010 - What's with the Admiral and Moustaches?

[thinkb4ublink]

[Muttered out of shot.] A pirate. Bleedin' hell, Admiral, trading was bad enough. Bloody Dell Boy haunting me and I'm the one who's supposed to be dead!

Comments

[thinkb4ublink.livejournal.com]

You catch a bloke at something. I don't know, nicking stuff of a van or drugs or something. Then you get similar crimes and then leave it to the lawyers to sort out. Makes the bosses look good, gets 'em off the street or turns 'em into informers.

[kingfor-aday.livejournal.com]

...You're sticking crimes onto people who might not have done them, just because they've done one?

You do realise that undermines the fundamental principles of rule of law, don't you?

[thinkb4ublink.livejournal.com]

They've never done one. I don't pick kids off the streets. [They're easily scared by his rep alone. Or not worth it.] You don't wake up one morning and decide selling drugs is the career of champions and I didn't care about them. Why should I? They cared about nobody else.

An' I'm an inmate, Howie. Before that I served time. With those blokes I sent down. Don't start with the lecturing.

[kingfor-aday.livejournal.com]

Because in the end, Slater, the point of justice is to get the right people for the right crime, and to be proportionate in response to what they've done. To, aye, make sure it doesn't happen again, but also to make sure they've got a fair hearing. Because if one person's conviction turns out to be a lie - they all could be.

If I just shrugged off people's actions as them being inmates, and capable of nothing better, I doubt many inmates would get very far.

[thinkb4ublink.livejournal.com]

That's fine coming from a bloke up in the Highlands, where people think crimes are crimes, but where I come from, criminals are worshipped and kids don't commit crimes just case they're bored or off their 'eads but because that bloke in the sheepskin coat and the cigars and the women dropping at his feet and blokes who just say 'yes, sir' when he asks if his wife is free for dinner, goes about the place as if he can't be touched. Oh, yeah, he ends up in prison for a while. Six months and out he goes, carryin' on as if nothing's 'appened until 'e goes and sits on 'is own detonator. Them kids never treated you as their own personal whipping boy, sittin' on your face and throwing you into ponds.

And that's not what I mean. I mean, I've done the work. I mean, I don't have the option you do, even if you're gonna pick the same one every time, it's still your decision, instead of being stuck 'ere without no options, not even somebody to look after.

Difference between me an' the Admiral, Howie, is I let blokes know who I am. They can send me their threatenin' letters, even act their threats out if they can, spit in my face… they know who I am. And they get their day in court. I didn't even get a face to face tellin' me what to expect. But 'ere I am, suffering the same fate as genocidal maniacs. That's brilliant poetic justice, 'cept justice had long since been served.

[kingfor-aday.livejournal.com]

No, where I'm from, places are so remote that people that call themselves 'Lairds' can think themselves above the law, can get away with murder, can stand there and tell you that they will. Where I'm from, reminding people that the law still stands in the country, just like it does in the city, is enough of an effort in itself. The thing is, Slater, the law doesn't change depending on where you are. The point of the law is that it's the law and equal to all.

You suffer the same thing as everyone else, but for hopefully less time.

[thinkb4ublink.livejournal.com]

But what 'appened to you is so rare. Which don't do you much good. But it isn't something Joe Soap 'as to put up with on a day-to-day.

And as for the law. It's not equal to all. That's why your Lairds get away with stuff, because they are wealthy. Poor bastards always get more time. Been that way since Chief Ug and caveman Lug got done for graffiti on the cave walls. Chief is applauded for his artistry and Lug has to chip out 'Writing on wall: bad' a hundred times on his tablet. And yeah, that stuff is universal, but it don't compare. Those Lairds weren't done because they were labelled 'special', they were all untouchable cause nobody bothered touchin' them. We all knew what our guys were up to. It's not like they bothered to hide it from us. They was even arrested. Nuffin changed.

You know as well as I do how long I spend in 'ere has nothing to do with the 'crime' I'm here for.

[kingfor-aday.livejournal.com]

But someone, somewhere, has to fight for it to be equal to all. Someone has to fight to get those Lairds and so on held up on the charges they've committed - I could have arrested him for obstruction at numerous different points. I could have, but didn't. It would have undermined any actual arrest for actual crimes. Because I'd have just done it on a grudge, because I suspected him, but had no proof. I had to get enough to arrest him.

But someone does have to teach them that they're not untouchable - someone has to bother touching them. For things that are real and genuine, because otherwise it's pointless. Otherwise things still don't change.

[thinkb4ublink.livejournal.com]

It would have taught them, that those crimes, obstruction of justice, are bloody serious. If people had been prepared to bang them up for these lesser things, then they wouldn't have gotten the chance do the big stuff. Even a day in the cells woulda been a day when they weren't hurtin' people. They woulda gotten aggravated, on edge.'Xactly the kind of state o' mind that gets to make mistakes.

Big city cops get to watch evil bastards do what they like because the bloody QCs are worryin' about their coffers and pickin' and choosin' what crimes they're going to do them for. Over an' over again. Pinchin' pennies instead making sure these guys were put away. Adding on charges, even charges that get dismissed in court, gets them to court in the first place, else you let them go.

So yeah, I ruined a few lives. And I lost my badge and got banged up myself for my troubles. I ain't sayin' that happenin' to me was unjust, am I?

[kingfor-aday.livejournal.com]

Then that's a fault in the damn system, but not an excuse to step around it. Not an excuse to use the law where it shouldn't be used. That's subverting your own purpose. That's avoiding the law in an attempt to make the law matter. It doesn't work like that.

Even if it does. It shouldn't. You shouldn't enable it working like that.

[thinkb4ublink.livejournal.com]

Who are you tryin' to convince, here, Howie? The bloke who told you it was a crime and that he's got what was coming to 'im? You tellin' me this or what?

[kingfor-aday.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I didn't have any proof he had committed a crime. Or was going to. Not enough to arrest him.

[thinkb4ublink.livejournal.com]

[Pause.] You really should have had back up.

[kingfor-aday.livejournal.com]

I know. I damn well know.

We were understaffed and didn't have the transport to send two officers out on a routine enquiry. Then, when I went to enact a plan to get back up, to get armed officers, to get a bloody helicopter load of them and scour that island from top to bottom - my plane had been sabotaged, as had my radio. There was no way to get back up.

But you're right, I should have had it.