Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Psamathe
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by Psamathe »

Now as widely reported as the Republic arrests but probably more concerning
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/21/it-was-utterly-surreal-police-accused-of-farcical-error-after-14-arrested-at-seminar-on-day-of-coronation wrote:‘It was utterly surreal’: police accused of farcical error after 14 arrested at seminar on day of coronation
...
In reality, they had gathered in a small nondescript room in a rented work space in east London for a seven-hour seminar about the theory, history and practice of non-violent protest after expressing an interest in the social activist group Animal Rising, largely via its website.
...

The group were let out late in the evening on bail pending further investigation. Those arrested have since tried to piece together what may have happened. They learned that Just Stop Oil had previously used the building for meetings, along with many other organisations.

The police had mentioned some placards lying around in part of the building, and some paint unconnected to the training. The truth, said Caitlin, was that it was a horrible bungle. Animal Rising is planning a civil case for wrongful arrest and imprisonment. “I want the police to drop it,” said Caitlin. “I want my phone and my watch back and I want this wiped from the police database.”

The Metropolitan police has declined to comment.
So, (as far as I've seen reported), arrested and held in cells, etc. and for being at an all day senimar 5 miles away from coronation. No plackards, no "lock-on" devices and no Police apology except they now have an arrest on their records impacting e.g. CRB checks, visa applications, etc.

It really was a "round-up" of everybody and anybody who might possible (or possibly not) have any republican sympathies. Police reallyare acting in a manner too familiar from the extreme oppressive regimes.

Ian
mattsccm
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by mattsccm »

Strewth, this is turning into a rant by The Socialist Worker.
I would assume that those muttering about bike locks are also against knife crime laws. Namby pamby rules trying to stop me carry a knife, something that I have done since childhood 50+ years ago.
In fact why can't I carry my shotgun in public? No harm can be done.
Stop trying to create a political agenda out of nothing.
Better a few innocent people get nicked than one criminal gets their way.
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freiston
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by freiston »

mattsccm wrote: 27 May 2023, 11:10am . . . Better a few innocent people get nicked than one criminal gets their way.
I've heard similar arguments for the death sentence and guilty verdicts later proven to be wrong. But if it's for the greater good, decided by those who are finding ways to ensure no-one else can disagree, who cares if it rides roughshod over innocent people and stinks of oppression?

Rounding up, arresting and locking up all the "usual suspects" is the way to go. We've seen how effective it is in Russia, China and other places. Pinochet's methods meant that he only had to round them up once then get rid of the problem permanently.

And no, this isn't a Socialist Worker rant. You don't have to be hard left to see stupidity in that mindset. First they came . . .
Disclaimer: Treat what I say with caution and if possible, wait for someone with more knowledge and experience to contribute. ;)
cycle tramp
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by cycle tramp »

mattsccm wrote: 27 May 2023, 11:10am Strewth, this is turning into a rant by The Socialist Worker.
I would assume that those muttering about bike locks are also against knife crime laws. Namby pamby rules trying to stop me carry a knife, something that I have done since childhood 50+ years ago.
In fact why can't I carry my shotgun in public? No harm can be done.
Really? And why would you assume that?
If there is a good reason to carry such tools, then why is there an issue?
The danger of course, is that persons do not carry such items for a good reason, but merely out of fear or a sense of inferiority. In which case, a fearful or egotistical person isn't really in control of the situation, and carrying such tools merely ups the anti, and the risk that someone will be seriously hurt or killed, not out of a desire to injure but simply out of fear or a desire to impress..
Even worse if those who carry such tools are not prepared to use them to defend themselves, all they have done is given them to the other person.. who in the same fearful manner may use them. The chances of killing anyone with a knife are actually quite high even if you didn't intend to...

