A story that makes me despair

Tegan (and others) There is a difference between making sure that whatever replaces the current Act is at least as good, and preferably better, and constantly accusing one party of planning to ditch the whole concept of Rightsand leave everyone vulnerable to exploitation. It is "grinding the faces of the poor, they will be against the wall come the revolution" soapbox rhetoric.

I don't think we are burying our heads in the sand, DJ, we are approaching it from a different viewpoint to yours. Not all of us see it as a party matter, with one wicked party wishing to abandon the populace and leave them with no redress for unfairness. That is YOUR point of view. Your colours are pinned to the mast and you take no prisoners, as you remind us several times a day.

Others prefer to apply pressure to their MPs to make sure that the replacement Rights Act is fit for purpose, if and when it in enacted. The old one should not be scrapped until an improved one is there to take its place.

But if people didn't make a point of highlighting what was happening with this new improved version is there not a chance that things could slip through that we weren't aware of and then it would be too late to do anything about it [I certainly didn't know about the HRA until I read about it on here]. And, I'm pretty sure that the posters that are informing people would be doing so whichever party were trying to change the original act. In 5 years time a lot of things might have changed or not changed and there are some items on the agenda that will not have changed or change will have been modified and everyone will point out that the scaremongers were wrong whereas, in fact it was the scaremongers that were reining in some of the ideas put forward. There isn't a dividing line between life and politics and people should be aware and critical of everything and that includes their own parties manifesto.

Pompa - x posts - didn't mean thank you for ducking out - quite the reverse

Thanks pompa - my main point in all this was that it was yet another example of how determined family members bring about justice when the system fails them - and there are many examples of this both small and large. My second point was that it's quite quite wrong that three policemen could retire/resign to escape disciplinary action. My third point is thst it's another example of police predujice against a 'certain type of young woman' which has happened before - look at how many young women Warboys rasped before he was caught despite his victims going to the police. I did also make the point about the HRA because it was absolutely central to this young woman getting justice (and other women being protected) .

"A good reason for making sure the Tories do not get their way and repeal the Human Rights Act." was IMO just trying to score political points. I have no problem with discussing HR in connection with this case, but not to score points.

I don't propose to get into political points scoring, so will duck out of this thread.

Okay, pompa, shall we just bury our heads in the sand about what this government wishes to do with the Human Rights Act?
Or shall we do as Eloethan suggests and take seriously the idea of what will happen if there is no Human Rights Act?

If this government does as it wants and gets rid of the Human Rights Act, anyone in a similar situation to this girl would have no redress. Call it political point scoring if you must. I call it justice and think everyone should have access to it.

From other threads, I get the impression that the Human Rights Act is not being thrown in the bin, but that plans are afoot to redraft it and replace it with a new version.

Surely we would be best employed making sure that we know what the new version is to be and that all the safeguards we want are in it. It is just possible that the new version could be made even better than the old one.

pompa The article starts "A rape victim falsely accused of lying by detectives has won £20,000 in damages after suing police under the Human Rights Act." Further on in the report, the lawyer who represented the young woman said:

"Many people wrongly assume the police have a legal obligation to investigate crimes. However, the only way victims of crime can seek justice for these sort of issues is using the Human Rights Act which imposes a duty on the police to properly investigate very serious offences."

So the issue of the Human Rights Act is central to the case and it seems to me quite legitimate for posters to reflect on the possible dangers of getting rid of the Human Rights Act.

What is the point of reading about miscarriages of justice? Is it enough to just say "Oh isn't that awful - what horrible policemen", without discussing the mechanism which is currently available to address such injustices, and question whether its abolition is a good thing?

I fail to see any indication that Gx2 has hijacked her own thread ???

Gx2 and I have been at loggerheads in the past, (note "past"). But here she has started a serious, and potentially interesting, thread about an awful occurrence, that may/will have happened to many others, The thread deserves respect and not be used to score political points.
Let's get back to Gx2's OP please.

That not this - don't want to trivialise this thread.

Perhaps, pompa, you need to read the link in the OP. GrannyTwice managed to highjack her own thread, did she?

I don't think the political poster(s) have realised yet that overkill and adding a campaigning message to everything just turns most people off the whole thing - the opposite of their intention, I am sure.

Will we soon get the political implications of knitting garments for fish-and-chip babies ("This is what happens when you vote in the XXXXs") or eating meat ("The XXXXs all love their steaks blue and dripping with blood - it reminds them how much fun it is to go to war and kill people indiscriminately")

I have had a thought - this would make a jolly thread - what else can we blame a political party for? Must remember to use Xs though, we don't want to overtly insult anyone's favourite MPs or ex-PMs.

This thread has become yet another boring political soapbox. Not what the OP intended I'm sure. If you want to discuss HR, start a separate thread. It seems to be the same posters that hijack these threads for political ends everytime.

He may want to. Whether he'll be able to is another matter the result of which only time will tell. Meanwhile, MPs can be written to and other campaigning resorted to and research into whether the ECHR is in fact adequate.

David Cameron does want to abolish the HRA and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. That is a fact.

but farnorth it is true that threads on any subject end up with political point scoring even if only slightly related asnd is very predictable.
the HRA is not being abolished it is being reviewed
even if the HRA did not exist (as it did not prior to 1998) the ECHR would still have applied. lets stick to the facts.

I agree with everything that's been said about the horrendous story. How could they think it was okay to just not bother checking the evidence?
We definitely need to keep the Human Rights Act.

Sorry, it was meant as a joke

It's all political, FarNorth. If the HRA wasn't here, the victim might not have been able to get redress. Read the OP again. It's Cameron who wants to get rid of the HRA.
Perhaps we should all just bury our heads in the sand!

Yet again...

Oh dj trust you to shove in a tiresome political point.

A good reason for making sure the Tories do not get their way and repeal the Human Rights Act.

Shocking, truly shocking. What an horrific ordeal for that poor girl and for her mother, fighting for justice. And as you say GT, having mental health problems went against her as far as the police were concerned. So easy for them to dismiss her claim as lies, not take her seriously. Thank God for the HRA and a good lawyer. But I am disgusted that three officers were able to escape punishment by resigning or retiring, no doubt on very comfortable pensions.

Why don't they recruit more highly educated people to the police force? The police usually sound pretty thick when they are interviewed on radio or tv. I think this where a lot of the trouble lies. I suppose it's all down to money.

Poor girl. So wrong.