What's wrong with the criminal justice system

[Peter Dow 2]

Today, I outlined what is wrong with the Scottish criminal justice system - live on BBC Radio Scotland, Morning Extra with Gary Robertson.

Peter Dow calls for competence in the criminal justice system, the right to bear arms for a future republican army and no-release from prison to the streets for junkies.

Click here to listen, as hosted by Byethost, OR

Click here to listen (Zippyvideos)



Transcript of Peter Dow’s comments on BBC Radio Scotland 23 May 2006.

Gary: Let's speak to Peter who's in Aberdeen. Peter, good morning.

Peter: Morning to you Gary.

Gary: Hello. In effect, ... Hugh seems to think that prison doesn't work. You could argue the statistics bear that out?

Peter: Well it didn't work for me because I wasn't a criminal. You see I think what's going wrong with the Scottish criminal justice system is incompetence. We've got incompetence by the police, the prosecutors, the judiciary. It amounts to what I call "a royalist, fascist police state".

Gary: So did you end up in prison?

Peter: Yes, I've been ... you know, going to prison for things like -

• swearing,
• carrying a flag,
• not raising my hand in the witness box when I'm ... giving evidence and
• for not going to a mental hospital, even though I've never had any mental health problems.

So they are complete idiots - the people who are running things.

Now I'm an angry person, I'm very political, I've got a lot to be angry about but just because the police don't like the way I am expressing myself, in my leaflets or with my union ... I was arrested for carrying a union flag!

Gary: Sure but dealing with the wider issue here. I mean I'm pretty sure that the majority of people who are sent to prison in Scotland are not in the same position as you - it's for, more often than not, quite serious crimes because we heard yesterday about the number of knife incidents for instance. Does ... prison work, do you believe?

Peter: Well you've mentioned knives Gary and I have to say that we need a republican army and that's going to need to have the right to bear arms.

Gary: Well ... can we stick to the point here Peter? You know, does prison work?

Peter: Well ... it's not working for me. I think for people like drug users - ... if they do something dreadful which sends them to prison then I don't think they should be put on the streets until they've proven that they can drop their drugs habit.

Gary: OK Peter thank you for that.
_________________

[Polwarth]

If ONLY the Mgmt on here WOULD ban you permanently - like so many of the Scottish-based sites on the internet.

You really don't believe in winning friends and influencing people at ALL.

[Scottish_Republican]

"[F]or not going to a mental hospital, even though I've never had any mental health problems."

Everybody else thinks that you have done, so why are only you right?

Mental health is best left to the judgment of others who are qualified... we can't make proper diagnoses on ourselves.

[Celyn]

Oh, Peter Dow thinks he can, apparently because he had just finished sitting a Biology Higher at the time.

..................
I was initially released on bail but when it became evident that I would only agree to meet the court-appointed psychiatrist at a non-medical premises, such as at a lawyers’ office or at the court building, and the psychiatrist wouldn’t co-operate with my reasonable request, Harris revoked the bail and ordered me imprisoned on remand for three weeks in the remand wing of the local prison Craiginches (so that the psychiatrist could examine me in the medical room of the prison.)

Of course I wrote to my MSP, Nicol Stephen and my MP, Anne Begg, to complain but, as you’d expect, the back-stabbing no-mark politicians advised me to co-operate with the psychiatric examination (whereas they should have kicked up a fuss and either got me released or at the very least, they could have stopped supporting the Scottish Executive or Labour Government, respectively.)

It got worse. I was examined in prison by a complete idiot of a psychiatrist, named Lamour. The ***** said that she thought I WAS suffering from mental illness and she was going to recommend that I be further remanded (after the three weeks) for further examination at Cornhill Hospital.

In my conversations with her, I discover that Lamour didn’t even have a Higher Biology qualification, which by this time I had. So this unqualified pseudo-psychiatrist was going to get me remanded to a psychiatric hospital and no doubt try to find an excuse later to start pumping me full of sedatives, or perhaps ECT or of course there’s always lobotomy for those awkward patients who dare to disagree with the doctor.
..................

http://www.b2g5.com/boards/board.cgi...&user=peterdow
(That's the same link that the O.P. gave above.)


Then it goes on and on and, just for a change and a wee bit of a surprise, says that someone should kill the queen.

[aNonnyMoose]

I'm a fully qualified medic, and I didn't get a Higher in Biology.

It's not actually a requirement...

Mr Dow suffers from paranoid delusions, that is patently obvious from his writings. People with this problem occasionally act out their fantasies, and as such could be regarded as potentially dangerous. Perhaps that is why the psychiatrist remanded him to a place of care.

[Polwarth]

Hmmmmm - I did get a Higher in Biology. Surely in Dow-land that qualifies me to state, categorically, that he DOES indeed, have psychiatric problems?

[aNonnyMoose]

This will probably get me red-carded (do I look like I really care? ) but here it goes anyway: