Evenin' All

I'm too busy to post, but I'm too angry not to post about this:

A judge yesterday sparked anger when he jailed a teenager for two-and-a-half years for killing a father who tried to stop a gang of youths terrorising his street.

What happened?

The court heard Chambers knocked Mr Barnes out with a single punch in July after the father confronted youths when his car window was smashed by gangs involved in street fighting in Tremorfa, Cardiff.

And:

Martin Kelly, prosecuting, said: "Police had received a number of calls saying groups of up to 20 were fighting in the streets.

"Rival gangs were throwing stones at cars. The 14-year-old was with a group of 30 other youths."

A nearby CCTV camera picked up the attack on Mr Barnes with a young voice heard shouting: "Fight him Rob".

Witnesses said 6ft tall Chambers, then 17, punched 5ft 1in Mr Barnes who fell to the pavement and hit his head with "a hollow noise".

Chambers shouted: "Get up and have some more. Get up you pussy. I knocked him clean out." Mr Barnes lost consciousness and was taken to hospital, where his family kept a vigil.

So I'm furious that this yob didn't get a longer sentence, right?

Wrong.

The court heard Chambers admitted his crime to his mother who took him to police. He told her: "I hit him, what's going to happen to me?" Chambers was driven to the police station by his mother where he handed himself in.

A 17 year old kid, running amok, hits a man once with horrible consequences.

A resident comes out and confronts the crowd of kids, and gets hit and killed. The culprit tells his Mum, who takes him to the police.

Where the fuck were the police? Where the fuck were the police when the kids were terrorising the street? WHY the fuck were kids allowed to terrorise a street. KIDS! Children, albeit big children. Why did the police absent themselves to the extent that a resident had to leave his home and confront a gang?

A couple of years ago, someone firebombed a car in the small village in Cambridgeshire where I lived. I went out and put out the fire. I called the police. Three days later, a policeman knocked on my door, holding a FUCKING clipboard. Irish travellers were holding drag races in the high street (village name was Cottenham - google it) on Sunday mornings, two abreast on a single carriageway road. No fucking Old Bill for miles.

Tony Martin lives a couple of dozen miles away. Local rumour has it that a year or two after he shot a burglar, another farmer heard sounds in his house and called the police. "No cars in you area," he was told. "Lock yourself in your bedroom".

He thought about it. Then he called back. "Don't worry," he said. "I've shot them." Two police cars - with armed officers - were there in ten minutes.

Two months ago, my girlfriend dropped a birthday cake off in Ely, at a restaurant. As we pulled off, we turned a corner. She was pulling the seat belt across her shoulder, but there was a police check point. We were flagged over. On the spot fine. The copper grinned horribly, enjoying it hugely, as he wrote the ticket out for an "offence" that any self-respecting man would have handled by saying "Put your seat belt on, love".

Where are the police? Preying on the law-abiding. Tax collecting. Ignoring crimes that shatter lives, destroy peace, and get fathers killed and children imprisoned for being stupid young men with testosterone coursing through their veins - but nothing wrong that a clip round the ear wouldn't fix.

Where are the fucking police? Ignoring the yobs, and sitting in a layby on the bypass by the town where I live, right now, with special camera equipment to check for invalid tax disks on passing cars.

And it kills fathers, it ruins lives and it makes us hate them. And we pay their fucking wages.

Meanwhile, a couple of overweight, soft "Community Support" officers walk through this small town from time to time, wearing fucking body armour, chatting to people as though this is going to relax them.

Give me a proper Old Bill any day. Over six feet tall. And ready to take a kid behind a shed and give him a hiding to save the kid's life, and that of a father.