Police and thieves

MORTON'S MUSINGS

JAMES MORTON HAS A WHIMSICAL LOOK AT RISING AND FALLING CRIME STATISTICS, MOONING AND BURGLARS

What is to be made of the criminal statistics published a fortnight ago? The British Crime Survey reports crime is down overall.

The other survey by the police shows alarming increases in serious crime, particularly on the streets.

Of course all statistics can be made to jump the way the interpreter wishes.

Whole courses are taught in sociology degrees at universities on how crime is recorded.

If you have, say, ten thefts in a block of offices or flats on one day, the police may record this as one offence - but if the criminal is arrested, then the number of offences cleared up is ten.

There is also a direct correlation between an active police force and a less organised one.

If people know something is likely to be done about the loss of their car radio then they will report it.

If they know nothing will happen they will not bother.

No reports means crime is down - QED.

I remember when my wall was knocked down by a driver who did not stop and I reported it.

The next day the woman, presumably now recovered from whatever had possessed her to mount the pavement in the first place, came round and offered to pay for the damage.

I telephoned the police station to tell them what had happened and left a message for the officer.

Nothing happened until some weeks later when I received a message to say that the police had been unable to trace the driver and the case was closed.

It is interesting to read that the Crown Prosecution Service is putting its top lawyers, whatever that may mean, onto fast-tracking street crime cases through the courts.

What are top lawyers in this context? And are they really necessary?

I would have thought that this was one of the easier crimes to prosecute.

Victim, medical report, arresting officer(s), confession.

It does not seem that one needs to be the brain of Ludgate Hill to work this out.

Still it sounds good.

***

Donald Holder, the member of the British Embassy in Athens who commented on the case of a jailed and fined British university student who mooned at a coachload of tourists, is wrong.

Simon Topp - who claimed he was not a lout but a public school-educated university student - had exposed his buttocks on the island of Rhodes.

Back in Britain he complained that the local police had over-reacted.

Mr Holder said that as Mr Topp would have been arrested in Britain for the offence, why should he assume he could do it abroad? The answer is that he would not have been arrested in Britain.

There would have been no police on the street to see him.

Meanwhile, Mr Topp's parents may consider they have an action against their son's old school for not teaching him that this sort of behaviour is unacceptable and so therefore they have wasted their money by enrolling him there.

Special damages would, of course, include the fine of 400 imposed by the Greek authorities.

Carefully played, there is interesting work in this for several lawyers.

***

Was it the in the film 'Diary of a Shinjuku Thief' in which one of the characters makes a living throwing himself in front of motor cars and suing for his resultant injuries?

There was certainly an Australian conman in the early 20th century who, impervious to pain, claimed he had fallen off trains and injured himself.

He made a killing in various states until he was unmasked when he did not respond to pain outside the area which he said was paralysed.

So the news that legal aid has been granted to one of those shot while burgling the home of reclusive farmer Tony Martin reminded me of both the film and the conman.

If the burglar is successful it would seem that there is a new and attractive dimension to thieving from houses.

First, you are unlikely to be caught, and even less likely to be imprisoned.

Second, if you are caught in flagrante, try and get the homeowner to beat you up.

By the time you come out of prison there should be a nice little nest egg awaiting you.

It seems a much better proposition for the potential inmate than this criminal contract proposal, which is the latest governmental wheeze to encourage prisoners to return to the straight and narrow path.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember a case in the mid-1960s when the widow of a bank robber killed in a road accident claimed for his loss of earnings.

Her claim was given short shift then, but in today's less realistic climate the case might be decided differently indeed.

With the arrival of the European arrest warrant, those who have yet to take their summer holidays should be careful not to be heard whistling Colonel Bogey on beaches crowded with our German friends if they do not want a couple of years in a Greek prison.

Where should that appear in the statistics?

James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist