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miss_s_bWhat would you do if you found a sawn-off shotgun had been thrown over your garden wall? Possibly you would phone the police, tell them not to bother coming to get it, you'd take it in to your local police station? After all, it might be evidence. Someone could have used it in a robbery, and there might be important trace evidence on it. It's important that the police get to look at these things, right? So you'd take it to the police.
That would be the action of a civic-minded person, right?
Well, unfortunately, if you do that, you might find yourself in a spot of bother. You see, "possession of an unlicensed firearm" is a strict liability offence. This means that just by having the gun in your possession you are guilty of the charge, and have no defence in law against it.
Possession of an unlicensed firearm carries a minimum jail term of five years.
So, if you do what Paul Clark did, what any reasonable person would do, on finding a sawn-off shotgun had been hurled into your garden, you would, in all probability, be facing the five year jail term that Paul Clark is.
Anybody out there still think that if you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to fear?
Anybody?
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That would be the action of a civic-minded person, right?
Well, unfortunately, if you do that, you might find yourself in a spot of bother. You see, "possession of an unlicensed firearm" is a strict liability offence. This means that just by having the gun in your possession you are guilty of the charge, and have no defence in law against it.
Possession of an unlicensed firearm carries a minimum jail term of five years.
So, if you do what Paul Clark did, what any reasonable person would do, on finding a sawn-off shotgun had been hurled into your garden, you would, in all probability, be facing the five year jail term that Paul Clark is.
Anybody out there still think that if you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to fear?
Anybody?
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The correct thing to do is to call the police and let them come and collect the weapon. Not to go traipsing down to the local office and produce a shotgun in front of the startled receptionists with an Errol Flynn style flick of the wrist. Besides, what kind of idiot finds 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 fingerprint evidence?!
Arguing for less strict gun controls is fine, if that's what you want to do, but Paul Clark broke the law in a rather brainless manner. What else is a judge supposed to do?
Stu
There's a subtle difference between "doing nothing wrong" and "doing something stupid"
Does being a bit clumsy, while being well-meaning and trying to be a "good citizen", deserve five years in jail? It seems very unlikely unless there is some crucial detail that was divulged to the judge and jury in the court, which has not been made apparent in the press reports.
Does he deserve 5 years? Probably not, but people have been jailed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and doing the wrong thing before. I don't know what the appeals process is there, but obviously he needs better representation if he is, in fact, innocent.
I live in a country where this likely wouldn't have happened to me if I had done the same thing but still - first off I wouldn't have made the mistake of taking a bag inside my home before looking to see what was inside and if I had opened the bag to peek inside, I would NOT have touched the gun and called the police to come collect it.
Maybe he had to get to the post office before it shut, and the police station was on the way, and he knew that they wouldn't be able to send an officer along to his place for the next hour? You don't know. In any case, let's see how cooly and rationally you react the next time a criminal dumps a lethal weapon in your domicile.
Your second paragraph is a ton of supposition that doesn't make sense. And how coolly and rationally would I react? Hm, come to think of it, I acted rather coolly when there was a shooting in the parking lot behind my bedroom and answered the questions of the police to let them know that I stayed very very FAR away from the windows when I heard the noise outside. I certainly didn't go running outside to look for bullet casings to take to them.
And the point is that the law says ``possession of a firearm'' with no defence, which means that he was already guilty from the moment some twat dropped it over his fence. Is that worth five years in prison?
And foolish or not, the guy's intentions were honourable and civic-minded, and it's not in the public interest to prosecute. This case should never have been brought to the CPS' notice, let alone to trial. Is that worth five years in prison?
By your logic, if someone crashes their bike into your yard, you now own their bike? Awesome.
Paul Clark has been proven, in a court of law by a jury of his peers, to have been in posession of a firearm. Ergo posession of that firearm had to begin at some point. Ergo, despite the fact that he never bought it, used it or wanted it, at some point he owned it, and this has been proven in law in the current case.