..personally I carry a sense of humour, its far lighter,, de-fuses more situations than most people credit and if its used against me might only sting for a bit if it is truthful.. Bad for my ego, but good for my humility :-)

..my swords, axes and armour from my viking re-actment days are, of course, safety locked away at the bottom of a cupboard, with board games stacked on top of them...
It's time to go :-)
Biospace
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by Biospace »

ThePinkOne wrote: 26 May 2023, 8:15pm
Perhaps if Monbiot and his ilk had stood up to support the rights of those who didn't want to take an experimental vaccine, and perhaps if the Guardian et al had not been so unquestioningly (indeed enthusiastically) pro-lockdown, we wouldn't be in this situation of bad laws getting through so easily. The govt tried some stuff out in 2020 and found out that the general public will in fact tolerate a lot of repression if it's packaged in a palatable way- especially if they can "other" the dissenter. Not really a surprise to anyone who studies the work of Milgram (Stanford experiment) and other work by Zimbardo looking at societal dynamics.

TPO

We've learned a lot about the world and human behaviour over the last three and a bit years, how powerful fear is as a control mechanism and how much trust most are prepared to place in our political leaders, while mocking them relentlessly.

The World Health Organisation disgraced itself in its reaction to Covid-19 early in 2020 as it deferred to China's wishes, yet now it proposes that it takes control over people's lives, subordinating national governments and imposing internal travel restrictions and vaccine passports when the next 'pandemic' arrives.

The UK Parliament intends to pass this through without a member's vote.


https://apps.who.int/gb/wgihr/pdf_files ... ion-en.pdf

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/re ... /cbp-9550/
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mjr
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by mjr »

mattsccm wrote: 27 May 2023, 11:10am Strewth, this is turning into a rant by The Socialist Worker.
I would assume that those muttering about bike locks are also against knife crime laws. Namby pamby rules trying to stop me carry a knife, something that I have done since childhood 50+ years ago.
In fact why can't I carry my shotgun in public? No harm can be done.
Stop trying to create a political agenda out of nothing.
Better a few innocent people get nicked than one criminal gets their way.
You shouldn't post this sort of false dichotomy, else you support cannibalism.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
pete75
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by pete75 »

mattsccm wrote: 27 May 2023, 11:10am Strewth, this is turning into a rant by The Socialist Worker.
I would assume that those muttering about bike locks are also against knife crime laws. Namby pamby rules trying to stop me carry a knife, something that I have done since childhood 50+ years ago.
In fact why can't I carry my shotgun in public? No harm can be done.
Stop trying to create a political agenda out of nothing.
Better a few innocent people get nicked than one criminal gets their way.
The whole point of a justice system is, or should be, to prevent the innocent "getting nicked".
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Mike Sales
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by Mike Sales »

mattsccm wrote: 27 May 2023, 11:10am
Better a few innocent people get nicked than one criminal gets their way.
This is contrary to a seminal precept of our law. In the eighteenth century they were more enlightened.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. as expressed by the English jurist William Blackstone in his seminal work Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
mattsccm
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by mattsccm »

Why can' t I carry a gun? Because all intend to shoot are rabbits. No humans. I am being unreasonably pre judged. Same with a knife.
We live in a society where many people want their own little "niche" or passion protected and stuff the rest of us. Tis the same with cycle ways. The solitary recumbant trailer using quadricycle using rider wants barriers down so that they can access aand doesn"t care that this allows all sorts of illegal actions.
As for a criminal escaping, better that he is caught and a few, or even a lot, get a night in the cells than one criminal gets away. Thats the same as pushing all the responsible drivers off the road to stop the odd idiot , a popular concept here.
This whole thread was created and promoted by those with a political agenda, a concept that I thought we could rise above on this forum. I fail to see how this thread links in anyway to cycling.
cycle tramp
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by cycle tramp »

mattsccm wrote: 30 May 2023, 6:20am This whole thread was created and promoted by those with a political agenda, a concept that I thought we could rise above on this forum. I fail to see how this thread links in anyway to cycling.
The new public order set is an incredibly awful piece of legalisation, and it only has links to cycling, but also any shop which uses A-boards, anyone who ties their dog up outside a shop and even any shops which place items out on a public pavement.
It has the capacity to make anyone a criminal if the police force believes that a member of public has been inconvenienced.
Luckily, I believe most of the police to be sane. However that may not account for those odd times when they've had a bad day.

