UK, I despair of you!!

[Gob]

An ambulance driver could lose his licence and his job after he was clocked at 112mph while delivering a liver for a life-saving operation.

Paul Bex, 51, was told he had to get the organ from Cambridge to the North East within three hours when he was caught by a speed camera in Lincolnshire. Mr Bex, who was driving under blue lights from Addenbrooke's Hospital, has received a letter from police stating he will be prosecuted for speeding on July 7.

A loophole in the law makes it illegal for ambulances not carrying a patient to exceed the speed limit - even if the driver is on a medical emergency. And despite an appeal by his employer, Lifeline Medical Transport Service, the main service provider for GP collection services for Addenbrooke's, Mr Bex, of Duxford, Cambridgeshire, will have to appear in court.

Anyone caught speeding in excess of 100 miles per hour faces a 12-month ban.

Mr Bex, who has been driving for more than 30 years, said: 'I was doing my job safely and as quickly as possible. Now I find out I could lose my licence. 'It was on the A1, a dual carriageway. The conditions were dry, clear and safe. 'I have been trained in the same way that the police are trained. I have to take care of myself and the organ and other people on the road. 'The worst outcome is I could lose my licence, which means I will not be able to work.'

He does not have a fixed date for a court appearance yet. Dave Cooper, operations manager at Lifeline, said all its drivers have been trained to the same high standards as police officers. He said Mr Bex faced legal action because of the definition of an ambulance, which dates back to 1946.

He said: 'An ambulance is defined as a vehicle constructed or adapted for the purpose of conveying sick, injured or disabled persons. 'The definition does not extend to vehicles used for the transportation of blood or human tissue.'

He said the legal proceedings were creating 'added stress' for Mr Bex. Don Williams, president of the British Ambulance Association, said: 'If he [Mr Bex] was driving an ambulance and taking a patient for a transplant, he could exceed the speed limit.'

He said the law defining an ambulance is 'nonsense' and puts drivers in a 'double jeopardy' situation.

He said: 'If a senior surgeon hands me an organ and says the situation is time-critical, I owe a duty of care to the patient, the surgeon and the relatives of the person who donated the organ. 'If I fail to deliver it on time, I am in breach of everything I stand for. The alternative is I get done for speeding.'

He proposed altering the legal wording so that transporting human tissue is included in the definition of an ambulance.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0yLM9G5fQ

A beggar 'earned' up to £23,400 a year while also claiming benefits.

Daniel Terry, 31, said his £80-a-week state handouts were 'not enough to get by on'.

He used a scruffy sleeping bag and a blanket to dupe passers-by into believing he was 'homeless and helpless' as he begged for cash on his patch at a revitalised city waterfront, a court heard. But despite facing a maximum fine of £1,000 after admitting an offence of begging, Terry walked free from court with a £100 fine and an order to pay £40 in costs and a victims surcharge - to the outrage of campaigners.

Terry, who has 22 previous convictions, mainly for low-level dishonesty offences, claimed he was always polite when begging and dismissed suggestions he may have spent the cash on drink and drugs as 'a joke'.
Terry said he left school with nine GCSEs and worked as an estate agent and in an office before falling into unemployment.

He claimed he found it difficult to hold down a job and turned to begging a year ago when he was made homeless from his own council flat because he owed £400 in back rent.


A spokesman for the Tax Payers Alliance branded Terry a 'charlatan' who was 'earning more money begging than many taxpayers do from honest, hard-work.'

He said Terry's sentence was a 'disgrace', given he had also been claiming benefits on top of his illegal income.
The court heard that Section 3 of the Vagrancy Act 1824 no longer gives magistrates the right to imprison beggars.
According to figures from the Office of National Statistics, the average annual wage for full-time employees rose by 2.6 per cent to £25,800 in the year to September 2009


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0yLNlBYrK

What's the odds the ambulance driver gets a bigger fine?

[Scooter]

In the first case, given that the wording of the law did not foresee this circumstance, the place to deal with it is in court, where it will probably be dismissed. What alternative is there, to give police the power to alter the meaning of the law when they see fit? 99 times out of 100, that won't work in our favour.

In the second case, the claim that this guy was earning £23,400 a year by begging is an extrapolation based on a gross distortion of what he actually said. This guy is reasonably educated and held a responsible job, do you seriously believe that if he really was earning anything close to that sum that he wouldn't find a modest place of his own, rather than traipse from one friend's sofa to another night after night?

