Moron oxide - the sweet smell of success

Quite straight-facedly (monkey’s bollock though that face resembles), and being no stranger to hilarious irony, the BBC provides a showplace for our corrupt and useless political class (Labour Division) to offer excuses for its abject, knowing, and deadly failures of morality, duty, and courage.

No excuses' over family's deaths

There were "no excuses" for failings which contributed to the deaths of a mother and daughter who were hounded by youths, the home secretary has said.

Fiona Pilkington, 38, killed herself and Francecca Hardwick in a burning car after years of abuse on their estate.

An inquest jury said Leicestershire Police and two councils had not handled complaints from the family properly.

In much the same way that, for example, the UK Labour Party and Conservative Party did not handle the rise of fascism and Nazism properly between 1933 and 1940.

Alan Johnson said the agencies were wrong to regard such anti-social behaviour as "low-level crime".

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is to investigate the handling of the case.

Speaking to BBC News, Mr Johnson said: "This should never have happened and there are no excuses for this and there can be no excuses for this.

"This is an example of a complacency that we are determined to eradicate wherever it is."

Dosed with a new blend of sodium pentothal and Rohypnol, he added: “We’ve only been in office for 12 years and so now, having put our unique talents to work in the education, health, and benefits systems, we now move forward onto the broad, sunlit uplands of the pre-election months to notice that some people break not only the tolerant taboos of diverse and liberal free speechers, but also laws, windows, hearts and minds- some of them belonging to really quite unimportant people, but still, every little helps.”

Speaking about the anti-social behaviour the family experienced, he added: "In Fiona Pilkington's case there was insufficient attention to this, it was classified as low level when it is high level if you are experiencing it, that is for sure."

While accepting that the police had made improvements in the past two years, Mr Johnson said the fact remained the existing powers had not been used properly.

"It is the police's job, along with the local authority and social services and housing and all the rest of it, to ensure that people are not driven to the kind of despair Fiona Pilkington was driven to.

“Our dozen years running down the prisons system and the whole ideas of incarceration and punishment have no more to do with this kind of savagery as, say, unprotected promiscuous sex has to do with venereal diseases and pregnancy rates.”

"She did that terrible thing because she felt at her wits' end and she had to get a message to someone and if we go through a load of excuses about this we will not tackle the root problem."

Forensic examination tent at Earl Shilton

The bodies were found in the burning car in October 2007

Mr Johnson added: "I take my responsibilities seriously here.

Okay, okay. Calm down at the back there. Hysterical laughter is undignified. Wipe your tears, put your teeth back in, and read on.

"I'm concerned that we've coasted a bit on anti-social behaviour…

Well spotted. You’ve also spent a bit, borrowed a bit, and got into a scrap or two. But let’s not exaggerate any of this, shall we?

We need to ensure now that right across the country there are consistent standards."

Oh, I think that outside Islington and certain areas of Gloucestershire, you’ll find the scuffers unwilling to provide any time for observing, recording, and preventing mob violence and class hatred.

I think it’s officially called ‘persecution in the community,’ or some such.

Conservative leader David Cameron said it was "an absolutely horrific case" which raised questions for both the police and the council.

"But also we have had a decade of a Labour Government telling us about anti-social behaviour legislation and instructions and orders to the police and it just isn't working," he said.

"We've got to get rid of the police paperwork, we've got to get them back on the streets, we've got to make them feel empowered to intervene and clear these people off the streets and make them accountable locally so there are consequences if they don't deliver."

“And therefore I pledge my administration to closing down the Probation Service and most open prisons and the Children’s Minister and spending the money on new prisons and borstals. I will oblige magistrates and judges to operate ‘a one chance and then you’re inside’ policy for all acts of violence, domestic damage, threats and housebreaking, and parole will begin only after ¾ of any sentence for violence, abuse, and illegal entry to homes.”

Say, didn’t Pink Floyd do an album cover reminiscent of the likelihood of this?

Yeah.

The inquest at Loughborough Town Hall heard Ms Pilkington, her daughter and her son, Anthony, who has severe dyslexia, suffered more than 10 years of harassment and threats from a gang of teenagers living on their street in Barwell.

10 years during which a harmless woman and her poor distressed daughter and son were vilely persecuted, insulted, intimidated, threatened and abused, and during which time they received exactly no help from strutting ‘police officers’ in their comic opera uniforms poncing around like banana republic generalissimos, council officers drew their wages and ignored the many complaints.

