and screaming, to paraprase Ihre Papiere Bitte; give him the ...
**TZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!!!**
*kick*
...Treatment!!!
Port may have escaped prison by handing back the disks at the 11th hour, but who will hold him to account for his libel that Bates is a paedophile? The judges were mildly grumpy about this. Big deal.
A Chief Constable smearing his opponent as someone with more than a 'professional interest' in child porn? I hope Bates sues, but I suspect that it will be the taxpayers who pick up the bill, just as they do with most cases of police abuse while the officer faces no consequences.
Right up to the point when he *might* have to do some *actual* time. If he *really* believed his viewpoint he should have done the time.
Pussy.
Does this look like the harassment of a powerful and arrogant man whose been reading his own press and *believing* it?
What is Port trying to hide?
""As long as Jim Bates- or anyone else - is 'under instruction' in respect of particular cases, he may retain material: when that instruction ceases, he must either return it to the relevant authorities or destroy it.
"It is not altogether clear what gaps in the law Mr Port is seeking to close."
Under Instruction from Whom would then be the Question. And perhaps it is that Particular and Peculiar Door which Mr Port has Opened....... thus Rendering the Secrets inside Revealed and [NEUKlearerly] Attributable.
No question in my mind that in much of the UK now, we've started down a very slippery slop when it comes to dealing with emotive matters like paedophilia and terrorism - with basic common sense giving way to calculated hysteria.
In court recently (as a witness in an assault case) I was profoundly shocked by the lackadaisical attitude to 'evidence' and unquestioning acquiescence to police opinion - the proceedings were a travesty of justice. Part of the problem in this area being that the bench couldn't care less about facts as long as they get to lunch on time, and the average legal aid solicitor tends to be a total waste of space.
And on this particular topic, I'm seriously glad of the modern upsurge in internet use - now almost every family. Years ago, when it was less common, it only took a dialup connection to raise police suspicions - "Internet, Eh? Eh? Eh? Well - we all know what you people get up to don't we? Nudge-nudge! Wink-wink!" In my rural locality, with crime levels (per head of population) worse than many inner cities, the police are now part of the problem rather than the answer.
And don't even get me started on Freemasonry - surely the vehicle for, if not the source of, most police corruption in this country. The steadfast lack of enquiry or action into the involvement of that corrupt organisation in police and government matters is a continuing national disgrace.
Colin Port has tried to pander to the worst elements of public opinion. Face it, Mr Port - most of that opinion now considers that you should be in gaol!
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