The Trouble With Harry

The 'Sunday Times ' reported today that after two separate inquests and two separate police investigations, the widow of Harry Stanley is teaming up with Alessandro Pereira, the I'm no doubt sure perfectly legal immigrant cousin of the sainted Jean Charles de Menezes, to keep fighting the alleged 'shoot-to-kill' policy of the Metropolitan Police.

Stanley was shot by the police in 1999, in circumstances which have probably been investigated as far as they possibly ever could.

The article's author, Jonathan Lessware, makes an interesting observation, saying,

"De Menezes, 27, a Brazilian electrician, was shot dead in a bungled shoot-to-kill operation in July after being mistaken for a suicide bomber".

One would have thought that if the police were mounting a 'shoot-to-kill' operation that day, it could only be described as being fabulously successful, given the comprehensive nature of De Menezes' icing.

Although the overall reportage of the De Menezes case is so poor that one could almost believe that mortally ill infants were cured by the passage of Jean-Charles' shadow, Harry Stanley was, I'm afraid, a slightly different kettle of fish, a thug and armed robber; probably not the best company his family want to keep if they do not want his halo untarnished.

And so the madness within British justice continues - the families of two criminals, one of whom was foreign, feel no compunction in using the law and the courts to get what they feel they deserve when their relatives had no respect for that law while they were alive.

On a lighter note, the 'Sunday Herald' reported today that Brazil is holding a referendum on banning the sale of guns. That sounds like a good idea, given that a Brazilian dies from gunshot wounds every 15 minutes.

One wonders what sort of condition their laws on compensation for wrongful death are like...or if it's as easy to sue the cops there as it is here...