The only upside of this tragedy is that it brings this issue into the open

Mark Golding, Mencap

Mencap will, of course, be calling for the public birching of those found guilty of insulting the mentally handicapped.

The council has admitted the Simmons family, who live nearby and are thought to be among those involved, still cause trouble in the area. When asked by the BBC if his children bore any responsibility for the deaths, the father said: "That's for the authorities to decide."

Werl, he don’t know what responserbilitty means, do he, poor lamb?

Ms Pilkington is believed to have poured the contents of a 10-litre can of petrol over clothes in the back seat of the car, and set them alight.

The jury found Ms Pilkington killed herself and her daughter "due to the stress and anxiety regarding her daughter's future, and ongoing anti-social behaviour".

The jury foreman said the police's response had had an impact on Ms Pilkington's decision to unlawfully kill her daughter and commit suicide.

Relatives described how Ms Pilkington had complained for years about youths "taunting and abusing" her at her home, but six months before her death had told them "I give up".

Temporary Chief Constable Chris Eyre of Leicestershire Police said he was "extremely sorry" that police failed to help Ms Pilkington and her daughter.

Mark Golding, chief executive of Mencap, said "hate crime" against people with learning disabilities was common and should be taken as seriously as racial abuse.

He added: "I think this case will be the wake-up call that gives it that kind of profile.

"Until now it's been seen as low-level, it's being treated as misbehaviour and people's lives are being ruined as a result."

Here it comes. The stocks for spaz-bashers, for sure, right?

Mr Golding said more education about disabilities was needed in schools, and authorities needed to work together to support people with learning difficulties and stop a similar tragedy happening again.

He added: "The only upside of this tragedy is that it brings this issue into the open."

The filth who did this aren’t in any schools, Mark Golding, you witless oaf.

They’ve been truanting almost all their lives from schools that are now free of all authority, sanction, respect, or power to compel attendance, thanks to thinking like yours. You and your tribe did this – caused it – it’s your soft-headed, soft-power, soft-option system, Mister Golding. You’re not too far from the political ‘authorities yourself’, are you?* What expertise or knowledge of life in, or on the edge, of underclass ‘neighbourhoods’ can you possibly have?

However, it does lead us quite nicely to the BBC’s political class mantra. They’re actually going to allow comments on this story and so must think that they’re onto a winner.

Have you suffered from disability discrimination? Do you live in Barwell? Have you been affected by the issues raised in this story? Tell us your experiences using the form below.

A selection of your comments may be published, displaying your name and location unless you state otherwise in the box below.

They can only think - if that’s not too strong an expression – and confront this problem (which certainly is too strong an expression) in terms of a clash of competing victimhoods.

You see, Francecca Hardwick wasn’t burned by her distraught and desperate mother as the result of 10 years of barbarians persecuting them in their home and the utter abdication of the authorities from their paid and, in the police’s case, sworn duties – far from it.

She died because some individuals still don’t understand people with ‘learning difficulties.’

*How much of this is truly voluntary rather than from local and national government and quangos?

I don’t know.

But let’s look at Watford Mencap, shall we? You need page 13.

To be fair, the pulp fiction formerly known that the conservative Daily Telegraph lets him spout his victimhood poker line here.

Illustration from here.

Britain freezes over

In Hell, according to Dante, the lowest depth of the innermost circle of the Inferno is reserved for traitors.

Even the shades of those who have betrayed some duty or trust are discriminated between and graded in a diverse and degraded hierarchy of evil.

From bad to worst it goes:

Betrayers of kinsfolk;

Betrayers of polity, nation or state;

Betrayers of guests;

Betrayers of lords and benefactors.

Why be hung up – ha ha! – on the words of some homophobic foreign Papist whilst sitting here with mild backache in the sunlit uplands of the enlightened Twenty-First Century after the birth of some dead white Zionist?

Why, indeed, when I myself surely wouldn’t make it out of Hell’s reception room, if lucky, and would probably be roasting and toasting and enshrined in a tomb a bit further Downstairs myself?

Because some truths are universal, and they’re often expressed in literature, and they’re not all about nice stuff like getting married eventually.

The ancients and medieval folk weren’t just down on sin because they’d been brainwashed by the patriarchal military-workshop complex and lacked community organisers: they did it because thousands of generations of rural and city life had taught them that certain attitudes of mind generate behaviour that harms individuals and the polity a t large.

