Staying soft on knife crime

An article in the the West Australian this weekend covered a story that the Labour government were to get tough on knife crime.

Well, this is a good thing and it's about time somebody did get tough on it, I thought upon reading the headline. But reading the article made me feel that the governments idea of a tough policy far differs from mine.

The governments tough stance would mean that anybody found with a knife will be given a fine of "up to $48,000 and a prison sentence of up to four years". For prohibited knives, such as flick-knives, the possible sentence is increased to $72,000 and up to six years in prison.

In my opinion, this tough stance is nowhere near tough enough.

Part of the problem I have with this sentence is the use of the phrase "up to". I've long been wary of this phrase, and as time rolls on, I feel that many others are too. In this case, I fully expect that "up to four years in prison" will actually mean "around six months prison if you get a judge on a really bad day and admitted your intention of actually using the weapon."

As for the fine element, this is often pointless as the person who committed the crime will not have the money to cover both the fine and the legal costs so, somewhere down the line, a different section of government will either declare the person bankrupt, in which case the fine will be written off, or allow the guilty to seek some form of legal aid which would mean that the fine would be reimbursed through the tax system. Ultimately that means that the citizens that the guilty party has threatened end up paying for it.

So what do I consider to be tough punishment?

It is my opinion that if a person leaves their house with a knife, or any weapon for that matter, then they have already made the decision that they will, when they see fit, use said weapon against another person. If they were to do so, the crime would be treated either as murder, or as manslaughter. There is, as is often the case in legal terms, a thin line between these two definitions and it will usually centre around whether or not the crime is premeditated.

As we have already established, the knife carrier, having left their house with a weapon must have the intention of using it. Therefore, I would like to see the sentence increased to that of murder. Obviously, if the perpetrator is caught before the weapon is used, the crime of murder would be victimless, but I feel that a ruling of attempted murder would not be unfair and, if nothing else, would serve far more as a deterrent than both the current and the proposed sentences.

Knife crime is a horrible plague of the late 20th and early 21st centuries that has taken hold of suburban areas of many of the worlds cities. Only by getting truly tough on this sort of crime will we ever put stop to the
damage and the misery that results from these crimes.

Do you have an opinion on this? If so, why not leave a comment at the bottom of the page.

Herbie goes to the scrap yard

When we first arrived in Australia, it was like starting life again. We didn't have a place to live, nor a car to get us there. We managed to sort out the flat fairly quickly, but the car was to prove a little more difficult.

To get a roadworthy vehicle in this part of Australia for a decent price takes a lot of looking. Eventually, after scouring the Internet for what felt like an eternity, we found a car that was in our price range. An ancient Hyundai in a faded blue colour. Power steering, air conditioning, CD player, five gears, these are just some of the things that weren't included, but since our budget was low, and our need high, we handed over the money and drove away confident that the car would do us proud for the time that we needed it.

Over the course of the next few months, the car behaved well, answering all of our requests with not so much as a misfire. But a misfire was what it eventually developed. We were on the way back from a day out in Rockingham, about an hours drive from the flat and a great location for watching dolphins out at sea. The car felt like it had no power whatsoever, and then started bunny hopping, which is really not what you want on the freeway. We managed to limp the car home, and left it outside the flat. The next day, I tried in vain to start it but the car wasn't up to the challenge. It seemed that all was lost.

It was quite a while before we managed to get a mechanic to look at the car, and the news wasn't good. The distributor had basically rusted through, and needed replacing. Along with the distributor, all four of the spark plugs would need replacing, as would the battery. We spent some time deliberating over whether to get the car fixed, or to cut our losses and consider the endeavour a lost cause. Eventually, we decided to hand over the money and get the car fixed. After two hours, the car was finished. I jumped in, turned the key and... LIFE.

For the next few months, we drove everywhere. We took Sunday afternoon trips to see dolphins. We went on late night drives to see the city lights and the stars. I even took my girlfriend for a driving lesson in an empty car park. Most of all we went shopping, a chore made so much easier without the need to carry the bags home.

After a while, the car developed some quirks. For instance, every now and again, the dashboard lights would fail due to a blown fuse. The odd thing was that by turning on the rear heater, or pressing on the brake pedal the dashboard lights would come back on, despite being on a different circuit (according to the user manual). It was at this time that we named the car Herbie, since the car seemed to have mind of her own. With a name, Herbie began developing even more little traits such as losing power after driving for more than half an hour at 100kmh requiring us to pull over for a three minute breather before going on our way as if nothing had happened.

We had been driving the car a few months when, one Sunday morning, we decided to take the half hour drive up to one of our favourite pubs. We'd been out the night before and a pub lunch was an absolute must! We were driving along the freeway without a care in the world, and the car was running great when I saw a flash in the rear view mirror. A police motorcycle was pulling us over. This is not that unusual given that I have been pulled over more times in six months driving here than I had ever been pulled over in the twelve years previous.