And as far as the indignation about him begging while receiving benefits - perhaps anyone who is so offended by it can try living on £80 per week and see how they make out.

[Reality Bytes]

Speeding/Exceeding the speed limit (SP30)

Offence
Driving on a road exceeding the prescribed speed limit

Maximum penalty
Fine not exceeding Level 3
Endorsement with 3-6 penalty points
Discretionary disqualification

Comment

If you are doing more than 30mph over limit you are very likely to be disqualified depending on speed, road traffic conditions, weather etc.

If you are offered a fixed penalty option, and you are guilty then you are probably best to take this option, as your licence will be endorsed with the minimum number of penalty points and the fine (currently £60) is likely to be less than that imposed by the court. There will also be no court fees.

Possible defences are that you were not speeding, that it was not you driving, or that you were driving an exempted vehicle in an emergency.

The prosecution may obtain a conviction by producing in evidence photographs taken from speed cameras. There is no requirement that such photos have any other evidence to back them up. If no photo is available then the evidence to convict you must come from at least two different sources, although one of these may be mechanical such as the police car's speedometer/radar gun/VASCAR. Under s20 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act (as amended by s23 of the Road Traffic Act 1991) where a radar device is used the police merely need to provide a record produced by the prescribed device AND (in the same or a separate document) a certificate as to the circumstances in which the record was produced, signed by constable or authorised person.

http://www.lawontheweb.co.uk/crimertoge ... /Exceeding the speed limit (SP30)

Seems to me the Ambulance driver stands a good chance of beating a disqualification as the magistrates have discretion over that, level 3 fines max out at £1,000 so if he is convicted which I suspect he will be even if not disqualified then his fine will doubtless be higher than the begging bloke. I'd like to see them throw it out completely but knowing how the courts here work I suspect they'll stick to the letter of the law which means he has comitted an offence but they should stop short of a driving ban and impose the maximum fine allowed.

[Andrew D]

In the first case, given that the wording of the law did not foresee this circumstance, the place to deal with it is in court, where it will probably be dismissed. What alternative is there, to give police the power to alter the meaning of the law when they see fit?

Are the police in the UK required to make an arrest, issue a citation, or otherwise initiate a prosecution for every single offense they observe? If so, that is a preposterous requirement which should be dispensed with. If not, their exercising their discretion would not be "alter[ing] the meaning of the law" any more than it is altering the meaning of the law when a police officer chooses not to arrest or cite someone for smoking a joint in Golden Gate Park. Law enforcement has priorities. I submit that prosecuting ambulance drivers for speeding should not be among them.

[Gob]

Are the police in the UK required to make an arrest, issue a citation, or otherwise initiate a prosecution for every single offense they observe?

Bets I could find would be this:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/police/powers/cautioning/

Cautions, penalty notices and other alternatives

Not all offences must be handled by the courts. Police have a range of alternatives they can use to address low-level crimes.

For adults, these alternatives include:

*
simple cautions
*
conditional cautions
*
cannabis warnings
*
penalty notices for disorder
*
fixed penalty notices (for driving offences)

For youths aged 10 to 17, the options include:

*
reprimands
*
final warnings
*
penalty notices for disorder, although only for those aged 16-17

Simple cautions

A 'simple caution' is used to deal quickly and simply with those who commit less serious crimes. It aims to divert offenders away from court, and to reduce the likelihood that they will offend again.

If you are given a simple caution you will be officially warned about the unacceptability of your behaviour, and the likely consequences of committing further crimes will be explained to you.

The main aim of a simple caution is to prevent offenders reoffending. So if you offend again, you're likely to be charged instead of getting a second caution unless:

*
the second offence is a minor offence unrelated to the first
*
two years or more have elapsed since the original offence

When do police use simple cautions?

Police can only issue a simple caution if:

*
there's evidence an offender is guilty
*
the offender is 18 years of age or over
*
the offender admits they committed the crime
*
the offender agrees to be given a caution – if the offender does not agree to receive a caution then they may be charged instead

There are no rigid rules about the particular situations in which cautions should be used – this is at the discretion of senior police officers.

The only exceptions are more serious crimes like robbery or assault, which must always be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Will a simple caution go on my criminal record?

