BBC: Raid police apologise for 'hurt'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5077198.stm

The police have apologised for the "hurt" they caused two brothers who were arrested on suspicion of terrorism involvement but freed without charge.
One brother, Mohammed Abdul Kahar, was shot in the police raid on his family's home in Forest Gate, east London.

His younger brother, Abul Koyair, was also arrested in the raid involving 250 police, but neither were charged.

Mr Kahar had earlier told how he thought the house was being robbed and that he would be killed by armed men.

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Yea.........getting shot in the chest sure might 'hurt'.:sarcasm:

...they just booted the door in and started screaming at everyone.

Guess that's standard procedure for those suspected of being brown while in possession of a beard.

When they pay out tens of millions in damages.

No such thing as punitive damages under UK civil law. You can only claim damages for quantifiable loss (property damage, loss of earnings, etc.) and a small amount (by US standards) for mental suffering (and some decisions have even refused to award that). They'll probably get about $50k each, if they're lucky, and an apology that's worth the paper it's written on.

According to a weekend Guardian article, EU civil laws allow for punitive damages.

The court can impose heavy fines, but the proceeds don't go to the victims. And courts don't generally fine government agencies, because the money just ends up going in a big circle, from the Treasury back to the Treasury.

If nothing else, there will be an investigation and hopefully the government will stop using informants with dubious intentions and go back to using good old fashion investigative work, and stop acting like cowboys.

Public inquiries and 'independent' police investigations tend to be stacked with 'establishment' figures and senior police officers from other forces around the country. In the end, these inquiries offer-up one or two sacrificial scapegoats (usually fairly junior officers or politicians), but rarely say anything about the system that led to the 'mistake' or the political machinations behind it.

So now the Metropolitan Police have murdered a Brazilian electrician, shot an innocent man in his own home, spent billions of pounds extending the police-state infrastructure until Britons are now the most 'watched' people in the world (the average Londoner appears on 300 surveillance cameras per day), pushed for the introduction of expensive and pointless biometric national ID cards, and have precisely zero to show for it in terms of increasing the security of the country. Bravo!

Seems he just got the year wrong.

'1984' was just a reversal of the year in which he wrote the book, 1948, and wasn't meant to be a firm prediction about the likely timeframe of a totalitarian world. Indeed, Eric Blair (Orwell's real name) believed that the world was already very like the place he described in the book. He'd be even more convinced of it today.

They are more interested in an apology right now rather than suing the police. The UK is not as 'sue happy' as the US.

Being shot in the chest by a police officer could leave quite serious lifelong medical problems (physical and psychological).