If you are homeless, sitting down is now a crime in Tory Somerset
Disgrace: If it isn’t bad enough that this person is homeless, if he was in Somerset he would be criminalised by the police and the justice system.
This is cruel, unnecessary, and frankly silly.
It seems sitting down is now a crime if the UK’s skewed justice system can make it seem that you might be begging.
Think about it, next time you take advantage of a sunny day to go out and sit on a handy bit of grass.
Depending on how you look, you could be committing a crime.
Note also that this man was ordered to pay a £115 “victim surcharge”, even though there was no victim (let’s face it; there wasn’t a crime).
Perhaps it doesn’t seem much to you, but this is a homeless man living in a hostel. He doesn’t have that kind of money – and shouldn’t have to spend it on a fine handed out because someone doesn’t like the way he looks.
Utterly ridiculous. Avon and Somerset Constabulary should be ashamed, as should HM Courts and Tribunals Service, and anyone who created the legal framework that allows this abuse.
A homeless Taunton man has been jailed for 20 weeks for sitting on the ground “without reasonable excuse”.
Haydon Mark Baker, 33, who was staying at a homeless hostel at the time… admitted sitting on the ground, which he was banned from doing under a Criminal Behaviour Order, outside Greggs, in North Street, on April 28; outside tReds, in East Street, on May 2; and outside McDonald’s, in East Street, on May 5.
He was sent down for 20 weeks (concurrent) on each count, which were contrary to the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
He was also ordered to pay a £115 victim surcharge, but there was no order for costs due to lack of means.
The court heard there was considered to be a high risk that he could be seen to be begging and that his deliberate actions were the latest in a line of deliberate breaches of the order.
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This might usefully be enhanced by addition of the names and addresses of the idiot magistrates, suitably illustrated by photos of their lovely homes.
Yeah, great idea Alan, but hardly insightful? – You’d think some enterprising young hacks might take some career-shattering revealing photos of these dark psychopaths in their pools and palaces with their pimps and paupers – but, naw – point it out and it’s you, you’re the ‘conspiracy theorist’ who should “shut up and go away”! Never mind operation Mocking Bird is historical fact, Assange languishes in a new jail, and the US prepares to steal another nation’s oil! WTF?
Welcome to the return of 19th century nasty and vindictive Tory Britain.