A simple caution is not a criminal conviction, but it will be recorded on the police database. It may be used in court as evidence of bad character, or as part of an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) application.

The record will remain on the police database along with photographs, fingerprints and any other evidence taken. If you are cautioned for a sexual offence, you could be placed on the sex offenders register.

If a crime victim requests your name and address for civil proceedings, the police are legally obliged to give this information out, so you may still be sued for damages.

Conditional cautions

A 'conditional caution' differs from a simple caution in that you must comply with certain conditions to receive the caution and to avoid prosecution for the offence you've committed.

Like simple cautions, conditional cautions aim to keep lower level offenders from overburdening the court system.

They also address the needs of both victims and offenders - they deal with the offender's behaviour quickly, and allow action to be taken to rehabilitate the offender or to repair the damage caused by the offence.

Types of conditions

The conditions that can be attached to a conditional caution must have one or more of the following objectives:

*
rehabilitation – conditions that help to change the behaviour of the offender, reduce the likelihood of them re-offending or help to reintegrate the offender into society
*
reparation – conditions that aim to repair the damage done either directly or indirectly by the offender

Rehabilitative conditions could include attendance at drug or alcohol misuse programmes, or interventions tackling other addictions or personal problems, such as gambling or debt management courses.

To repair the damage you could apologise for your actions, physically repair or otherwise make good any damage you caused, provided this is acceptable to the victim.

Specific financial compensation may also be necessary.

Where the offending has resulted in damage to community property, reparation could take the form of unpaid work to repair that damage, or of a payment to an appropriate local charitable or community fund.

Changes to conditional cautions

Conditional cautions now include 'punitive measures' - these are conditions which punish or penalise offenders for their law-breaking and could include:

*
the payment of a financial penalty
*
unpaid work for a period not exceeding 20 hours
*
attendance at a specified place for a period not exceeding 20 hours

When do police use conditional cautions?

Police can administer a conditional caution after consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service when they think it is the most appropriate way to address your behaviour or to make direct reparation to the victim of the crime. The views of the victim can also be considered.

A conditional caution can only be offered to those who have admitted their guilt.

If you do not comply with the conditions attached to the conditional caution, you will be charged with the original offence and the case will go to court.

Will a conditional caution go on my criminal record?

Just like a simple caution, a conditional caution is not a criminal conviction. But it will be recorded on the police database and may be considered in court if you are tried for another offence.

The record will remain on the police database along with photographs, fingerprints and any other samples taken at the time.

If the victim of your offence requests your name and address for civil proceedings, the police are legally obliged to give this information out, so you may still be sued for damages.

Do young offenders receive cautions?

No. Young offenders (aged 17 and under) are given 'reprimands' and 'final warnings' instead of simple cautions. This is to try and keep them out of the court system.

[Scooter]

Are the police in the UK required to make an arrest, issue a citation, or otherwise initiate a prosecution for every single offense they observe?

The guy was caught and issued a summons via photo radar, not stopped by a cop. Do I want a police officer acting as a trier of facts he was in no position to directly observe and/or investigate? An emphatic no.

[Andrew D]

I am not talking about making a police officer the "trier of facts". When a cop sees someone smoking a joint in Golden Gate Park and decides not do do anything about it, he or she is not making any factual determination about whether the joint-smoker is or is not violating the law. He or she is simply exercising her discretion not to do anything about that particular violation of the law. Are you suggesting that he or she should not have that discretion?

And whether the offense was observed by the naked eye or by a traffic camera or whatever is irrelevant. At some point, a person observed that the ambulance was or had been speeding. At some point, a person made the decision to initiate some sort of criminal (or otherwise penalty-entailing) action. That was the wrong decision.

[Scooter]

The point is that after the fact, as opposed to if the ambulance had been pulled over by a human being at the time of the alleged offense, a police officer is not in a position to know whether the guy was transporting human tissue or a case of beer, or was simply out joyriding. That is the job of a proper trier of fact i.e. a judge and/or jury, not a cop.

There is also a point of law here that needs to be addressed. Someone needs to decide whether the current exception for transporting patients extends to transporting only parts of a patient (i.e. human tissue) or whether the law would need to be changed in order to make that leap. That is also the job for a judge, not for a cop.

