Recently in Crime & Punishment Category

Warning all drivers! If you are brave enough to drive into a shop's car park, make sure you keep your receipts! The bad news is that even if you do, you could be hit up for £110, like our dear friends from ParkingEye tried to do to me after their cameras spotted my car legally parked up next to Morrisons in Solihull.

What gives these people the right to send intimidating letters demanding money without stating exactly how the rules were broken? What if I didn't have the receipt from that day's shopping - it was from a few weeks back?

Well, thank God I did but when they appealed against the decision, they told me they will send an official response in the post, which may not be actioned for 10 days and if I hadn't paid in 13 days, I would have to pay the charge of £80 plus £30 admin fee! Where do they get their figures from? Thin air, I think.

When I got their response, it was by email; so they make their own crazy rules and then break them.

By the way, they decided to "cancel the charge" as a "gesture of goodwill."

Goodwill?! Yeah right. I didn't do anything wrong!

Drivers beware!

As a driver, I'm tired of the growing trend of jaywalking; people who risk life and limb by casually and deliberately stepping out in the way of traffic.

How many times have you drivers had to break sharply or swerve suddenly to avoid one of these people, sometimes doing their best 'talk to the hand' gesture?

It was really sad to hear of the death of a Solihull teenager last month, but truth be told, all the evidence points to the fact that he was playing 'chicken' on a busy 'A' road with friends.

What in the world made him and his pals think that this was a good way to pass the time?

I'll tell you: every council and law enforcement body that has stood silent or conveniently looked away while this practice becomes common practice.

And the romantic coverage of this accident waiting to happen hasn't helped either, as it obscures the real issue.

This practice needs to criminalized, so innocent drivers aren't victimised and pedestrians realise the law will no longer protect their stupidity.

If you empower children while disenfranchising parents and teachers, turn a blind eye to bad parenting, fail to properly punish crime and undermine the uniting merits of religious faith, what you get is what we've seen this last few days.

I'm not surprised - I wish I could say I was.

These riots have nothing to do with the cuts, unemployment or youth disaffection, it's simply the fruit of what the authorities have allowed to happen over these last two generations.

After the disturbances of 1981, 1985 and even in 2005, the government have thrown money at the supposed problems as they've seen it. Well, there is no money to give out to community projects, so what now?

There will be no change and what we've seen these last couple of days in Birmingham and elsewhere will happen again unless the authorities go back to correctly punishing criminality, instilling discipline in schools, supporting the reconstruction of family values and putting Religious Education back onto the curriculum.

But will they?

With so much bad news continually pumped out by the mainstream media, it's no coincidence that I have chosen to remind us how blessed many of us are this Christmas.

Barbara Williams' loved ones have woken up to resume yesterday's nightmare. Yes, their dear relative/ friend was savaged to death by a vicious dog in her own home in London.

Likewise, the parents of Joanna Yeates have to deal with Christmas not knowing where their daughter is or even what happened to her since she was last seen in Bristol last week.

In our age when so much focus is put on what others have that we don't, perhaps we should reverse the trend. What about the things that we have that others don't? Things as easy to take for granted as our relative good health? How about the love and presence of our nearest and dearest?

In our merriment and celebration of all that is good about this Christmas season, let's not take anything or anyone that blesses our lives for granted.

Merry Christmas.
God bless you and yours

Veron x

Please, please, please people. Teach me. School me. I must have missed something in translation.

Aside from the horrible memories that the mass coverage over the re-jailing of Jon Venables has stirred up, why is James Bulger's mother so keen to know what Venables has been arrested for?

I know that the 1993 murder may just be a horrific memory to most of us; it is an on-going nightmare for James' mum Denise Fergus, one that she will never ever wake up from.

But surely she should be happier now, not so much that Venables is back inside (although who could blame her if she was?) but that he cannot hurt her, her family or anyone else now, as he isn't out there somewhere camouflaged by a new identity.

Does it really matter what Venables has allegedly done? Isn't it better that he's behind bars, where he never should have been freed from (as he was in 2001) in my humble opinion?

As I say, it can't be as simple as that. There must be something I've not taken hold of so I'm putting it out to you, why is Denise so upset? Why does she want to know what Venables is up for?

Blessings,

Veron

Was I the only one who wondered when Dr Conrad Murray was going to face charges in connection with the propofol he gave Michael Jackson shortly before MJ's death?
At last we hear that he is to face the charge of involuntary manslaughter for his part in the mysterious death of the King of Pop.

Not that Michael's achievements should overshadow whatever happened on that fateful night last June when we first heard the most incredible headline in living memory. Were you like me, finding it hard to believe (and still so) that unquestionably the greatest showman in music history is no longer with us?

If Dr Murray gave Michael any inappropriate substance, he should face the punishment any malpracticing medic should, celebrity doctor or not. Regardless of what Michael may have asked, begged or pleaded for. Regardless of how many dates Michael was scheduled to do and regardless of who had given him whatever 'medication' before.

Here's hoping that justice will prevail and punishment meted out to anyone who has done wrong.

Am I being harsh? Do you think anyone will be punished for giving Michael propofol, etc? Will this case show that celebrities are above the law?

God Bless,
Veron
www.GMAgency.co.uk

I can't tell you the last time that I was so upset by a news story but earlier I just couldn't stand to watch another report on the sentencing of that pathetic individual called Luke McCormick. The former footballer was given nearly 7œ years for killing two boys and paralysing their father when he lost control of his car and ploughed into theirs, knocking it down an embankment and into several trees. McCormick was sleep deprived and blind drunk after going out on a bender and ignored advice to not drive.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, if you willingly take a life, then you should lose your own. That McCormick should be banged up for life, not a paltry seven years and four months, with the possibility of parole in 3œ years.

Poor little Arron Peak, 10 and his brother Ben, 8, won't be coming back and their father Phil may never physically recover from his own horrific injuries. Now wife Amanda will have to bear the brunt of not only her sons' murders but her husband's near total dependence on her after sustaining broken vertebrae, lung damage and a crushed spine.

Not only should McCormick be jailed for life, but his bank account should be emptied and his assets sold to pay for Phil's medical care. If the law wants to drive down crime, they should start dishing out proper sentences.

I think that the presiding judge should join McCormick in the clink for contributing to
the number of pathetic sentences handed out to evil criminals.

I wonder how many of you were as sickened as I was by convicted murderer Mark Dixie's pathetic defence that he didn't kill model Sally Anne Bowman but that he 'only' had sex with her dead body?

I am so glad that this 'person' has been sent down for 34 years - though it should have been longer. Killing someone in cold blood is bad enough but to sexually violate them afterward is lower than animalistic behaviour, truly evil.

It's cases like this, plus that of Suffolk's prostitute-murdering psycho Steve Wright, which are making me think long and hard about whether the death penalty should be brought back in cases that are as clear-cut as these.

The government has been banging on about being tough on crime for so long and it's high time they backed up the rhetoric with some swift action. Just listen to/ read the comments of Helen Newlove, who has called for the 'frying' of the three thugs who kicked her husband to death last summer.

Recognise this as a by-product of the authorities' wholesale failure to adequately punish lawbreakers - more and more normally rational people, yours truly included, are contemplating the death penalty is the only real solution.

Am I over-reacting or voicing a common view?