According News today, in the Newspaper World, we call the front page story “the splash” and, one day last week, two of our national newspapers splashed on a goldfish. It told the story of 66-year-old Manchester pet shop owner Joan Higgins who was taken to court after Trafford Council carried out an undercover operation to catch her selling a goldfish to a 14-year-old boy.
Her sentence for selling a goldfish to an underage customer was a £1,000 fine, a seven-week curfew, and an order to wear an electronic tag throughout that time.
On the same day, The Northern Echo splashed on a story revealing that North-East police forces are all of a dither over whether to identify missing sex offenders due to concerns about their human rights.
Under a Freedom of Information request, we had discovered that four registered sex offenders had gone missing in this region. Naturally, we asked for their names so we could warn the public.
Cleveland Police promptly named their missing sex offender and issued a picture, but Northumbria Police refused to name their two sex offenders because it would have been an invasion of their privacy.
Meanwhile, North Yorkshire Police needed to think about it overnight before deciding not to name their sex offender for fear of breaching his human rights.
After the Home Office condemned the human rights argument as “nonsense”, the North Yorkshire force performed an apologetic U-turn the next day, naming their onthe- run rapist and issuing a photograph.
All of this comes after last month’s trial of Facebook predator Peter Chapman, who killed Darlington teenager Ashleigh Hall.
Chapman was on the sex offenders’ register, but it took Merseyside Police nine months to issue a national alert when he disappeared.
So you see, pensioners can be electronically tagged for selling goldfish, but registered sex offenders can go AWOL without the public being warned. Amazing, isn’t it?
I WAS extremely concerned about the Daily Mail’s reckless decision to publish a picture of the aforementioned goldfish on its front page.
I have taken extensive legal advice and it seems that this may well be a breach of the Piscine Rights Act, commonly referred to as The Scales of Justice.
The act states that no fish must be identified in the media so as to avoid it being subject to harassment, ridicule or anyfin else lawyers can think of.
This is, of course, how the picture should have appeared. Editors take note...
FINALLY, David Walsh got in touch from Redcar to point out that a feature in The Northern Echo last week described the new Doctor Who, Matt Smith, as being on a “meet-the-pubic tour of Britain”.
I apologise but, as any time traveller will testify, these aliens can crop up anywhere.
Her sentence for selling a goldfish to an underage customer was a £1,000 fine, a seven-week curfew, and an order to wear an electronic tag throughout that time.
On the same day, The Northern Echo splashed on a story revealing that North-East police forces are all of a dither over whether to identify missing sex offenders due to concerns about their human rights.
Under a Freedom of Information request, we had discovered that four registered sex offenders had gone missing in this region. Naturally, we asked for their names so we could warn the public.
Cleveland Police promptly named their missing sex offender and issued a picture, but Northumbria Police refused to name their two sex offenders because it would have been an invasion of their privacy.
Meanwhile, North Yorkshire Police needed to think about it overnight before deciding not to name their sex offender for fear of breaching his human rights.
After the Home Office condemned the human rights argument as “nonsense”, the North Yorkshire force performed an apologetic U-turn the next day, naming their onthe- run rapist and issuing a photograph.
All of this comes after last month’s trial of Facebook predator Peter Chapman, who killed Darlington teenager Ashleigh Hall.
Chapman was on the sex offenders’ register, but it took Merseyside Police nine months to issue a national alert when he disappeared.
So you see, pensioners can be electronically tagged for selling goldfish, but registered sex offenders can go AWOL without the public being warned. Amazing, isn’t it?
I WAS extremely concerned about the Daily Mail’s reckless decision to publish a picture of the aforementioned goldfish on its front page.
I have taken extensive legal advice and it seems that this may well be a breach of the Piscine Rights Act, commonly referred to as The Scales of Justice.
The act states that no fish must be identified in the media so as to avoid it being subject to harassment, ridicule or anyfin else lawyers can think of.
This is, of course, how the picture should have appeared. Editors take note...
FINALLY, David Walsh got in touch from Redcar to point out that a feature in The Northern Echo last week described the new Doctor Who, Matt Smith, as being on a “meet-the-pubic tour of Britain”.
I apologise but, as any time traveller will testify, these aliens can crop up anywhere.
Sick to the Gills With the Law
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