And it’s still true.

Via the Ranting Penguin and Julia amongst others, here’s real-life sin from fewer web pages than you have digits on one hand.

Betrayers of kinsfolk;

Gang torment woman 'sat in dark'

A woman who died inside her burning car with her disabled daughter would sit in the dark listening to the gang that tormented them, an inquest heard.

And

Despite police requests, Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council had no record of the problems, the hearing was told.

Council officer Tim Butterworth, who was responsible for dealing with anti-social behaviour, said he had "no concerns" with the situation.

Rugged individualism can be fine on some levels, but I think that at some deep level even the most doctrinaire Objectivists and natural-rights libertarians (who tend to be hyper-ethical in their private lives and public dealings, despite my newfound conservative prejudices) believe in something like common humanity – we may not owe a living to our healthy fellow-men, but in some ways they are our kin: and as such do not deserve to be left alone to be tormented. If this isn’t kin betraying kin, then it’s close enough for the authorities to be damnable, if not actually damned.

Betrayers of polity, nation or state;

Anti-social behaviour 'not police job'

A senior police officer told the inquest into the deaths of a family terrorised by a gang of youths that it was not the responsibility of police to tackle anti-social behaviour.

And

Earlier Ms Davison, assistant deputy coroner for Leicestershire and Rutland, asked whether Mr Butterworth remembered a meeting with a police officer.

She said: "The police officer wanted an anti-social behaviour order and as the best course of action to issue an anti-social behaviour warning. "He appears to want action from the council and he appears to want you to take action. Do you remember this?"

Mr Butterworth replied: "I don't think we have that statement anywhere."

Is Britain better or worse off for these ‘authorities?’

Betrayers of guests;

Hundreds of children are going missing from Britain's care homes and foster families each year, many falling victim to violent and sexual abuse, prostitution and drug addiction.

And

She tempered her unhappiness at a new foster home by drinking a lot of White Lightning cider, ran away and spent time in a children's home. The situation was exacerbated by sexual abuse from a carer, her rape by an older man who liked to prey on vulnerable children's home girls, and dropping out of school without GCSEs.

If fostered children and children in care aren’t guests, then what in heaven’s name are they?

Betrayers of lords and benefactors.

At the inquest into the pair's deaths yesterday, Superintendent Steve Harrod, head of criminal justice at Leicestershire Police, acknowledged that the criminal justice system was set up to avoid sending juveniles to prison.

He said police officers were only allowed to issue warnings to young troublemakers unless their behaviour was judged to be serious.

"I'm not sure if people know but low-level anti-social behaviour is mainly the responsibility of the council"

Supt Harrod suggested that officers got "frustrated with not being able to do some things".

"From my personal experience, if a juvenile goes into detention, they are likely to mix with like-minded people during their time there and they are more likely to reoffend."

And

For really improved outcomes, residential care and foster care need to be transformed. "Residential care needs to be top notch and that's expensive," said Wes Cuell, director of children's services at the NSPCC.

Look at your next wage slip or, if self-employed, your next tax return. Compare the top lines and bottom line and note the difference. Remember how residential carers, foster carers, police, social workers and local authority antisocial behaviour officers are paid, and by whom.

Who then are these armies’ lords and benefactors, if not us?

Now, we are supposed to endure endless taxes and regulations and criminal records checks and dutifully put our ticks in ethnicity boxes of various forms and scrawl X’s into other boxes twice a decade to change not even the guard at Buckingham Palace. We have to dawdle and daydream in pubs until our huddled friends come in from the rain after a cigarette, and we have to watch our soldiers’ coffined homecomings from their just and much-needed but under-strength and ill-supplied service overseas.

And we have to mind our Ps and Q’s and be lectured when we vote for the wrong people by the shamans of the very tribe that abolished punishment in the first place.

I can see why treachery is the worst sin of all in Dante’s imagination.

To take the name of kinsman: of protector; to become both public servant and recipient of public funds; to assume the rank and titles and respect and uniforms of guardians and to inexpertly wield the power of legitimate force and to fail on every level of your duty is sin, pure and simple.

It causes harm to the human family of your neighbours, to the guests in the institutions of child protection, to the country’s peace and prosperity, and to the very people who pay for your comfortable living.But for now; it’s someone else who’s being punished.