….at least, it’s one reason why we don’t have capital punishment.
The Rachell Nickell murder was a terrible thing, whipped up into a media frenzy like the IRA-bombers-that-weren’t such as the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six and a host of other miscarriages of justice.
Because of blinkered police work or corrupt police work or even the desire of police to please and “get things done”, many people over the years are now alive who would have otherwise been dead if capital punishment were still extant in the UK.
What this means is that we now know about the failings and can strive to make sure they “never happen again”. If the police earnestly do this, then at least they’ll have “done their best”.
In contrast, America, “land of the free” should really be called “land of the wrongly executed” because their laws and police are fundamentally based on those here in the UK and thus will tend to make the same mistakes. But they kill people with an abandon that rivals the closed communist societies that they so despise.
So Colin Stagg has suffered, but at least he’s alive to tell his tale and life, really is, the most precious thing.
No related posts.
February 1, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Only just came across this Stagg fiasco comment – makes an obvious worthwhile point. You can find a report about a subsequent 2nd disgraceful undercover police op’ “OPERATION CENTURY” run by an officer who relied (he said) on the Stagg police op’ not actually having been declared illegal. OPERATION CENTURY is on the wikipedia too.
February 4, 2009 at 1:05 am
Thanks for that. I’ve fixed your URL so your back-link works properly (you had a comma instead of a full-stop).