Here we go again. For the umpteenth occasion, the Information Commissioner’s Office – effectively the UK’s privacy watchdog – has its knickers in a right old twist.
The reason this time? The Metropolitan Police Service’s apparent desire to force pub landlords in certain parts of London to install CCTV.
If they don’t obey, their licence applications will not be supported. Owners also have to hand over to the Boys in Blue any footage requested at any given time.
This so-called ‘blanket surveillance policy’ has been introduced in the London Boroughs of Richmond and Islington.
These environs are not alone, though. Every licensed premises in the county of Essex that opens beyond 11.00pm must adhere to the same rules, while pubs and clubs must have cameras by the door that ‘snap’ headshots of customers as they enter.
Deputy Information Commissioner David Smith’s response is unequivocal. “Hardwiring surveillance into the UK’s pubs raises serious privacy concerns. We recognise that CCTV plays an important role in the prevention and detection of crime, and can help to reduce criminality in areas of high population density.
“However, we’re concerned at the prospect of landlords being forced into installing CCTV in pubs as a matter of routine in order to meet the terms of a licence.”
Quoted in The Guardian, Smith continued: “We will be contacting the police and others involved to establish the facts and discuss the situation in Islington.
“Installing surveillance in pubs to combat specific problems of rowdiness and bad behaviour may be lawful, but hardwiring-in blanket measures where there’s no history of criminal activity is likely to breach Data Protection requirements.
“The use of CCTV must be reasonable and proportionate if we are to maintain the public’s trust and confidence in its deployment.”
Tories in support of the ICO
The Tories have been quick smart to support Smith.
“CCTV can be a useful tool in the fight against crime, but it’s no substitute for having a real police presence on the streets.” So says the Conservative’s national security spokesperson Crispin Blunt, and I agree with him on that point.
However, Blunt is also adamant that the Government needs to adequately assess the effectiveness of CCTV before it’s deployed.
If the Government hasn’t done so, the CCTV industry certainly has. Blunt also asks the police service to be more specific about why surveillance is needed in drinking dens.
Come again? I would have thought the answer to that little tester is pretty self-evident. You only need view an episode of Nightwatch to see someone being glassed inside a pub to determine why CCTV is necessary.
As for David Smith’s assertion that no history of disturbance in a given hostelry means it doesn’t need surveillance, well. For me, that’s a laughable statement to make.
It only takes one idiot to spark a brawl. There’s not a pub anywhere in the UK that has the exact same clientele through the door each and every day/night of the week, is there?
Binge drinking is still the norm
Thanks to this Government, 24-hour opening is now a reality. Has it solved the binge drinking problem? I don’t think so.
As Chief Brody famously said in the epic Jaws: “It’s like ringing the dinner bell, for Chrissakes!” In this instance, the hungry one isn’t a mechanical shark but instead the disaffected youth who has nothing better to do with his JobSeeker’s Allowance but go down the local and carve somebody open after having consumed 12 pints, a few WKDs pints and a packet of powder for good measure.
Landlords like Steve Herbert – who runs The Old Spot in Dursley – and Nick Gibson, who re-opens The Drapers Arms in Islington this coming April – are incandescent with rage over the police’s actions.
In Gloucestershire, the Licensed Victuallers Association supports them by commenting that CCTV is “one more expense that pubs cannot afford”.
One can only assume they’d rather the punters had a free-for-all with all kinds of weapons, their premises were smashed to oblivion and no-one be brought to book as a result. Words fail me.
Ultimately, the right of residents in the area not to become the hapless victims of crime overrides any concerns that the Information Commissioner’s Office or landlords might have about ‘invasions of privacy’.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you are doing nothing wrong, then it doesn’t matter how many CCTV cameras are trained on you.
The more the merrier, I say, just as long as the footage they produce is handled in the right way such that it nails the guilty parties in Court.
How much does the Government need to know?
Speaking of privacy issues, the hugely influential former Whitehall security and intelligence chief Sir David Omand has said that the “personal data of innocent citizens” must be made available to the Government if we are genuinely going to combat terrorism in this country.
Apparently, Sir David wants to see unprecedented Big Brother powers allowing access to phone records, emails and travel information, for example, being granted to the intelligence services.