[Scooter]

When a cop sees someone smoking a joint in Golden Gate Park and decides not do do anything about it, he or she is not making any factual determination about whether the joint-smoker is or is not violating the law. He or she is simply exercising her discretion not to do anything about that particular violation of the law. Are you suggesting that he or she should not have that discretion?

Assuming I was a person who believed that current drug laws are reasonable and should be enforced, I would see the above as a reasonable use of discretion, because such an arrest and prosecution would be more trouble than it was worth. If, on the other hand, the cop saw someone waving around a clear plastic bag with a few ounces of weed in it, I would expect that he/she would be charged.

Ditto in this case. Using discretion not to charge someone who is travelling 5 mph over the limit is one thing. Using discretion not to charge someone who is travelling 50 mph over the limit is something else.

[Andrew D]

The point is that after the fact, as opposed to if the ambulance had been pulled over by a human being at the time of the alleged offense, a police officer is not in a position to know whether the guy was transporting human tissue or a case of beer, or was simply out joyriding. That is the job of a proper trier of fact i.e. a judge and/or jury, not a cop.

The police make factual determinations all the time. For example, if the police determine that a suspect's alibi checks out -- which often involves the police's determining the credibility of the alibi witness(es) -- that person becomes no longer a suspect. No jury is involved in that process.

In this case, such a determination should have been easy. You say that the police were not "in a position to know whether the guy was transporting human tissue or a case of beer, or was simply out joyriding." And at the moment that the police first observed what the traffic camera showed, that was true.

But it would have required very little effort (unless the UK medical system is in the habit of transporting live human organs without recording those transportations) to ascertain whether the ambulance driver was actually transporting a live human organ: Simply find out from the hospital whether it had placed a live human organ in the custody of the ambulance driver. (And if one is unsure of the truth of the hospital's representation that it had done so, ask for copies of the relevant records. And if one is still unsure, find out from the receiving facility whether the ambulance driver had delivered a live human organ there (and, if one must, get copies of that facility's records also).)

A bit of time on the phone, a couple of faxes, and we're done. The readily ascertainable fact that the ambulance driver actually was transporting a live human organ should have been the end of the matter. And I hope that the prosecuting (as distinct from policing) authorities will do the right thing by exercising their discretion to discontinue all proceedings against the ambulance driver.

When a cop sees someone smoking a joint in Golden Gate Park and decides not do do anything about it, he or she is not making any factual determination about whether the joint-smoker is or is not violating the law. He or she is simply exercising her discretion not to do anything about that particular violation of the law. Are you suggesting that he or she should not have that discretion?

Assuming I was a person who believed that current drug laws are reasonable and should be enforced, I would see the above as a reasonable use of discretion, because such an arrest and prosecution would be more trouble than it was worth. If, on the other hand, the cop saw someone waving around a clear plastic bag with a few ounces of weed in it, I would expect that he/she would be charged.

Ditto in this case. Using discretion not to charge someone who is travelling 5 mph over the limit is one thing. Using discretion not to charge someone who is travelling 50 mph over the limit is something else.

Well, this wasn't just "someone"; this was an ambulance driver who was observed (by a traffic camera) "who was driving under blue lights". But, yes, the exercise of discretion necessarily takes into account the seriousness of the observed offense; exceeding the speed limit by 50 mph is more serious than exceeding it by 5 mph.

Still, the seriousness of the observed offense is, or at least should not be, the only significant factor in a case such as this. (In a case where an officer observes an offense such as murder, rationality points the officer's discretion in only the obvious direction.) The circumstances also matter.

In this case, the circumstances included the fact that the ambulance driver was transporting a live human organ -- a fact which, again, could have readily been ascertained by the simplest rudiments of an investigation. And that fact should be dispositive: The ambulance driver was "speeding" (and I agree that the weirdness of the applicable law needs to be addressed and that doing so is the province of the judiciary/legislature) because he was transporting a live human organ that was urgently needed for a transplant.

A couple of questions:

You observe that "If, on the other hand, the cop saw someone waving around a clear plastic bag with a few ounces of weed in it, [you] would expect that he/she would be charged." But setting aside expectations, do you think that if a police officer in those circumstances chose not to make an arrest (or otherwise institute some official action), that would be outside the proper bounds of her or his discretion? (I am not asking about the wisdom of that exercise of discretion; I am asking your opinion on whether that exercise of discretion should be permissible.)

