Watch your lip in Queensland...

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Watch your lip in Queensland - Swearers face instant $124 fines in Australia:






Police will be given the power to issue $124 on-the-spot fines for swearing in public under controversial new legislation in Queensland, Australia.



Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the new laws, which also give police new powers to issue on-the-spot fines for public urination and disorderly conduct, would increase efficiency and save time.



She said that keeping minor offenders out of the courts would save the state between $22 million and $37 million, the Courier Mail reports.



But the new legislation, which will be introduced to parliament later this year, has drawn criticism from researchers.



An evaluation conducted by a university said that the on-the-spot powers meant police would issue tickets in situations that would not be considered criminal before the courts.



The findings came from a review of data from a one-year trial of the reforms in other Australian cities.



Government bodies have also expressed concern that offensive language fines could be issued in cases where they are not warranted.



But Police Minister Neil Roberts told the newspaper that inappropriate behaviour in public was not acceptable and would not be tolerated.


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Acknowledgements: MSN Travel

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Fourteen sheep found crammed in a car stopped by police in Hastings, NZ...

Image by nznationalparty via Flickr

 Fourteen sheep were found bound and crammed into a car stopped by police in the Hastings suburb of Flaxmere early today.



Police described the treatment of the sheep as "disgusting and an unnecessary act of cruelty".



Two men, 23 and 16, were arrested and are expected to appear in Hastings District Court today.



Sergeant Eden Sewell said police tried to stop a Mazda four-door saloon in Flaxmere about 3am.



A short pursuit took place and occupants ran from the car when it stopped in a local park.



"Police recovered 14 sheep from the boot and interior," Mr Sewell said.



All had been bound with ropes and crammed into the wheel well and the foot wells of the back seat.



"The sheep were all stolen from local farms and were very distressed. Animal control attended and removed the sheep, two of which have died as a result of the treatment," he said.



The condition of the remaining 12 was not known.



Mr Sewell said investigations were continuing and police wanted to hear from anyone who had had stock stolen recently.

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British Metropilitan Police to publish a report on the death of Kiwi Blair Peach three decades ago...

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British Metropolitan Police set to publish a report on the death of New Zealander Blair Peach three decades ago...







Scotland Yard is due to publish a report into the death of anti-racism activist Blair Peach in west London more than three decades ago.





Relatives of the dead man have been campaigning to obtain a secret internal review of the killing for many years. Last year Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said he was willing to publish the document but only after it had been checked by solicitors.



The report will finally be made public on Tuesday after the Crown Prosecution Service said on Friday that officials have completed their work and given their findings back to senior officers. It is understood that a copy of the report has already been passed to solicitors representing Mr Peach's partner Celia Stubbs.



The decision to publish was made after public pressure to reveal the almost forgotten review in the months after the death of Ian Tomlinson during G20 protests. But police solicitors advised prosecutors should look at it in case there is any chance further inquiries could be made and charges brought.



Mr Peach, 33, was hit over the head at a demonstration against the National Front in Southall in 1979. Members of the Met's riot squad, called the Special Patrol Group, were suspected of hitting him with a rubberised police radio or a lead-filled cosh.



The report written by Commander John Cass, a former senior officer at the Met's internal complaints department, examined his death. He is believed to have recommended the prosecution of police officers although no charges were ever brought.



Speaking last June, Sir Paul said the report should be published, possibly by the end of the year, with some details censored. Members of the Metropolitan Police Authority unanimously supported a decision to review the documents with a view to publishing them before the end of last year.



In July, former Scotland Yard inspector Alan Murray said he believed Mr Peach was murdered or unlawfully killed, but not by police. Mr Murray, now a 59-year-old Sheffield University lecturer, led a unit of the Special Patrol Group. He denied killing Mr Peach and said he did not believe anyone in his unit was responsible.



The former officer said the inquiry was flawed and a verdict of death by misadventure at Mr Peach's inquest was "inappropriate".



A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said on Friday that the force is preparing to publish a number of documents after a thorough review of all the material and independent advice from the CPS. "This will include the key historic reports into Blair Peach's death by Commander Cass, and a subsequent review."


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So Clive thought the law of physics didn't apply to him, the silly man...

So Clive thought the laws of physics didn't apply to him, the silly man...

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physics


First published at Qondio:






Clive was one of those rather dishonest people who have been described as a "career criminal". What a career? Yeah right!
He was obviously convinced that the law of physics didn't apply to him. He is also described as a man who thinks big in his dubious career of crime. Recently the British criminal stole a truck and loaded it up with 18 pallets of stolen nickel and copper worth 150,000 Pounds ($330,000. Yes, it was a huge haul alright, many would suggest it was too huge.