As far as he’s concerned, the “moral rules concerning individual privacy will have to be broken”.
Writing in the paper ‘National Security Strategy and Implications for the UK Intelligence Community’, published only last week by New Labour Think Tank the Institute of Public Policy Research, Sir David opined: “This is personal information about individuals that resides in databases, such as advance passenger information, airline bookings and other travel data, passport and biometric data, immigration, identity and border records, criminal records and other Government and private sector data including financial and telephone records.”
For Sir David, this is a hard choice to make, as it flies in the face of current calls to curb the so-called Surveillance Society. “It’s greatly preferable to tinkering with the rule of law, or derogating from fundamental Human Rights.”
Sir David has also stated: “Being able to demonstrate proper legal authorisation and appropriate oversight of the use of such intrusive intelligence activity may become a major future issue for the intelligence community – most certainly if the public at large is to be convinced of the desirability of such intelligence capabilities.”
Key to effective pre-emption
It’s fair to say that access to such information might well be the key to effective pre-emption when it comes to future terror attacks on home shores.
I don’t think those of us who are honest and abide by the law have any kind of problem with that.
The nub of the issue is the Government’s – continually demonstrated – inability to hold on to sensitive information, and the worry about what they’re going to do with it even if they can.
The way matters are progressing, pretty soon there’ll be someone outside your house in an unmarked vehicle monitoring how many items of post you receive every day.
Mind you, they’ll likely not be around for long. If the workshy in the Post Office and the Unions have their way, the local postman will live on solely in our memory.
What price The Post Office Depot in Sainsbury’s, wherein you pick up your mail once a week at the same time as the potatoes and Ben and Jerry’s? It’s not far off, I’m telling you.
What kind of people are we breeding?
Until a few days ago, I didn’t think there was anything left in this country to shock me. Then I had the misfortune to read the horrific tale of a disabled woman on Merseyside who’d been viciously and vindictively assaulted in her own home and, to be frank, I felt sick enough to be sick.
38-year-old Kerri Delacruz lives – or rather used to live – on Snowberry Road in the Dovecot area of Liverpool. Despite the fact I studied at the city’s university for three years I cannot recall where this area is, but that’s another story.
A mother of three, poor Kerri suffers from degenerative joint disease. Back in 2004, she underwent a gruelling six-hour operation whereby a metal rod was inserted into her spine to support her back.
At the same time, two vertebrae that had literally crumbled were removed. That being the case, Kerri can only walk with the aid of crutches. To say that her movement is severely restricted would be putting it mildly.
On a typically ordinary Sunday afternoon, Kerri had set the washing machine to On and phoned her Mum for a chat. The children were out and about with their father, as is the custom at weekends.
At the same time, Kerri had let her beloved Yorkshire terrier Willow into the back garden to romp around.
Half an hour or so later, with the phone call at an end and the washing machine cycle coming to a close, Kerri noticed the dog hadn’t returned. Her shouts passed by unanswered, so Kerri ventured into the garden.
Scene from a horror movie
Willow was hanging limply from a post. The dog’s throat had been slit open, and its stomach sliced God knows how many times.
Being graphic about it, Willow’s innards were on display for the whole world to see. That, Ladies and Gentlemen, isn’t the half of it, so brace yourselves.
Already distraught, Kerri motioned towards her dog, but was then confronted by four hooded figures who stepped out from behind the garden shed.
They pushed Kerri back into the house, and into the downstairs bathroom. Dressed in black from head to toe, her cowardly assailants only showed their eyes.
One of them piped up: “Go get the knife”. What appeared to be the youngest lad of the bunch then dismantled the kitchen draws looking for a weapon.
At this point, Kerri was being grabbed by the hair and forced to look into the mirror. Two of the lads had pinned her arms to the wall.
She was utterly defenceless. Can you imagine how terrified and distressed she must have been by this time?
The youngest lad returned with a five-inch knife. “Will you scream like a bitch? Willow did when we cut her open”.
Kerri wanted to scream, of course she did, but had been warned her throat would be cut and her children would suffer the same fate upon their return if she ever did.
