Oh dear, Oh dear

My chums in the police blogosphere have gotten very exercised by my comments on pcbloggs.blogspot.com in which I merely pointed out that it's quite a good idea to wait for a trial before deciding if someone is guilty or not guilty of an offence. Oh yes and I did say I thought castrating Chavs (I paraphrase but you get the picture, is tantamount to recommending a policy of eugenics). In my business we see this sort of muddled thinking all of the time. The police are just as good at jumping to conclusions as the rest of us and then get upset when this is pointed out to them. Guildford 4, that nice civil servant who got off the 'Belgrano' official secrets charges because the jury wouldn't be swayed by a biased judge and CJS etc. Yes, from time-to-time the police make mistakes and it's right that in a democracy they should be held to account as well as appreciated for the good work they do.