Police arrested Clive when the truck's suspension collapsed under the huge weight. Clive was also a recidivist offender - earlier in the day he had also stolen a car, overloaded it and broke its suspension too!

No chance of Clive completing the hatrick though - he is now doing time in one of Her Majesty's prisons.

Acknowledgements: Peter Petterson

Australian and Canadian Police versus American police...

Australian and Canadian Police versus American Police:

How can you tell the difference between Canadian, Australian, and American Police?

Pose the following question:

“You’re walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children. Suddenly, a dangerous looking man with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, raises the knife, and charges. You are carrying a Glock 40, and you are an expert shot. You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your family.”

What do you do?

CANADIAN POLICE CONSTABLES
Answer: (Immediate thought processes)

•Is the knife a ceremonial kirpan?
•Does he prefer to communicate in English or French?
•Will this negatively impact my chances of promotion?
•Is this just his way of telling me that he pays my wages, and wants my
job?
•Would this be an appropriate time to hug him and sing Koombaya?
•Will the media do a profile of him and how he was loved by everyone
including his dog?
•Is the alleged ‘client’ a member of the NDP or an Environmental Group?
•Is he just a squeegee kid / pan handler trying to make a living on the
mean streets?
•Is he a member of a gang that is just ‘misunderstood’ by society?
•Is he an undercover Toronto Star reporter looking for a news breaker?
•Is he a recent illegal immigrant to this country, and just doesn’t know
how to approach the police?
•Is he recently released on parole and hasn’t been properly integrated back
into the community?
•Is he a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome, and just doesn’t understand what
he is doing?
•Warn and Charter him as he approaches.
AUSTRALIAN POLICE CONSTABLES

Answer: BANG!

AMERICAN POLICE OFFICERS

Answer: BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
BANG! BANG! Click…. (Sounds of reloading) BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Click Click Click

Acknowledgements: Australian blogs

Peruvian gang allegedly killed peasants to get body fat for the cosmetic business...

A gang in the remote Peruvian jungle has allegedly been killing people for their fat, draining it from their corpses and offering it on the black market for use in cosmetics, police have said.

Peruvian police say they have arrested three members of a gang who murdered a string of peasant farmers, drained the fat from their dead bodies, and then attempted to sell it to European cosmetics manufacturers.


The men have confessed to a total of five killings, but are suspected of dozens more. Police believe they approached their victims on remote roads and lured them to a hut in the jungle with talk of being able to introduce them to a potential employer. Instead, the victims were bludgeoned to death.

Each of their bodies then had its head, arms and legs cut off. Major organs were removed, and discarded, before the torso was suspended from hooks in the ceiling of the hut. Candles were placed beneath, so that melting fat would dribble into pots, pans and other collecting vessels.

Suspects allegedly told police the bottles of liquid fat they had when arrested were worth $21,000 a litre. But medical experts expressed scepticism that a major market existed for fat. Peru's police chief of the anti- kidnapping squad, Colonel Jorge Mejia, said the suspects said the fat was sold to intermediaries in Lima, the Peruvian capital.

Read more here

NZ needs a gang taskforce says Aussie detective...

The head of Victoria police's Purana Taskforce says New Zealand needs to set up a similar group to fight organised crime

An Australian detective says New Zealand police need to crack down on organised crime or face a situation similar to Victoria's bloody gangland killings.

Detective Inspector Bernie Edwards heads Victoria's Purana Taskforce, formed in 2003 following a series of bloody gangland killings in the state. In six years they have seized $80 million worth of assets and caught 24 offenders for 37 murders.

Mr Edwards spoke this morning at the Police Association conference and says we can learn from what has happened in Australia to prevent similar violence here.

"Our crisis was the gangland killings that woke us up to the fact that organised crime is here. The more we delve the more drugs, money - you name it they're into. New Zealand, you don't need your crisis, you've realised you've got a problem, because the world's got a problem."

Mr Edwards says hopefully New Zealand police can learn from the mistakes of their Australian counterparts, to stop organised crime before the shootings and killings start.

"One of my main messages I want to get across to New Zealand - organised crime isn't coming, it's here. And it's here to stay and it's globally - it's not just people committing single crimes, they just commit whatever crimes are possible."