Tortured for an hour and more
What happened next is quite disgusting. Each of the youths took it in turns to cut Kerri open. In acts of cold-hearted butchery, one slashed her cheek, another her hands, one her left breast and the other her back.
What made the situation even more vile is that they waited for the blood to dry on each slash before cutting her again and again in the same places.
That way, the scars will never heal. This torture regime went on for an hour. The six-inch wound on her breast was re-opened no less than three times.
“What will happen if we cut the metal out of your spine?” was one of the sadistic comments made. How sick is that, I ask you?
One of the gang was tasked with mopping the blood off the floor before they all departed so as not to leave any footprints behind.
Kerri was told that if she called the police they would do as they’d threatened and return to cut open her children.
Somehow, she managed to stumble into the garden and raise the alarm until such time as her neighbours discovered what had happened and came to her rescue.
Much unspeakable trauma and 30-odd stitches later (courtesy of horrified medical staff at the Royal Liverpool Hospital), Kerri and her 15-year-old daughter and sons – aged just nine and ten – have had to be rehoused for fear of reprisals. Their life has been taken away from them, physically and mentally.
Not surprisingly, Kerri is suffering from nightmares and flashbacks. She cannot even bear to go into her own bathroom in the family’s new home (the location of which deliberately remains a secret) because the memories are so raw. Vomiting is a daily routine.
Now can you see why I’m so disgusted and enraged in equal measure?
Lowest of the low
What kind of human being are we rearing in this country? The people who wrought these wicked acts on a defenceless mother and her timid animal are the lowest of the low.
Vermin of the vilest kind who must be shown no compassion when Merseyside Police chief constable Bernard Hogan-Howe’s men finally catch up with them.
Of course, we don’t have a knife crime problem in this country. At least that’s what Tony and Gordon have been telling us these past few years and more.
Why is it, then, that virtually every day the newspapers are full of wretched stories like the one I’ve just described? More importantly, why isn’t anything being done about it?
Posters and a quick appearance on television denouncing yet another slicing episode are not good enough.
Nor is it any use rounding up the wasters who cut Kerri open and rendering them to the Crown Prosecution Service and the Courts because we all know what will happen.
A slap on the wrists and a sentence that, in reality, means only half the time in custody need be served.
When these lads are caught, they should be locked up and the key thrown away. If they’re capable of acts like this when they’re barely touching 20 years of age, who knows what they might be compelled to do in years hence.
Let’s not hear all that hogwash about how they’ll have mended their ways after a few years inside, either. According to reports in the national press, today’s prisons aren’t so much correctional facilities but rather holiday camps for the bad boys to do their porridge before being let out to re-offend.
The assailants in this episode – and thousands of other knuckle-scrapers like them – are a danger to society, a disgrace to their parents and a blight on our landscape we could well do without.
Forget the banks, save the people
The Government needs to stop pussy-footing around the issue of edged weapon attacks and do something about it. The same must be said of a Judiciary whose ‘Sentencing Lite’ approach to the law is now way beyond a joke.
There are children running amok in school playgrounds this very morning with knives in their Nike rucksacks. Yes. It’s that bad, but Gordon’s not too bothered, is he?
No. He’s too busy trying to square away the GB pound 690,000 annual pension to which his mate and former RBS leader Fred Goodwin believes he’s still entitled even after leading his organisation (and, at least in part, the nation) into the financial mire.
I’ve always been a firm believer that if people are caught drink-driving, that’s it. No fine. No points on the licence. Rather, the licence ought to be taken away for good.
Similarly, for crimes like the one committed in Liverpool, nothing less than an extremely long sentence – better still, imprisonment for good – is merited.
After all, Kerri Delacruz has had the life that she knew unceremoniously and viciously wrested from her grasp. Why should her assailants be allowed to keep theirs?
Hopefully, there’s a silver lining to all of this. On a positive note, PS5 leader and the UK’s recognised expert on knife crime issues, the one and only Steve Collins, is now back from his secondment in Dubai and will be joining forces once again with SMT Online in lobbying the Government to address this issue.
Knife crime is abhorrent. The perpetrators must be blunted for good. That means removing them from the streets such that we law-abiding and decent human beings can safely enjoy that part of normal society that still exists. However miniscule it may be.
Until next time.