From: Sean Gabb <[m--n] at [sufo.demon.co.uk]>
Subject: More tyranny from the UK - by Sean Gabb
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 <XMASUTkuIbRODCcaI0QIBSCMiD>

Below, I give the full text of a story from a London evening 
newspaper.  It is a perfect instance of how degenerate our
laws and national character have become.


Article starts
===========================================================
The Evening Standard, London, 31st October 1996, "Jailed for
carrying 3 knives in his car:  First sentence under new law", by
Stewart Payne (front page headline).


A MAN who uses a knife as a tool of his trade was jailed today
after police found him carrying three of them in his car.

Dean Payne, 26, is the first person to be jailed under a new law
making the carrying of a knife punishable by imprisonment.

Payne told Marylebone magistrates that he had to provide his own
knife for his job cutting straps around newspaper bundles at the
distribution plant where he works.  He said the company provided
nowhere for him to keep it at work.

Police found the three knives - a lock knife, a small printer's
knife and a Stanley knife - in a routine search of his car.  Payne
admitted he had been careless but insisted he had had no criminal
intent.  The court agreed he had no intention of using the knives
for "offensive" purposes but jailed him for two weeks anyway.

Payne, of Brandon Walk, Notting Hill, pleaded guilty to three
counts of illegally having bladed or pointed articles in his car in
the Portobello Road on 19 July this year.  The law had changed
only two weeks earlier on 4 July.

Payne's lawyer, Mr Martin Lewis, argued that regardless of the
recent furore over knives, a person should not be jailed just for
carelessness in leaving such knives inside a vehicle.

Payne worked at the newspaper distribution plant, Johnsons at
Heathrow, cutting the bindings around packs of magazines and
newspapers.  But magistrate Mr David Kennett-Brown said: 
"There is no excuse whatsoever for you to have three knives, and
there's little excuse for you even to have a single knife."

He told Payne:  "It is clear that at least one of these knives had
been used normally by you in the course of your work to cut the
straps around the newspapers."

But he went on:  "I have to view your conduct in the light of the
great public fear of people going around with knives.

"There is no evidence that you were intending to use the knives
for offensive purposes.  Nevertheless, three knives were found in
your possession in a public place, and I consider the only proper
penalty is one depriving you of your liberty."

The court heard that Payne had been convicted of having a knife
as an offensive weapon when he was 18.

Payne told the court that on the day his car was searched by
police, he had been working at the Heathrow plant where he had
used the lock knife.

He said that it was the practice for casual workers to turn up at
Johnsons with a knife.  Otherwise, they were turned away
because no tools were provided, and there were no lockers to
store tools in.

He said that the printer's knife was a spare that he carried in the
car in case, as had happened in the past, he was asked to bring a
friend along to make up numbers.

The third knife, the Stanley knife, he said was left in the car by
a friend to whom he had given a lift to work.

Article ends
===============================================================


Notice how the possession of a knife has been made an offence of
strict liability - another hold blown in the ancent Common Law,
under which it is necessary to prove both act and intention.

Notice how Mr Payne's car is defined as a "Public place" and how it 
was subjected to a "routine search".  My own view is that a car is an
extension of one's home, and should be regarded as a private place, with
probable cause and warrants needed to search it.

Notice how the Magistrate, Mr Kennett-Brown, does not regard his office
as an opportunity to do justice, but to serve the ends of absolute, 
arbitrary despotism.  "I have to view your conduct in the light of
the great panic public fear of people going around with knives" he said.
Now, the whole reason why we have a judicial system and not lynch mobs
is that the former is supposed to be impartial and not swayed by 
public opinion.  It would be nice to denounce Mr Kennet-Brown as a 
worthy successor to Scroggs and Jeffreys.  That would leave him with
too much dignity, however.  He is better compared with the sort of 
scum who presided over the "people's courts" in the old Communist
regimes.

Notice how we have for the past 17 years been living under a 
"Conservative" government, allegedly committed to preserving and 
restoring this country's free institutions!

I have sent letters to:

                Dean Payne
                Brandon Walk
                Notting Hill
                London

        (commiserating with him on the disgusting travesty of justice
        that he has suffered)

                Johnsons Newspaper Distributors
                Heathrow
                Middlesex

        (asking that Mr Payne should not lose his job on account of
        his being a victim of tyranny)

                David Kennett-Brown
                Marylebone Magistrates Court
                London

        (calling him a disgrace to the bench and a servile tool of 
        absolute despotism)

I encourage others to do likewise.  Unless we all start complaining as
loudly and as often as possible, there is no hope whatever for freedom
and decency in this country.

-- 
Sean Gabb
Editor
Free Life
(The Journal of the Libertarian Alliance)
c/o 25 Chapter Chambers
Esterbrooke Street
London SW1P 4NN
Tel:  0181 858 0841
E-mail:  [m--n] at [sufo.demon.co.uk]
Web Page:  http://www.gold.ac.uk/~cea01sig/