Tuesday, May 12, 2015



Multicultural street shooter in Britain


He's got good nostrils, at least

In a terrifying moment a crazed gunman opened fire in a packed street after a row in a nightclub.

Tanihya Beckford, 35, from Birmingham has been jailed for ten years after shooting wildly at his intended victim who was sitting in a silver Audi A1.

He fired four times but miraculously missed his target on Briely Hill High-street in the West Midlands.

The former gang member then fled the scene, trying to mix into a crowd of terrified onlookers.

Yesterday Judge Murray Creed jailed Beckford for ten years at Birmingham Crown Court. He admitted possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.

The court heard violent Beckford fired bullets through the Audi's door, causing significant damage to the car but missed the shocked driver.

Police later found a loaded gun at the gangsters's home in Ladywood, Birmingham and experts confirmed the Hungarian-made FEG pistol was used in the shooting.

Simon Ward, prosecuting, said the defendant went to the nightclub at 4.10am and the victim, who he referred to as V to protect his identity, turned up at about 4.50am.

Mr Ward said: 'V came into the foyer of the club. It can be seen there is some kind of altercation there.  'The defendant did not appear to be involved in that altercation but, by the time he came outside the club, he had his hood up and something covering his lower face.'

Beckford then went over to the Audi and fired at it and the male driver.

The court heard the gunman was arrested on September 18 after being found at a house he shared with others and that the pistol was recovered from a coat pocket in the lounge.

SOURCE






‘Check your privilege’: a dark and divisive politics

It's just modern Marxism.  Marx said that your class circumstances produced your beliefs, not reality. Come to think of it, so did Pontius Pilate. It was Pontius Pilate who said "What is truth?" (John 18:38). From a Christian viewpoint, the assertion is undoubtedly the Devil's gospel

There is a growing number of words and phrases which, through being used as a way of batting away inconvenient dissent, have all but lost their original meaning. Racist, sexist, homophobe – the list goes on. But these words have nothing on that most recent addition to the ‘just shut up’ armoury, the catch-all silencer masquerading as a well-intentioned request. That’s right: ‘Check your privilege.’

It’s now the reflex rebuttal of the student radical, and it has become ubiquitous in campus discussions. In theory, the phrase asks us to consider whether our beliefs might be skewed by our limited experience of a particular issue. This is not, in itself, unreasonable. But, as so often happens when reason meets Tumblr sociologist, privilege-checking has been taken to ugly extremes.

The University of Edinburgh’s recent students’ union election was mired in controversy when one of the candidates responded to a student’s Facebook post (which mocked the union’s ‘offensive’ fancy-dress policy) by saying ‘fuck you white person’. In response to the ensuing backlash, the candidate penned a rambling statement, invoking various crimes committed against her far-off ancestors. This is the beauty of privilege-checking. Not only is it a dependable way of silencing the opposition, but it can also offer a nifty excuse for one’s own misjudged words or actions. No wonder it’s so popular.

Luckily, privilege-checking often demonstrates its own absurdity. Last month, after outlawing ‘transphobic’ fancy dress and declaring war on clapping, the National Union of Students (NUS) Women’s Conference turned its ire on white gay men. This particular intersection, the delegates claimed, ‘often assert that they are “strong black women” or have an “inner black woman”’. The conference resolved to ‘eradicate the appropriation of black women by white gay men’ and ‘educate those who perpetuate this behaviour’. And what, you might ask, was the justification for such an authoritarian move? Well, apparently white gay men are ‘the beneficiaries of both white privilege and male privilege’.

But, beyond the usual SU muppetry, there’s a darker side to all this. Student radicals have started to take as given the idea that we simply cannot understand anything outside of our own experience. In essence, this worldview insists that we must consider society as ultimately divided along the lines of race, gender, sexuality and so on. This allegedly radical idea insists that society has little common experience and no recourse for inter-group understanding or empathy. This is a middle-finger to universalism and is, in the end, the opposite of true equality: the phenomenological equivalent of the pernicious doctrine of ‘separate but equal’.

The request to ‘check your privilege’ is a demand to accept this divisive worldview; to privilege everything that separates us. Ignore it.

SOURCE






Crazy British judges again

An estranged father who was banned from seeing his children has been prosecuted after their mother took them on holiday in term time.

Shane Allen branded the justice system a 'joke' after he was convicted of failing to make sure his children went to school, despite being prevented from seeing the youngsters.

The 44-year-old found himself in court after his ex-partner took their three children on holiday to Scotland when they should have been in lessons.