Mr Edwards says it is also up to the Government to address the issue. He says New Zealand needs a group similar to the Purana Taskforce.

"If New Zealand got a heavily resourced and supported organised crime squad . . . then people start listening and hearing all your successes in the media - then you can start building up a credibility to ask for legislation changes."

Mr Edwards says if the nation does not do anything, the next generation of criminals is going to be unstoppable.

Acknowledgements: 2009 NZCity, NewsTalkZB

Parents nightmare - two year old Auckland toddler now missing for five days...

Police hunting for missing toddler Aisling Symes have not ruled out she could have been stolen to order.

Nothing has been seen of the bright and bubbly two-year-old since Monday night when she was last seen with an Asian woman who was holding a dog on a lead.

Aisling's disappearance from her deceased grandparents' Longburn Rd home in Henderson has sparked one of the biggest police hunts for years.

But after three days of searching police have found no sign of the toddler and investigation head Inspector Gary Davey said today it was looking increasingly likely she had been kidnapped.

He could not rule out that she may have been stolen to order.

"That is a possibility. What I am trying to do is to convince the public to keep an open mind."

He said if she was taken to order it would be a very, very rare occurrence.

"We don't have any evidence to suggest any scenario. Some are more likely than others.

"For example abduction is more likely than her wandering off, given the thoroughness of our search."

It was also a possibility she had been a hit-and-run victim where the driver had panicked and taken her away.

Mr Davey said search and rescue experts believed after studying the creek near her family's house, the rainfall, and the water flows, it was "highly unlikely" she would have been swept down the creek before the police began their intense search of the area.

He said the mystery Asian woman seen with Aisling about 5.30pm on Monday had still to be identified and there was still a possibility she had no idea of the search or the grief of the parents, Alan and Angela Symes.

Davey said at a press conference yesterday that despite a comprehensive search of the area: "We cannot locate Aisling."

Sitting alongside the parents, he made a direct appeal to anyone who might have snatched Aisling.

"Police are still hopeful that she is alive and being cared for and I'm talking to that person ... I just would like to say to whomever may have Aisling out there, the sole focus of the police at the moment is to have Aisling returned safely ... We hope that you come forward and leave her in a safe place so that she can be found."

Mr Davey said officers were also continuing to profile "people of concern" in the area. More police were joining the inquiry to work on this.

Police had also received 111 calls of sightings of Asian women with babies, after police appeals to the woman in her 30s who was walking her dog when she spoke to Aisling in Longburn Rd.

As police struggle for leads, fear of more snatches is beginning to haunt other parents.

"It will have a tremendous impact ... everything you do now you will be holding on to your children tightly," said the head of the local community board, Elizabeth Grimmer, a grandmother of two. "Children just aren't going to be able to run freely and us feel safe ..."

Ad Feedback In the parents' first public appeal, Mr Symes, a former search and rescue worker and security guard, described the past four days as "the most harrowing of our lives" and said the couple had not slept.

He read from a prepared statement, pausing midway to compose himself, while his wife buried her head in his shoulder.

"We feel like we're barely existing, surviving every moment not knowing where Aisling is," he said. "Is she near us or has she been moved far away? Is she being treated well, things like has her nappy been changed ... these thoughts churn through us as we huddle close as a family and we try to wait to find out if there is anything."

As the couple left the briefing room, police hurriedly shut the door as Mrs Symes broke into wracking sobs.

A child psychology expert said Aisling would now be distressed if she had been abducted.

Canterbury University associate professor Lianne Woodward, said: "She could be very unsettled and irritated, her sleep might not be very good, there might be some crying."

The effects of such a trauma would depend on how long it took for her to be returned, she said. "If she's reunited with her parents soon, there's much less concern. But if it goes on, or there's been abuse, then the concern grows."

An abductor could care for Aisling by doing "the basics" – feeding and cleaning her – but she needed her parents for her emotional wellbeing.

A families commissioner, Christine Rankin, said parents needed to take extra care.

"Until we know if someone is out there that is a danger, absolutely, the more vigilant they are the better. I don't think there's any room to be casual about this at all."

But Waitemata police communications manager Kevin Loughlin said: "There is no additional reason for parents to be concerned with their children at this time.

"We are dealing with a missing persons inquiry. We haven't even identified any individual or person or factors around that."

Prime Minister John Key urged anyone with information to come forward. "Our hearts go out to the family, we are very concerned about her welfare and we hope for a speedy and successful return of the little girl."

Acknowledgements: The Dominion Post with NZPA

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