You also observe, in my view quite correctly, that the circumstances would have been different if "the ambulance had been pulled over by a human being at the time of the alleged offense". So my question about that is whether you think that under the circumstances -- an ambulance speeding down the highway "under blue lights" -- a police officer should have pulled the ambulance over. How would you weigh the possibility that the ambulance driver "was transporting human tissue or a case of beer, or was simply out joyriding" against the possibility that he was transporting a patient or an urgently needed live human organ ?

[Gob]

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[Scooter]

The police make factual determinations all the time. For example, if the police determine that a suspect's alibi checks out -- which often involves the police's determining the credibility of the alibi witness(es) -- that person becomes no longer a suspect. No jury is involved in that process.

And in this case the factual determination was that this man committed what would normally be considered to be an egregious violation of traffic laws and did not meet the statutory criteria for exemption from compliance with the law in question.

The readily ascertainable fact that the ambulance driver actually was transporting a live human organ should have been the end of the matter.

Except that the statute doesn't say that. Look, I am not saying the guy should be found guilty. I believe that the circumstances in this case meet the spirit of a law which was drafted too long ago to have foreseen such circumstances. It is precisely for that reason that I think the matter should be decided once and for all by a court (or, if necessary, by Parliament) and not around the coffee machine at a police station, when someone standing around a coffee machine at a police station in the next town might come to a completely different conclusion.

And I hope that the prosecuting (as distinct from policing) authorities will do the right thing by exercising their discretion to discontinue all proceedings against the ambulance driver.

If they do, then the matter will never be settled. The next ambulance driver put in this position will have the threat of charges hanging over his/her head every time he/she has to transport time-sensitive human tissue.

Well, this wasn't just "someone"; this was an ambulance driver who was observed (by a traffic camera) "who was driving under blue lights".

For the purposes of this statute, he was not driving an "ambulance", because it does not comply with the statutory definition.

In this case, the circumstances included the fact that the ambulance driver was transporting a live human organ -- a fact which, again, could have readily been ascertained by the simplest rudiments of an investigation. And that fact should be dispositive: The ambulance driver was "speeding" (and I agree that the weirdness of the applicable law needs to be addressed and that doing so is the province of the judiciary/legislature) because he was transporting a live human organ that was urgently needed for a transplant.

The problem is that there are many types of "live human organ" and many degrees of "urgency", and absent any statutory or judicial guidance whatsoever, police decisions on when or when not to lay charges are going to be arbitrary and the resulting uncertainty may cause "ambulance" drivers to make decisions which unnecessarily result in the loss of human life (whether through accidents caused by speeding when not warranted, or through patient deaths where drivers have been too cautious to speed sufficiently to get organs to destination).

You observe that "If, on the other hand, the cop saw someone waving around a clear plastic bag with a few ounces of weed in it, [you] would expect that he/she would be charged." But setting aside expectations, do you think that if a police officer in those circumstances chose not to make an arrest (or otherwise institute some official action), that would be outside the proper bounds of her or his discretion? (I am not asking about the wisdom of that exercise of discretion; I am asking your opinion on whether that exercise of discretion should be permissible.)

Again, assuming I believed current drug laws to be justifiable, I would be hard pressed to imagine a situation in which the use of discretion not to take any action would be justifiable, absent clear and compelling evidence that the bag was not the property of the person holding it (e.g. the police officer was pursuing a drug dealer who dropped it and someone picked it up and waved it at me to draw my attention to it).

You also observe, in my view quite correctly, that the circumstances would have been different if "the ambulance had been pulled over by a human being at the time of the alleged offense". So my question about that is whether you think that under the circumstances -- an ambulance speeding down the highway "under blue lights" -- a police officer should have pulled the ambulance over. How would you weigh the possibility that the ambulance driver "was transporting human tissue or a case of beer, or was simply out joyriding" against the possibility that he was transporting a patient or an urgently needed live human organ ?

Had it been a human police officer who noticed him speeding, he almost certainly wouldn't have been stopped, because the assumption almost certainly would have been that he was transporting a whole human patient rather than an organ. But, let's say the police officer decided to escort the speeding "ambulance" to its destination, and then discovered that it held not a whole human patient, but instead was carrying an organ. I would imagine that the police officer would have reacted as they did under the actual circumstances i.e. allowing a charge to move forward for the courts to sort out.