Police stopping and searching in Waterloo

moriarty wrote:

The Mapmaker wrote:

But Jac it's not just inconvenience. It is an erosion of our liberty.

Who decided that it was? I have never understood who decides these things.

Isn't that self-evident? You may or may not agree that it is proportionate or even worthwhile but it is surely an erosion of our civil liberties by definition.

Neil wrote:

moriarty wrote:

The Mapmaker wrote:

But Jac it's not just inconvenience. It is an erosion of our liberty.

Who decided that it was? I have never understood who decides these things.

Isn't that self-evident? You may or may not agree that it is proportionate or even worthwhile but it is surely an erosion of our civil liberties by definition.

If it was self-evident I bet I wouldn't have asked the question.

The Mapmaker wrote:

But Jac it's not just inconvenience. It is an erosion of our liberty.

There is no greater erosion of one's liberty than taking their life!

Neil wrote:

moriarty wrote:

The Mapmaker wrote:

But Jac it's not just inconvenience. It is an erosion of our liberty.

Who decided that it was? I have never understood who decides these things.

Isn't that self-evident? You may or may not agree that it is proportionate or even worthwhile but it is surely an erosion of our civil liberties by definition.

No one's said defintively what the police were doing or under what powers at Waterloo Station. My guess is that it was a 'Section 60' order where groups of people can be stopped, their details taken and be searched for weapons if the police have reason to believe that violence is likely.

If it was a section 60 order then you should know that it was brought in by the last Tory Government under the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act 1994. This Act, along with the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act of 1988, gave the police much greater powers to stop and search. Don't remember much debate back then about erosions of libery and not a squeak from the pro-execution David Davies who was a member of both of the Governments which brought the Acts in.

The Mapmaker wrote:

What were the parents doing letting a 16 year old be out on the streets at 2am. (As happened with the brother of some soap star who died.) What are the parents playing at? 2am is no time for a child to be roaming the streets.

Granted I don't let my kids out at that time but does that make his death ok? well he shouldn't have been on the street at that time anyway so what does he expect. I think not. I referred to him because of the similarity to my son who also celebrated ending his GCSE last weekend. The other cases I quoted were all in the afternoon. And yes I do let my children out in the afternoon and I feel they have the right to be able to be out without fear for their own safety(and I think their fear is justified to some extent at the moment) Knife crime/violent crime may be down overall but in the inner cities the number of under 18ys victims is escalating at a frightening rate.

At Waterloo it might have been a section 60 stop & search or perhaps it could be the terrorism act of 2000 section 44 stop & search brought in 2000 and now strengthened by labour in 2008, these two later acts give powers that do not require the police to have a reason to stop & search beyond terrorism. It is these stop and searches around demonstrations and other incidents under the pretext of terrorism concerns that have become the focus of civil liberty issues as they are being used to stop journalists/photographers going about their jobs! I believe there can be "good" stop & searches, as in Waterloo, and "bad" ones that are made by bad law and ill trained police. I wouldn't want to stop them all...19 young people killed by knives this year in London alone!

= jac wrote:

Granted I don't let my kids out at that time but does that make his death ok? well he shouldn't have been on the street at that time anyway so what does he expect. I think not.

Of course it does not make the death OK. However, take some parents who don't care about their child, it roams the streets at 2am, it gets into more trouble than a child can cope with, and it dies. Cue parents who shed crocodile tears and say that something must be done. Following which, we are interrupted in our daily routine.

We should be tackling the inherent problem, not the symptoms.

The Mapmaker wrote:

We should be tackling the inherent problem, not the symptoms.

While family breakdown / lack of parental control may be one of the inherent problems causing the recent spate of knifings surely it is the lack of parental control over the perpetrators rather than the over the innocent victims that we should be worrying about more. I remember celebrating the end of the Irish equivalent of the GCSE's (vaguely, it was a long time ago now) with a big night out and I dont think that meant my parents did not have proper control over me. They just trusted me to be sensible and never imagined I would be the victim of an almost random act of fatal violence. Locking down all teenagers every night doesnt seem to be a proportionate response. What about their civil liberties?

It's also true that we don't know what these people were like (the young people killing and killed) - ok some of them were innocent bystanders, but the others could well have been mouthy arrogant sods, who just happened to have had one too many bottles of cheap cider, and decided to be extra lippy to the wrong person. This could also be the same for the person who did the stabbing, a bit too much alcohol, and someone else being a bit lippy, and they end up dead.

Jac - your kids are sensible, and well brought up, the chances of them being in this kind of situation are slim, and they're not the kind of kids who would aggravate it and make it worse by being sarky. It's ok to worry, but not too much.

JonR wrote:

Jac - your kids are sensible, and well brought up, the chances of them being in this kind of situation are slim, and they're not the kind of kids who would aggravate it and make it worse by being sarky. It's ok to worry, but not too much.

Slim but not as slim as I'd like it to be and dont get me wrong I am not paranoid and I am sure I do not worry any more than any mother would do when their child is out. Luckily mine do not yet want to go out at night but the oldest is not far off the age he will and should be aloud to. But there has been several stabbing recently in London that have not involved alcohol, nor been late at night, nor it would seem gang related, just kids killing kids which is as incomprhensible to my children and their friends as it is to most of us