At the time Allen had no access to his children and was not aware that Charlene Megraw had taken them out of school.

The father-of-three became a victim of the crackdown on breaks during the academic year, introduced as part of former Education Secretary Michael Gove's controversial school reforms.

The details of his case were revealed as he attempted to appeal his conviction at Reading Crown Court.

Allen had even been temporarily barred from seeing the youngsters by social services and had been completely unaware that their mother was planning the impromptu holiday, the appeal court heard.

The judge was told the children's mother, Charlene Megraw, had taken the three youngsters on a holiday to Scotland to visit her family without informing their primary school.

When the school contacted her, she replied with a text message stating that they would be off for the week because they were ill.

However that lie was quickly exposed when the children - two boys aged seven and eight and a girl aged 10 - returned to class and told their teachers and fellow pupils about their holiday.

The school then issued fixed penalties to the pair and both Allen and 24-year-old Miss Megraw, from Newbury, Berks., were taken to court and found guilty of failing to ensure their children attended school.

Both were handed 12 month conditional discharges and were ordered to pay costs of £150 each by magistrates.

Yesterday Allen attempted to appeal his conviction at Reading Crown Court in front of Judge Ian Grainger.  Taking to the witnesses stand he said: 'Social services told me I had to stay away from them. I didn't know anything about it until I got summonsed to court and then Charlene explained everything to me.

'I wondered why I had to go to court. Like I've said all along I don't understand, I don't even know why I'm here.'

Prosecuting, Laura Phillips told the court that the children's school, Fir Tree Primary in Newbury, had taken action after they failed to turn up for class for a week in October 2013.

She said that no evidence had been produced to back up the claims that the children had been ill and that, although she accepted that Allen had been estranged from the children, he still had a legal obligation to ensure their schooling.

Defending Allen, Edward Culver argued that the estranged father had had as much control over his children's movements as he would have had if they had been kidnapped.

He told the the court that 'one parent taking the children away from school without the knowledge of the other parent' was an 'unavoidable cause' for their absence on the part of the unknowing parent.

However, a judge and two accompanying magistrates dismissed his appeal, despite stating that they had 'sympathy' with him over the circumstances that had led to his conviction.

Judge Grainger said: 'It has not been an issue in this case that these three children failed to attend their school shortly before the half term holiday.

'We are deeply unpersuaded that the children or any of them were sick in the relevant period, the view we take is that they were in Scotland.

'We have some sympathy with Mr Allen, whose evidence that he had no contact with these children at the time we make plain that we accept.

'However, this is an offence of strict liability and we cannot accept that as far as Mr Allen is concerned Miss Megraw taking their children to Scotland was an unavoidable cause.'

After hearing that the pair were both on benefits, the judge upheld the original magistrates' court decision and ordered mother-of-five Miss Megraw to pay an extra £150 costs for her abandoned appeal. Megraw had also been planning to contest her guilty verdict, although she withdrew it before the hearing began.

Speaking after the decision, Mr Allen said: 'It's stupid, the whole thing is just a complete joke.  'They need to change the system because it doesn't work. If I still don't have anything to do with her [Charlene] 10 years down the line and my kids do this again I can still get done for it and end up facing a fine. 'It's absolutely mad.'

SOURCE






Why Michael Gove must not fail to axe Labour’s hated Human Rights Act: 15 reasons

Here JAMES SLACK shows how vital it is Mr Gove succeeds in scrapping the Human Rights Act, with 15 cases showing criminals and legally aided lawyers using the legislation to their advantage:

1) No single decision based on the European Convention on Human Rights – enshrined in British law by the Human Rights Act – sparked more horror than Strasbourg’s 2006 finding that axe-killer John Hirst and thousands of other convicts should be entitled to vote in UK elections. Ministers have since fought an ongoing battle to avoid implementing the judgment – which David Cameron says makes him feel physically sick.

2) Al Qaeda fanatic Abu Qatada was awarded £2,500 for being ‘unlawfully detained’, after being held indefinitely without trial following September 11. Then the Euro court said he should not be sent back to Jordan in case some of the evidence used against him may have come from torture. Qatada eventually left his benefits-funded life in north-west London voluntarily after Theresa May doggedly pursued him.

3) Aso Mohammed Ibrahim left 12-year-old Amy Houston to die ‘like a dog’ under the wheels of his car after knocking her down in 2003 while disqualified from driving. Twice refused asylum, the Iraqi was never removed from the country by the Home Office and then, after the killing, was allowed to stay under the Human Rights Act because he had fathered two children in Britain, which judges ruled gave him a right to a ‘family life’.

