Wednesday 4 March 2009

Meet James Cleary

A little while ago I wrote this post following a briefing slide we were shown at work asking for help identifying a burglar who preyed on sick children at Great Ormond Street Hospital. After some decent work by the guys and girls in the crime squad the suspect was identified as being 47 year old, James Cleary -



On the 24th of February 2009 Cleary pleaded guilty to four counts of burglary, admitted two more and asked to have them taken into consideration - by admitting further unsolved or unreported crimes they can be given leniency in sentencing.

Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith sentenced Cleary to 20 months in custody and said -

"Your counsel is absolutely right. The financial value of these matters is less than £2,000 apparently, but the sentimental value of a play station and games for a sick child is far greater.

'But I am bound by the guidelines from the Sentencing Guidelines Council.

'It seems to me that when you committed these offences you targeted vulnerable community premises, that is to say hospitals, but your entry into the children's ward or children's hospital is a further aggravating feature as I see it."

Considering that the maximum sentence in law for a single non dwelling burglary (with no violence or weapons) is 10 years at Crown Court, you have to wonder exactly what a burglar would have to do to get that if repeatedly preying on sick children inside a hospital attracts only 20 months - even if he did plead guilty. If you think now that he automatically gets half his sentenced reduced on anticipation of being granted licence, and then up to a further third of whats left for good behaviour, Cleary is going to back out on the street long before Christmas this year.

That'll teach him..... won't it?

Cleary is a prolific and habitual burglar with numerous previous convictions for burglary and other offences. For each offence he would have been found by, arrested by, investigated by and sent to court by the Police. How can we possibly be to blame for the rise in crimes committed by people like Cleary when the Police officers who have dealt with him have done EVERYTHING they could possibly do on every occasion? It's not our job to sentence people, that is for the courts. I've seen people with over 200 previous convictions out and about committing crime, and getting caught by Police officers.

That is us doing OUR job over 200 times for one person and yet they are still able to walk the streets freely. We rarely get people arrested who have no previous convictions, nearly everyone we deal with has already been caught and convicted several, if not dozens or sometimes even hundreds of times before.

If someone receives the maximum sentence for each crime they are convicted of the prison population will go through the roof very quickly, but once they are in, there aren't going to be as many convicted criminals out on the streets able to commit crime. If anyone is stupid enough to commit crime such as burglary, theft, assault etc and then loses several years of their useful life because of it, well that's their fault isn't it?

Why should we feel guilty about having a large prison population when they are the ones who put themselves there?

If someone is in prison, behind bars, he cannot be breaking through your back door as you sleep, or breaking into your childs hospital room while they are recovering from life saving surgery. That is a simple fact, but one that people still refuse to grasp when they call for community sentences, or leniency over long custodial sentences.

Metcountymounty.

PS. I've a few things going on and a course coming up so will be off the grid for a few weeks. Stay safe.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Absolutely. I agree totaly.

There is a somewhat similar thread over at Bystanders. However there, all the usual sycophants will have you believe their hands are tied, that they are forced to let this filth back onto the streets and its all the fault of the government............

Anonymous said...

Sums up what a complete clusterf@ck it all is. Aside from that, it leaves you speechless.

Anonymous said...

You've hit the nail on the head. AS I've always said we do a pretty good job of bringing people to book, it's the courts that give them an easy ride. What else can you say?

We were transporting a young MISPER the other day (about 14 years old) who was boasting that no-one was scared of the police anymore. I corrected him by pointing out that we catch the right people all the time, it's the end sentence that they're not scared of.

Unfortunately it's become ingrainned on even the youngest 'members' of our society that the criminal justice system is pretty toothless most of the time.

A Met bod.

Anonymous said...

I don't suppose there's any way to make sure the other inmates find out who he stole from? (I don't know how it is in the UK, but in most US prisons, I think stealing from kids with cancer would put you pretty low on the totem pole in prison. Maybe not down with child molesters (who are segregated for their own safety.))

The Black Rat said...

I couldn't agree with you more. I haven't voted for this shower that keeps making these decisions, I don't know anyone who has nor do they know anyone who has. What's wrong with locking vermin up for a full sentence. If they are inside, they are not out and about being the verminous slag they obviously are. Let's have a more rigourous approach towards scum rather than these hand-wringing, bleeding heart socialists.
Viva la revolution!!

Anonymous said...

pudgey faced bastard. id love to kick the life out of him

Anonymous said...

Charming fellow.

When are the government / courts / mags (delete as appropriate) going to relase that the CJS can't be modelled around catch & release fishing!

Anon #1 - whatever else we might say about the 'yoof they learn quickly.

Anonymous said...

Time to start hanging people if prison overcrowding is stopping the criminal justice system from working properly.

Anonymous said...

Was sharing a beer over lunch today with a good friend of mine who works in a prison in the South of the country.

He also reads this blog occasionally and noticed this, and brought up a similar inmate.

The bloke in question was of a similar calibre in that he targeted vulnerable children - ones with severe learning disabilities.

Followed them home from a special school to their house, made notes of the address, burgled it when mum + child left on the school run the following morning. 4 different counts of this (although apparently he'd done easily 3-4* that in reality).

He got a fairly short sentance too. Word got around somehow of what he was in for and who he'd been targeting. They had to move him to a protected area after 3 inmates cornered him and slammed a heavy metal sliding door on his kneecaps a few dozen times.

Not saying it's right, but that's what i call a deterrent.

Old BE said...

I'm sure he came from a broken home or had been oppressed by the rich or something. That may not seem to be an excuse but it is why we should all say sorry to him and help him try and rebuild his life which has been shattered by the heartless authorities.

Or we could wake up and smell the coffee.

Anonymous said...

PS Comment
Fitwatch just aint biting anymore....What can we do?

Anonymous said...

Now I'm not saying it's right but......
A few years back I was living in Northern Ireland when the local unionist boyos caught a car thief. Now this chap had already been 'punished' by the PIRA and the UVF. So this time they nailed him by his hands to the fence on the main road.
I'm sure that should something similar happen to this chap not to many tears would be shed.
Interestingly I would like to have seen the sentence he would have got in Saudi Arabi ;-)

Area Trace No Search said...

Where are you mate?

Metcountymounty said...

I'm still around, just been sleeping when I can after nightmare shifts and a course, and I'll probably be sleeping in an office somewhere for a few days at this rate as no one has a fucking clue what we're supposed to be doing over G20 and it's starting on friday!! I've had "yes you'll be working, but no we don't know when or doing what yet" for the last two weeks and being out of the loop completely whilst on nights is a tad frustrating.

I've had aid postings all over the bloody shop and more than a few rants at duties and quite a few people have been royally shafted and have had to cancel holidays booked well in advanced because of extingencies of duty. Needless to say if only half of what we've been hearing about happens it's going to be a nightmare.

Lets just hope that while we're running around london playing silly buggers with a load of swampies that someone serious doesn't get through and kill more than a few people.

Old BE said...

Good luck with the silly buggers.

Tomlinson's ghost said...

The same argument applies to the officer who assaulted the late Mr Tomlinson. I hope you agree that officer needs to be banged up for a very long time.