Reply to post: Re: The problem with your logic is that resisting the arrest is the crime.

Julian Assange jailed for 50 weeks over Ecuador embassy bail-jumping

LucreLout

Re: The problem with your logic is that resisting the arrest is the crime.

IF you find yourself in the position of having to deal with plod.

Having pulled apart the woeful advice offered earlier, I thought I'd venture my own.

1) Comply with their instructions peacefully, respectfully, and calmly. It removes any justification to use escalating force upon you. If it transpires they are violating your rights, you can simply file a complaint and take their job another day. No really, the time to kick up a fuss is not while being questioned or taken into custody - in no circumstances will this ever help you.

2) If you do get arrested, ask for a solicitor and comply with the solicitors instructions. They know what they're doing more so than your interpretation of some guys advice on the internet. No comment isn't going to help you, it's just going to cause them to focus on you, due to the reasonable expectation that innocent people will cooperate. Obviously if your solicitors advice is "no comment" then do that, but where you can provide evidence of innocence, then compliance and answering questions will almost always produce a better outcome than sulking and stonewalling.

3) If you know you are guilty, admit it. That 1/3rd off your sentence can be important. If its a first offence and you admit guilt at your first court hearing, you'll get 2/3rd reduction in sentence, which means even GBH will be under the 2 year threshold for a suspended sentence - you walk free. Dicking about will leave you over the suspension threshold, and serving time (in cases of GBH you start off looking at 6 years, reduced by 2 years if its a first offence, and another 2 years if you plead guilty at the get go, which is then suspended for 2 years - dicking about will leave you facing 4 years even at a first offence, so you'll go away for 2).

4) If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Crying about it makes you look weak, and weakness in prison isn't a good thing. Killing yourself in custody may get you out of jail, but was whatever you did to get nicked really worth dying for?

I base this on many interactions with the police and CPS over the years - from carrying a pocket knife disclosed during stop & search (even though the blade locked in place and was millimeters too long for EDC rules), suspicion of fleeing a stolen car (wasn't me), driving offences too lengthy to list, and the drunk & wanton relocation of traffic cones and road signs whilst young. I've never been arrested, and that is due to respectful and polite compliance, and a tendency to actually be innocent of that which I was suspected of.

As well as being the police, the people you're interacting with are someones parent, someones child, someones spouse, and someones friend. They're real people, and they don't enjoy you verbally abusing them and making their day any harder than if I came to your work place and did the same to you. When most of your "customers" are disrespectful or abusive bellends, the ones you cut the slack are the ones that show respect, politeness, and basic decency.

That being said, police corruption (yes, it does exist) and misuse of powers (yes it does happen) should rightly be punished and punished harshly and publicly.

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