Charlie Gilmour loses court appeal

Charlie Gilmour, 21, was sentenced to 16 months in prison following his disgraceful antics during demonstrations over changes to education funding in December last year. The son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour was back in court today to hear the result of his appeal and the news was not good.

His team argued that over the last few months, Charlie had managed to become a reformed character who had been rehabilitated from his previous drug and alcohol issues. I find it hard to understand how Gilmour thought that saying sorry and promising to be a good boy in future could excuse his actions during the protests in central London.

Gilmour, who was believed to have been heavily under the influence of LSD and alcohol at the time, had attacked a shop in which staff and customers were being effectively held hostage by the mob outside, took part of a mannequin from the shop once the windows finally gave way. He had attempted to set fire to a bundle of newspapers that were placed against the wooden doors of the Supreme Court but the fire failed to take hold.
In his most infamous moments of lunacy he threw a rubbish bin at a car carrying the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and later decided to swing from a flag at the Cenotaph. 

Legal vs Ethical: Hackers expose hidden child porn empire

Police officers deal with those at all levels of society. Some of the people I have dealt with have tested my tolerance to the maximum. I have always been determined that I will not become one of those cops that think the uniform gives them the right to punish those suspected of an offence before guilt has been proved. Even after the verdict, it is not up to us to take matters into our own hands, regardless of how little we might think of those we encounter in the cells. The Police investigate and the Courts “punish” the guilty (I am going to avoid digressing into the sentencing conversation at this point as there are more important issues to discuss).

I have dealt with rapists, murderers and paedophiles on many occasions and, despite my own personal prejudices, I have been polite and treated them with professional respect. I was recently asked which of these I would consider to be the worst category of offender but found this to be an impossible question to answer. What I am able to say though is that anything that can be done to expose their crimes and bring them to justice is to be applauded and given every chance of assisting in the prosecution of these worthless, moral-less wastes of oxygen.

Perversely it is a group of individuals normally in the cross-hairs of the justice system that have potentially saved the lives of children who are, or might soon become, victims of a massive paedophile ring.

PC Mark Goodlad – Another tragedy on the roads

Fourty-one year old PC Mark Goodlad, a traffic officer with West Yorkshire Police, was tragically killed on the M1 motorway yesterday after being struck by an HGV whilst assisting a broken-down motorist.

My thoughts and feelings are with the family, friends and colleagues of Mark at this time. I have lost a colleague in similar circumstances and hope that those close to this tragedy will receive the help and support that they will need to get though this horrific event.

A 44 year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. The Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police has paid tribute to Mark in a statement to the press.

A blogging milestone is reached…

This post celebrates the first significant blogging milestone for MinimumCover. After four months (give or take a few days) and 64 published posts I have reached the magic 100,000 hit mark.

When I started writing in June I hoped to be reaching this figure after at least twelve months, so I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those that have read, contributed and posted so far. I would also like to say thanks to my followers on Twitter who number nearly 1,300 now as well as those following Minimum Cover on Facebook.

Please keep reading and keep the comments coming. It’s refreshing to know that people are actually acknowledging to what is said here, even if they don’t always agree. 

If you have any subjects you would like to raise or incidents that you would like me to bring to the blog over the coming months please contact me (anonymously if you wish) at minimumcover@yahoo.co.uk and I will do what I can to provide a platform for discussion.

Thanks again,

MC

Careless Policies Cost Lives

Meet Frank.

Frank has never been in trouble with the Police. He is a genuinely nice guy; the sort that would always acknowledge you if you made eye-contact with him in the street, even if you didn’t know him. The sort that, without thinking, checks behind him when he goes through a door to make sure that there is no one behind him that might benefit from having the door held open for them. 
Frank has a steady job in the city about 15 miles down the road and has been there for seven years without any real issues. He does his job and does it well without complaint. He has a wife of 17 years, two kids aged 14 and 11, a couple of dogs and lives in a nice detached home in one of the greener parts of the patch.

Recently though Frank’s mother died…three months after the death of his father from terminal cancer. He was really close to both of them and he took the loss badly. Frank dropped, un-noticed at first, into a spiral of depression and began to let himself go. He started to drink a little more than he used to and became distant from his family and friends. Being a proud man, Frank refused to accept offers of help – he was always the one that people went to and genuinely believed that he was coping.

Over a period of only a couple of months, Franks depression grew deeper and deeper. The news that the company he worked for was relocating and downsizing was pretty much the final straw and Frank began to consider drastic steps to end the pain.