Being aware that Parliament can make bad laws (no matter the colour of the party making them) is to be poltically aware - and there is nothing wrong with that. Perhaps if a higher percentage of the population took more interest in the workings of Westminster we'd have a better government.
It's time to go :-)
Pebble
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by Pebble »

I had a big tour round edinburgh on Sunday, had the bike lock with me the whole time, and never got arrested!

Only seen two police officers all day who seemed to be having all manner of difficulties cable tying a 'police vehicles only' sign on a mesh type fence at a police station, their first effort seemed to of had it back to front - I considered making a public citizens arrest under the 'wasting police time' law, but as I didn't fancy getting tazzor'd, I didn't.
mattheus
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by mattheus »

cycle tramp wrote: 30 May 2023, 10:04pm Being aware that Parliament can make bad laws (no matter the colour of the party making them) is to be poltically aware - and there is nothing wrong with that. Perhaps if a higher percentage of the population took more interest in the workings of Westminster we'd have a better government.
[my bold]

Very true!
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mjr
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by mjr »

ThePinkOne wrote: 26 May 2023, 8:15pm Perhaps if Monbiot and his ilk had stood up to support the rights of those who didn't want to take an experimental vaccine, and perhaps if the Guardian et al had not been so unquestioningly (indeed enthusiastically) pro-lockdown, we wouldn't be in this situation of bad laws getting through so easily. The govt tried some stuff out in 2020 and found out that the general public will in fact tolerate a lot of repression if it's packaged in a palatable way- especially if they can "other" the dissenter. Not really a surprise to anyone who studies the work of Milgram (Stanford experiment) and other work by Zimbardo looking at societal dynamics.
I think that's looking too late for the start of bad laws. It's not so much the pandemic or 2020 that you should be blaming, but the 2019 election of this parliament of candidates hand-picked to rush through a certain bureaucracy-increasing bad law that has since been insulted and basically disowned by its main promoters. A lot of the more lawyerly conservative (small c) Conservatives were displaced or dumped, one way or another, in the run-up to that general election. Or you can go a step further back to the selection by fewer than 140,000 people of the leader who presided over that realignment of candidates. Or even further back to Cameron's awful 2015 Referendum Act that was completely wishy-washy with almost no penalties for lying about the inevitable consequences of voting to hand more power to any tin-pot dictator-wannabes who manage exploit our deficient and disproportional electoral systems to gather a majority in the Commons, while most of the media were totally on-board with that plan for Whitehall to grab more power and further degrade democracy.

It was a long time coming. The pandemic laws were barely a short-term margin note in the story. Vaccines had been compulsory for some occupations since long before that. Locking people up for having luggage straps (let alone bike locks!), attending seminars in rented meeting rooms and helping the homeless is just the latest bad law, coming hard on the heels of "Show Your Papers!" at election time. I wonder if we will be told that these laws have been used in what looks like a discriminatory manner, as the covid laws apparently were and still are (Guardian link, just to remind people that the paper wasn't "unquestioningly" or "enthusiastically" "pro-lockdown", contrary to the incorrect assertion above).
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cycle tramp
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by cycle tramp »

It's not just the UK government which can generate poorly worded or flawed laws... the America state Utah has just banned the Bible in elementary and Middle schools..

At this point I'm surprised that they're aren't more self confessed anarchists...

.
It's time to go :-)
pete75
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Re: Illegal to carry a bike lock & arrestable offence if locking your bike up impedes others

Post by pete75 »

cycle tramp wrote: 4 Jun 2023, 11:59am It's not just the UK government which can generate poorly worded or flawed laws... the America state Utah has just banned the Bible in elementary and Middle schools..

At this point I'm surprised that they're aren't more self confessed anarchists...

.
I don't think it's allowed in any public school in France.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
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