BRITAIN: What happens if police don’t do their duty?
——————————————–
Of course we here in the USA already know the answer to this question, or at least the pro self defense side does….. but I want to hear it from a gun hater…..
===========================================================================

Date: Jul 29, 2008 10:54 AM
What happens if police don’t do their duty?
By Philip Johnston Last Updated: 12:01am BST 28/07/2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/07/28/noindex/do2804.xml&CMP=EMC-expat2008

The anger and frustration felt by people who are the victims of crimes to which
they have already alerted the police can be imagined.

But when a loved one is murdered because the police failed to act in time, despite
warnings that something terrible might be about to happen, the feelings of relations
and friends can only be guessed at.

Spare a thought, then, for the parents of Giles Van Colle, who will on Wednesday
learn if a legal battle they have waged since he was murdered nearly eight years
ago has been successful.

If it is, the implications are profound. Irwin and Corrine Van Colle sued the police
for failing to protect their son, who was a witness in a court case.

However, this is not a story of gangland intimidation: Mr Van Colle, 25, was simply
preparing to do his duty as a responsible citizen in what should have been a straightforward
case of theft. But it was to turn into a nightmare – and the police did nothing
to stop it unfolding.

Mr Van Colle was an optometrist with his own business, GVC Opticians, in Mill Hill,
north London. He had employed as a laboratory technician an Iranian whose real name
was Ali Amelzadeh, but was known by the alias Daniel Brougham. He had obtained the
job using a false CV and when he was challenged about his National Insurance number
and the disappearance of equipment from the clinic, he left.

Subsequently, stolen property, including glasses and frames belonging to Mr Van
Colle, were found at Brougham’s home and he was charged with theft.

Mr Van Colle was asked to identify the property as a court witness. Until now, this
was fairly unexceptional case.

However, Mr Van Colle began to receive threats to his life and his family from Brougham,
to which the police were alerted. Then his car was set ablaze outside his home.
Yet nothing was done to protect him.

In November 2000, two days before the trial was to start, Brougham lay in wait for
Mr Van Colle as he left work and shot him three times at close range.

Most murders happen out of the blue and there is always a danger of accusation by
hindsight. But that was not the case here.

A witness in a court case was specifically threatened on a number of occasions by
the man against whom he was giving evidence.

It should have been relatively straightforward for the police to have offered him
protection or to have revoked Brougham’s bail.

Since Brougham lived in Stevenage, that job fell to Hertfordshire constabulary and
specifically Det Con David Ridley. At a disciplinary tribunal in 2003, he was found
guilty of failing to perform his duties diligently, failing to investigate thoroughly
the intimidation of witnesses, and failing to arrest Brougham. He was fined five
days’ pay.

Mr Van Colle’s parents considered it was important to establish where the duties
of the police lay and invoked the European Convention on Human Rights, claiming
a violation of Article 2 – which enshrines the “right to life” – and Article
8, which guarantees everyone’s right to respect for their home and family life.

In the High Court, Mrs Justice Cox awarded them ?50,000 in damages against Hertfordshire
Police. She said that, had Mr Van Colle been placed in a safe house or given other
protection after Brougham threatened his life, there would have been “a real
prospect of avoiding this tragedy”.

The award was reduced in 2007 to ?25,000 by the Court of Appeal; but the judgment
against Hertfordshire Police was upheld. This is where the case stands.

The chief constable appealed to the Law Lords, who will rule on whether the police
can be sued for failing to carry out their duties properly to investigate a crime.

The police say that unless it is overturned, they – and other public services –
will face a flood of similar claims. But is that true? Are they simply not being
required to do their job properly? After all, Mr Van Colle’s case is not an
isolated one.

Alex and Maureen Cochrane died and their daughter, Lucy, was seriously injured in
an arson attack on their home in Wythenshawe, Greater Manchester, in 2006.

The attack had been preceded by an incident at the Cochranes’ home in which
a fluid was poured on to the front door and a tree uprooted in the garden.

Police, who were aware of a feud with another family subsequently convicted of the
killings, failed to act.

Last year, an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission
(IPCC) found Greater Manchester Police guilty of “individual and systemic failings”
over the tragedy.

Scotland Yard is investigating complaints that it failed to respond to threats made
against a schoolgirl a few weeks before she was killed.

Last year, the same force apologised for doing nothing to protect a young father
shot dead after confronting a gang in the road where he had been stabbed just months
earlier.

Wiltshire Police were strongly criticised by the IPCC for failing to protect Hayley
Richards, a pregnant woman who was murdered by her boyfriend a week after he attacked
her.

Even though police were told where he was, officers who could have responded were
dealing with a report of a dog locked in a car.

In all these cases, the police say that the murderous intent of the killers could
not have been foreseen. But that is not the point. It is the fact that they did
nothing that is so appalling.

People can understand if, despite their best endeavours, some dreadful criminal
act occurs; but it is the first principle of policing to prevent crime, not investigate
it after it has happened.

In the Appeal Court, Sir Anthony Clarke, the Master of the Rolls, said the duty
of the police to protect Mr Van Colle was “not an onerous one”; and nor
was he persuaded that the court’s ruling would “threaten police resources”
or “open the floodgates to baseless claims against the police”.

“They should have done everything that could reasonably have been expected
of them,” added the judge.

That is all that Mr and Mrs Van Colle, and the rest of us, are asking.

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !