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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Campaigners seek royal pardon for metric martyrs |
| 2008-10-24 |
| From the Rantburg "Too off-the-wall to Label Story in an Age of Terrorism" desk, I submit the following bytes: Campaigners have called for royal pardons for market traders given criminal records for selling goods in imperial rather than metric measures after a government climbdown. Lawyers representing the so-called "metric martyrs", who were prosecuted for continuing to sell fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces after the metric weights and measures rules came into force in 2000, are drawing up a formal plea to be presented to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary. It comes after The Daily Telegraph reported last week that the Government had effectively banned councils from prosecuting any more traders for what it regards as "essentially minor offences". Overzealous councils dogpile on people for minor matters. Small minds think alike. John Denham, the Innovation Secretary, is planning to issue guidelines to local authorities within months, preventing them taking such cases to court as it is no longer considered to be "in the public interest". It's going to take months Mr. Innovation Secretary, to come up with this set of guidelines? Got a budget to go along with this little idea? Neil Herron, the campaign director of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund, said the group has instructed lawyers to formally call for the handful of traders who have received criminal records to be pardoned in light of the new policy. And now the Lawyers are getting involved. That would include a posthumous pardon for Steve Thoburn, the Sunderland greengrocer who became the first "metric martyr" when he was convicted of selling goods only in imperial measures in 2001. He died in 2004. On his tombstone, the Council probably remarked his epitath: "Give them an inch and they take a mile," to "Give them a cm and they take a km." It would also affect market traders Colin Hunt, from London, who was given a 12-month conditional discharge in 2001 for selling produce only by the pound; John Dove, from Camelford in Cornwall, who met the same fate for failing to advertise the price of his fish in kilograms, and Julian Harman, who broke the law by offering Brussels Sprouts for sale on his stall at 39p per pound. Janet Devers, an east London market trader, had to pay nearly £5,000 in costs and received a criminal record earlier this month after a prosecution brought by Hackney council. Selling Brussels Sprouts by the pound is now high treason in the EU. Didn't know if you knew that. In Mrs Devers's case, the 64-year-old stallholder's imperial scales were seized and she was charged with 12 separate offences under weights and measures law. After her conviction, she said: "I've been made a scapegoat. To get a criminal record for this is absolutely outrageous. There are 30 other stalls in my market doing what I'm doing, and yet they have chosen to prosecute me." YJCMTSU [*sigh*] |
| Posted by:Alaska Paul |
| #2 Are they gonna change what they call their money, too? Wont be pounds any more. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2008-10-24 16:09 |
| #1 We rolled over and gave away our blessed small block 302's and 350's for a bunch of 5 Liter engines and now: What's next? will they take away the sacred 2 x 4 from all us "Home Improvement" types and make us think metric????? "A gram or prevention is worth a kilo of cure" just doesn't roll off the tongue, |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2008-10-24 14:10 |