4) A Libyan convicted of 78 offences escaped deportation last month on the grounds he is an alcoholic. The 53-year-old man, who is protected by an anonymity order, successfully argued he would be tortured and imprisoned by the authorities in his homeland because drinking alcohol is illegal. He is now free to continue his drink-fuelled offending spree in Britain.

5) In December 2013, Mustafa Abdullahi, who held a knife to a pregnant woman’s throat as he raped her, was given permission to stay in Britain, because of his family rights. The 31-year-old failed asylum seeker was jailed for ten years after he threatened to kill his victim and repeatedly assaulted her. Judges said sending him back to Somalia would breach his family rights because his mother and other relatives live in the UK.

6) Rupert Massey is one of many criminals to view the convention as a tool for lining his pockets. Jailed for six years for sexually abusing three boys, he claimed the four years it took to bring him to court had left him ‘stressed’ and infringed his right to a fair trial. He was awarded nearly £6,000 – the same amount in compensation given to one of his victims.

Al Qaeda fanatic Abu Qatada was awarded £2,500 for being ‘unlawfully detained’, after being held indefinitely without trial following September 11    +2
Al Qaeda fanatic Abu Qatada was awarded £2,500 for being ‘unlawfully detained’, after being held indefinitely without trial following September 11

Moment Abu Qatada is CLEARED of terrorist attack plots

7) Rapist Akindoyin Akinshipe escaped deportation in September 2011 after judges said he had a right to a ‘private life’ in the UK. He was due to be sent to Nigeria after losing a series of appeals in Britain over his jailing for an attack on a girl of 13 when he was 15. But Strasbourg overruled, despite him not having a long-term partner or children in the UK.

8) George Blake was jailed for 42 years, one for each of the MI6 agents he sent to their deaths. The Soviet spy escaped from Wormwood Scrubs and wrote his memoirs in Russia. Incredibly, he was given £4,700 by Strasbourg in 2006 because Britain breached his right to free expression by trying to stop him making money from the book.

9) Lawyers for drug-addicted prisoners spotted the convention’s money-making potential – forcing the Home Office to settle out of court over claims their clients should have been allowed to use heroin substitute methadone. The Labour government paid out £1million after being told Strasbourg would have ruled making the convicts go ‘cold turkey’ was degrading treatment.

10) A Yorkshire civil servant who was filmed in an orgy with four men was given £33,000 in compensation. Euro judges said it had been discrimination for a British court to convict him of gross indecency as the law did not apply to women. As a result, in 2003 a raft of sex offences were enshrined in British law and gay orgies are no longer illegal.

Strasbourg ruled that axe-killer John Hirst and thousands of other convicts should be entitled to vote in UK elections
Escape: Soviet spy George Blake was awarded £4,700 after Britain breached his right to free expression by trying to stop him making money from his book
Strasbourg ruled that axe-killer John Hirst (left) and thousands of other convicts should be entitled to vote, while Soviet spy George Blake (right)  was awarded £4,700 after Britain breached his right to free expression by trying to stop him making money from his book

11) Jailed murderer Kirk Dickson spent £20,000 in legal aid winning the right to father children with artificial insemination with another former prisoner, fraudster Lorraine Earlie. Judges said the ban on prisoners using artificial insemination breached the right to family life.

12) Britain’s power to send foreign criminals home was hampered by the 1996 Strasbourg ruling over Karamjit Chahal, a separatist who was wanted for sedition in India. He argued that, even if somebody posed a grave threat to national security, they could not be sent back to a country where they might be ill treated. Since then, thousands of convicts and fanatics have been able to stay on these grounds.

13) A Strasbourg ruling in 1978 which banned corporal punishment in the Isle of Man led directly to curbs on parents’ right to smack any child in Britain. Meanwhile, centuries-old rules outlawing marriage between children and their parents-in-law were swept aside in a 2005 ruling. Strasbourg deemed the right to marry was infringed in the case of a 37-year-old woman who wanted to wed her 58-year-old father-in-law.

14) William Danga, who raped and molested two girls while fighting deportation, used Article 8 of the HRA to remain in this country. The Congolese asylum seeker was jailed for ten years for raping a 16-year-old. He used his children to stay in Britain and attacked two other children after his release from prison.

15) There remains public outrage that Euro judges ruled three IRA terrorists shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988 were wrongly killed. This was despite the fact the trio were an experienced hit squad with long terror records who had left a car filled with explosives across the border in Spain. The SAS soldiers believed they were ready to detonate the bomb, but it turned out their mission was reconnaissance.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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