Ex-soldier kidnap charge for citizen's arrest

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scorza

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...idnap-after-citizen's-arrest-of-hooligan.html

Just seen this story on the local news. Absolutely disgusting that he got arrested and charged for kidnapping after performing a citizen's arrest on some chavs throwing stones at his house. No wonder everyone thinks the law is on the side of the criminal - it is!

A Sussex Police spokesman said: "An allegation was made to police and officers duly investigated the facts reported to police. A file was presented to the Crown Prosecution Service in accordance with procedure."
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Not good enough :mad: Glad to see at least the courts (and indeed a Labour MP for a change) have more common sense than the so-called police.
 
Was it not the police who not long ago told us, the general public, to "take a more active role in community policing"?
 
It's a strange system. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. No half-way house. It's an imperfect world, as they say. I support the guy 100% for performing the citizen's arrest, not a lot of people have the balls to do something like that.
 
As I see it, it sounds like the police responded to a suggestion of kidnap, investigated, the CPS charged (possibly to try and get a definite answer to what is acceptable), and then it got dropped before reaching court.

That makes it
Serious Allegation reported (kidnapping/unlawful restraint)
Police Investigate - as they always should, especially in the more serious allegations
CPS decide it's in the public interest to go ahead (one of their criteria is that it's in the public interest for a case to be pursued*).
Court date set
Case dropped, presumably when someone looked at the full details and realised that either the allegation was rubbish or their was no proof.

I can imagine the reactions if someone was accused of kidnapping and the police/CPS didn't investigate because they initially believed the accused, and for it to be a real case (and the alleged kidnapper hurt someone the next time).

As Heatsinked says the law isn't black and white, add to that the fact we're probably seeing a fairly one sided and very heavily edited version of events and it becomes slightly more understandable.



*Sometimes because the case occurs in a grey area of the law and it might go either way, or clarify an area of the law - the same thing also allows them to drop some cases where an offence may have been commited but it's not in the public interest to pursue it.
 
It still should never have reached the point where a court date was set. There's kidnap and then there's this, which is a waste of money.
 
I agree with Werewolf what if they had believed a real kidnapper, and he went on to do it again... How would you feel if your children (god forsaken it doesn't happen) got nabbed by a man the police got a report about, but they believed him when he told his story, with no investigation ?
 
Tute said:
It still should never have reached the point where a court date was set. There's kidnap and then there's this, which is a waste of money.
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No one ever lost their job for following procedure to the letter when there was a chance of a youth* being the victim/at risk.

Same reason the likes of ambulance medics will take an obviously healthy/very minor illness child to hospital almost every time - if they don't and the kid dies later they are in for the chop (even if the initial call out was for a runny nose, and the kid dies of appendicitis 23 hours later).


I do suspect that there is probably more to this than is being reported by the paper (call me cynical, but there usually is as the papers do tend to edit things down for space/impact reasons).


*Invariably any teen killed/kidnapped will be described as "a lovely child" - even if they had a record as long as my arm for everything from shop lifting to armed robbery (yes i'm getting very cynical).
 
wedgie said:
It's annoying yes, but you can see why people aren't just allowed to effectively hold people hostage whatever the reason.
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Hardly holding him hostage was it, phoning his mum and asking her to come and pick him up?

Infact, surely the kids mother should take some blame? - if my mum got the call, that an elderly gentleman was holding me for vandalising his home, I would be in big trouble.

I'm 30 btw, but never to old to get a smack from my mum, apparently :o
 
No mention that anything was ever done to the kids, which is what really gets me, though this could have easily have been left out by the media for more hype. Good on the man for arresting the kid,, apauling (sp?) that he was on hold TO THE POLICE for 45mins! and by the sounds of it they only bothered to come round to protect the guilty.
 
damage to property (rightly) has a much lower "immediacy" than an allegation of kidnapping...

The police don't decide who is innocent and who is guilty, they simply attend and gather evidence - the more serious (and crimes against the person trumps crimes against property) the faster they respond.
The CPS look at the evidence, help decide on the final charges and prosecute.

It's the Magistrate/Judge/Jury who will decide on the guilt of the people involved.


So tell me again how they are there to protect the guilty, if someone grabbed you off the street and held you against your will would you like the police to just assume the guy holding you was right?

The article is fairly obviously slanted (no need to mention the guy was an ex solder, I doubt they would have mentioned if he was an ex plumber or ex builder), with only one side of the story.
 
I did something very similar to the "louts" when I was a young teenager, well to be more exact my mates did. We were waiting for a bus, and my mates started throwing stones at a really old fence across the road (with the intent of trying to knock it over) and one stone went a wry and broke someone's window. The owner came running out, grabbed me and pulled me indoors (despite my protests, of course) and I had to sit, absolutely terrified, for over an hour, until the police arrived. My other mate forced the one who threw the stone to 'fess up, and I was given a lift home along with my mate, all was explained to my parents what happened, and that was that. (My mate's parents had to pay for a new window)

I was given a hiding (which my mother apologised about a few years later) just 'because' and not once did any of us (including me) think anything wrong of the house owner for taking me into his house.
 
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