And he's not innocent. Do try and pay attention. Posession is a strict liability offence and honest intent is not a defence, nor is the fact that he never intended to own a firearm and only came into posession of it by accident. The problem is that you can become a criminal randomly at any time, which is why we're supposed to have sane people deciding whether or not it's in the public interest to prosecute cases.
"I took it indoors and inside found a shorn-off shotgun and two cartridges."
You can look inside a black bin liner without actually touching the contents.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/a
Mr Clarke's critics, and the CPS/courts, also seem to be unaware of the Home Office guidance to police when they deal with people who hand in firearms:
“25.5 Anyone surrendering an illegally held firearm should be questioned discreetly with a view to establishing its history but, unless circumstances exist to give serious cause for concern as to its provenance (for example,
if it appears to have been stolen), the person handing it in should not be pressed. The emphasis should be on creating an environment in which people hand in illegally held firearms.”
Incidentally, I don't believe there is some underlying authoritarian motive behind this. I've been in court a number of times, as a witness and a juror, and every time have been amazed by the amount of bumbling, cack-handedness and even stupidity that characterises the British justice system.
In one case I was present for, a man was charged under the Criminal Justice Act (1988), Section 139, with having possession of a folding pocketknife with a cutting edge in excess of three inches. First, the knife had been found "nearby" when he was arrested, ie under a market stall in a busy market. Second, while there were fingerprints on the knife, they were not those of the accused. And third, when the jury asked for a ruler to measure the blade, they found it was only 2.5 inches long. The judge was not amused when it turned out no one, police, CPS or defence, had actually measured the blade.
Or if you want another strict liability example, a work colleague was convicted of driving without insurance. He was guilty as he was driving a car and there was no insurance cover. End of story, many people would say. Except that he was driving a company car and was supposed to be covered by our employer's insurance but wasn't because someone had stuffed up three months before. In fact, all of us had been driving without insurance, He was the unlucky sod who was caught out and strict liability meant he was done for it—not the company.
I could give umpteen more examples of how daft the system is, particularly as I now have a farm and am well aware that many of the laws that cover me are daft, contradictory, poorly worded, misconceived, out of proportion or seemingly designed for the amusement of the jobsworth.
The problem is that British law is often introduced as a knee-jerk reaction by politicians, drafted by bumbling incompetents who prefer complexity to simplicity, enforced by a targets-driven police, and administered/interpreted by buffoons and bureaucrats.
Mr Clarke has my sympathies.
He phoned a Police Chief Superintendent at Reigate police station and asked if he could come in to the station to see him.
He carried the gun and ammunition to the police station, as I understand it, in the black bin liner he found them in.
It wasn't until he had met the police officer that he unwrapped the gun to show it to him, making sure that the muzzle was pointing at the wall.
Okay, the guy did something stupid (handle the weapon rather than simply call the police and let them come deal with it) but 5 years in prison? Kind of killing a fly with a sledgehammer, innit? :\
I hope they can appeal it and get the charge dropped or lessened to something that doesn't involve serving jail time. The guy's clearly a bit dense but he's hardly a "dangerous criminal". Ugh.
This is the sort of stupid retarded case where the CPS aren't supposed to prosecute and the jury aren't supposed to convict, even though he's clearly guilty in law. Because it's clearly not in the public interest.
Law of unintended consequences
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sente
Doesn't mention mandatory sentences and it would be a bit odd to have the same minimum and maximum for an offence. It would be questionable as a question of proportionality on human rights grounds to have a strict liability offence punishable by such a stiff mandatory sentence.
It would also not make a lot of sense to have an offence with a mandatory 5 year sentence which could be tried in the Mags where their sentencing powers are a maximum of 6 months (OK they could refer it up but they'd have to do that every time)
I'm not sure this is a clear cut as is made out given that the jury convicted in 20 minutes - basically straight away.
There is a good reason why this is a strict liability offence however, if it wasn't then anyone caught with an unlicensed firearm could claim they were on their way to the police station to hand it in.
If you find a firearm and pick it up and carry it around for a bit you will also be destroying/contaminating forensic evidence.
Hywel
Five years does seem rather hash for such civic minded stupidity, though, so if he actually get sentenced to that I'll get cross then ...