Something about the way the policeman walked to the car told me that he was in a bad mood. This was confirmed by the way in which he spoke to me. He started looking around the car, and asking questions about some of the “features”, writing notes on his pad, and generally looking troubled. After a few minutes, he issued a yellow sticker, otherwise known as a compliance notice, an order to get the car fixed within ten days or get it off the road. We were distraught, as was the car. For the rest of the day, Herbie was acting a little slugish. Every time I went out to the car I expected her not to be there, having slunk off to die on her own.

For all her quirks, her breakdowns, her faded bodywork, we had come to love her. But after a long discussion (not within earshot of Herbie as we didn't want to kick her while she was down), we came to the only decision that our bank accounts and common sense would allow. This, unfortunately, was to be the end of our relationship with Herbie. No more long drives and late nights were to be had by the three of us.

Some of the times we had with Herbie were bad. Some were good. But most importantly through all of the 10,000KM that we drove her, they were never short of interesting, and I'm sure we will look back on those times with great amusement. But in the end, we had to let her go.

Herbie – 1992 – 2012

R.I.P.

Fireworks Over Kings Park

View of Perth City from Kings Park

Sometimes, things have a habit of surprising you, and lifting you. Those times when somebody does something nice for you, or you happen to be in the right place at the right time, for instance. Last night was one of those times.

We had decided to go up to Kings Park, a beautiful park that has lookouts over the city which are especially good at night. We had been there the night before, but had missed a moon rise by about ten minutes or so, so we wanted to go up there to see the moon rise in all its glory.

It was looking like a nice evening, warm with a little breeze to keep the city from reaching its full capability of 35oC, and with very little cloud on the horizon. We took our place amongst the surprisingly large crowd for the time of evening (the moon rise was due for around 9:50pm). A few photos of the city, and briefly chatting about anything and everything, and the moon began rising over the far end of the city. A deep red colour (I believe the colour comes from the red dust in the atmosphere in this part of the world, but I'm sure I'm probably wrong on that!). The moon rise was really good, and we managed to get some really good photos.

Moon rising over the city

We were on the verge of leaving, when we saw something in the corner of our eyes. Looking through the camera and phone lenses, we both had the same thought in that instant, that there was something wrong with the screens. Looking up, however, revealed something quite unexpected. One of the venues over the East side of the city had started setting off fireworks.

Like I said, sometimes, things just happen that bring that little bit of extra joy to your day.

Flat Hunting Sucks!

In my previous post, I said that I wanted to be more motivated this year in certain things, the most prominent of which is finding a new flat.

A little under two months ago, my girlfriend and I moved out of our studio flat about half an hour north of Perth city. The flat was not too bad, but it was a little small for us, and the ant and spider problems were becoming more of an issue, so we had decided not to renew the lease.

I'm a little disgruntled to say that since then we have been living in a mix of hostels and hotels, unable to find suitable accommodation. We have set ourselves a reasonable maximum price and know the areas in which we are happy to live, but a mix of bad luck, bad timing (the run up to the holiday season is never brilliant for looking for flats) and ridiculous application processing requirements on the part of the estate agents has left us homeless.

I'm not sure how the application process works in the rest of the world, even in the UK as the situation never arose, but this is how it works in Western Australia.

We see a flat we like, and go to view the property. Many of the places we have been to see bare absolutely no resemblance to the photo's on the estate agents websites. In fact, some of the photos, you can easily tell, have been photo-shopped to make the property look bigger or brighter!

If we like the apartment, we will fill out the tediously long application form (most of which run to ten pages or more and ask for four separate references for each paying tenant).

This is where the process gets most ridiculous. In order for the agents to process the application, they require a weeks rent as a down payment. If the application is successful, the payment will be used as the first weeks rent. Fair enough. If the application is unsuccessful, the payment will be returned. On the surface, this seems absolutely fine, but the fact is that the agents will return the money in a cheque. This cheque takes up to three business days to go through and this is after the agents have taken up to two weeks to process the application.

The worst part of this is that if we find two places we like, we have to make a decision of which of the two places to go for because, if we apply for both, and are then accepted on both, one of the down payments will not be returned. I wish we could afford the risk of losing up to $450, I really do, but it really is just not possible!

So far we have had three applications rejected, and each time we have waited a week for the rejection and then had to start all over again.

Trying to remain positive in this situation becomes difficult at times, but we are trying, and hey, everything happens for a reason. Hopefully it will be one of these places

One can but dream!

Darren

P.S. I visited a friends house yesterday a little outside of Perth, and to be honest, I really loved the place. The houses interior was lovely, and the outside area exceptional. That's not to mention the little surprise in the back garden. I don't know if he will be reading this, but if he is... Please can I have your house. Pretty please, with vodka cherries!?!? And Lou wants your puppy!!