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I've just subjected myself to one of those traffic cop shows on ze television. Some of the "punishments" dished out to the car stealing kids made me wish I lived in Saudi Arabia.

For example, a thirteen year old kid, we'll call him Ryan, gets caught for the fourth time stealing a Nissan Micra. His punishment is that he's banned from driving for 12 months!!

Without sounding like an hysterical Daily Mail reader, how can you ban someone from doing something that's already illegal? He's thirteen fucking years old, it's already illegal for him to drive. You can't ban him from driving if he's not legally allowed to drive anyway. You can't ban a bank robber from holding up anymore banks for 12 months.

Another kid was banned from sitting in the front seats of any car for a year? Ha ha what!? If he's in the passenger seat, so what? If he's in the drivers seat then he's driving and that's already illegal. I very rarely feel any sympathy for the police, but I did on this occasion because they have no means to combat crime any more.

It must be the very definition of frustration to keep arresting the same little chavy bastard every Friday night with him knowing full well that nothing will happen to him. The Saudi's to be fair are a bit harsh some times with their due process what with their stoning of women for adultery and all, but one has to concede that perhaps our approach to law enforcement has become a little too liberal and tilted in favour of the criminal.

It would be very difficult for this kid to steal anyone else's car if his hands were in a bucket in a back room of Grimsby Magistrates court. Do we even have kiddy jails anymore? What was the reson why they abandoned the bortsal institutions? Was it cause they were nasty and they made some of the kids cry?


Fair do's I accept that from a rehabilitation point of view, Bortals were not too successful..but leaving young car stealing Ryan to roam the streets of Grimsby free to take which ever car he finds most appealing isn't offering him much in the way of rehabilitation either. At least the Bortsals were a decent enough punishment. At least they would keep young Ryan away from everyone's cars for six to eight months.

I personally would like to see him flogged with the seat belts of the car he stole in Grimsby town centre by anyone who has been a victim of car crime in that area. I've emailed Barack Obama about this and am awaiting reply. In lieu of this can we at least acknowledge that we have a broken system and begin locking these wee ones away until it's fixed? Twenty or thirty years should be fine.