Sharpe's Opinion
Saturday, 14th Nov, 2009
Man Arrested For Wandering Into Police Station With Shotgun SHOCK
Lots of people seem unhappy about this story of a fellow called Paul Clarke walking into a police station to hand in a shotgun he found in his garden. He was promptly arrested for possession of an unlicensed firearm and is now facing a prison sentence.
Thing is, I don’t see what the outrage is about. If you find a weapon in your garden, the correct thing to do is surely to leave it alone, call the police, and let them come and collect the weapon. Not to go traipsing down to the local police station and produce a shotgun in front of the startled receptionist with an Errol Flynn style flick of the wrist.
Besides, what kind of idiot discovers that a shotgun has been thrown into his garden – most likely being disposed of by a criminal – and goes and picks it up? Has he really never heard of fingerprinting?
(The above is largely based on a comment I left on Jennie’s post)
UPDATE: I’ve written some more on this here
Comments
Gun crime, like drug smuggling, have high statutory minimum sentences determined by the State in order to protect society.
Stu, you are quite right to question this story. I reckon there is more to it. Why did the police charge him in the first place? What was their advice to him when he rang up them beforehand? They will not lock up a truly innocent man for five years, even if guilty in the strict sense of the law.
Strict liability is an interesting topic as it is an afront to our civil liberties. It may be expedient for those that govern us, but its use should be restricted in the interests of fairness in my opinion.
Yes, Stu, because five years in prison for being an “idiot”—despite having harmed no one at all—is entirely right and proportional.
If you cannot see what the outrage is about then, under your measure, you too deserve five years in clink.
There is a more fundamental point about the role of the police that you have missed (along with the facts that you, apparently, couldn’t be bothered to read) but I have addressed that over at The Kitchen.
DK
I’m with DK on this one. Sorry Stu, but 5 years and a criminal record for possession of a firearm for handing in a shotgun? Seriously.
To be clear, it’s an extremely disproportionate sentence and I hope he doesn’t go to prison for five years. I’m not saying it is proportionate, or that he deserves everything he gets – just that we have a clear law on this matter and he broke it. And not just by producing the gun in the police station – to get to the police station he had to walk around in public carrying an unlicensed concealed weapon, which is a criminal offence. Whether it should be the law or not is a very different question.
And when he called the Superintendent to say he was coming in he clearly didn’t tell him he was going to bring a sawn-off shotgun he’d found in his garden with him. Had he done that, the Superintendent would have told him to leave it at home and wait for firearms officers to arrive. Then there wouldn’t have been a problem.
So, I don’t entirely disagree with you. But the guy broke the law. Judges and police are there to uphold the law. The Jury are there to decide if he had broken the law or not. He had.
Stu. The law is obviously not as clear as you think. Even the police themselves are not always aware of it.
When I was 19 (in 1986) I had a gay fling with a 16-year old – should we have been arrested for turning up at the station and saying `last night we shagged like bunnies`?
Perhaps the story Old Holborn and Pavlov’s Cat highlighted sheds more light on it?
Mark, that story seems to me to be the far more cloudy one – why did the police advise somebody to wilfully break the law concerning who is allowed to carry concealed firearms in public? Regardless, they did try to have an officer come round to collect it, but he refused to let them.
John, clearly not, but that’s a rather different situation.
JuliaM, that could explain why the police arrested him, yes. The thot plickens, as they say. And, once arrested, the facts of the case are that he was guilty of the offence he was charged with, and the rest of what has happened follows inexorably on from that.
Iiiiinteresting.
It strikes me that this is yet another case of an ordinary citizen being charged and convicted because it is easy to do. Box ticked. Minimal investigation. Target met.
File this one along with those who have fought back against intruders, threatened yobs who are desecrating their property and etc. The police find it very difficult to prosecute actual criminals and as you know the latest wheeze is to give them a caution. Write it up. Target met.
Sooooo….gun amnesties. How do they work, then?
I recall the former Mayor and Newt Fancier held a few, along with the late, unlamented Ian Blair, in Brixton and other vibrant places.
So, do they have to get some kind of ‘suspension’ law passed for the duration, or is it more of a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ kind of thing not to peek when they are dropping their used MAC-10s in the box?
Well, presumably you can’t be arrested at a gun amnesty. If the police announced an amnesty and then arrested people who came to it, that would be entrapment.
I’m afraid you have this one quite wrong, Mr Sharpe. I’m told you’re otherwise quite sensible. I’m left wonderinig of there’s actually any truth to that.
It worries me that people with such a casual attitude towards this sort of outrageous totalitarianism even exist in the UK.
I could add much, but there’d be nothing The Devil hasn’t already addressed with aplomb.
“Well, presumably you can’t be arrested at a gun amnesty.”
But it’s a strict liability offence. We’ve seen that offered as a defence to this barmy state of affairs.
So, legally, how do they get around this?
He called the police beforehand and asked them what to do with it, they told him “Bring it in, mate”. WTF are you talking about?
Sorry, Mr Sharpe, can’t agree with you.
“If you find a weapon in your garden, the correct thing to do is surely to leave it alone.”
You want to see what the thing is though. Maybe it’s a toy or replica. Are you such an expert you wouldn’t need to pick it up and have a good look?
The ‘authorities’ now appear to be in a state of perpetual frenzy as they look to criminalise ordinary people for doing nothing more than going about their business.
The current crime wave includes people: feeding ducks in a park, redecorating their house and threatening to smack their naughty child.
Meanwhile, a Malaysian woman who tortured and killed a toddler is given a get-out-of-jail-free card and £4,500.
It’s broken. Seriously broken. Let’s have no more excuses for the diabolical state of British ‘justice’.
If the police raid your house and find a shotgun you are not licensed to own then you would presumeably be in a lot of trouble.
If it is illegal to have a gun on your property then how would he have benefited from getting the police to collect it from his house? Surely they could have arrested him for posession just as easily.
Under such zealotly applied “Strict Liability” it appears the only way he could have avoided prosecution was to either illegally hide the gun on his property until the next amnesty or move it onto public land and wait for someone else to report it to the police, or take it – which would be both irresponsible and criminal.
It seems the moment somebody throws a gun onto your property you are, by default, a criminal. So – should you discover a gun in your garden one day, what action will you take to avoid going to jail or breaking the law?
To be fair, he thought someone had dumped some rubbish in his garden because it was in a binbag and didn’t realise it was a gun until he was inside.
Although, it does raise questions over the fact that he left it 4 days after telling police he ‘had something to show them’ to hand it in.
And at what point during the, say, 7m walk from the end of your garden to your kitchen do you realise the difference between the last week’s leftover food and some yoghurt pots from a sawn-off shotgun?
A fair point. Leaving it alone would have been more sensible.
But the question, as I see it, is not “why did he pick it up”, but “why is the penalty for picking it up 5 years inside”.
Especally when you look at what other, deliberate, pre-meditated, serious crimes can be committed repeatedly and only attract a “community” sentence.
patently
November 14, 2009 at 4:25 pm