Ghost drivers - Fatal crash on A66

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, I was being flippant, but on a more serious level, what other types of business are you starting in a town with no money? Where are you getting your capital from? Where are you getting your customers from? Where are you getting your profit from?

Stockton isn't exactly a business paradise, but the upside of that is that rents for premises are very low. And of course there are loads of types of business that don't involve high street premises.

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.

www.google.com

The above link is to a Streetview of Stockton town centre. It's hardly a paradise and the predominant types of shop (pawnbrokers and gambling establishments) are no surprise for a very poor town as it is (though it's also, as such places often are, quite a good night out, because you tend to find that the vast majority of people in such towns are perfectly nice people just getting on with their life the best they can, with the biggest crime they generally commit being driving at 35 in a 30 occasionally or maybe paying the builder in cash to avoid a bit of VAT). There are clearly legitimate businesses being carried on there which will outnumber massively the ones that are breaking the law, at least above petty levels as noted above.

But aside from that, it'll also be possible to get a fair range of minimum wage work there too, as well as recourse to benefits and the housing being about the cheapest place in the country this side of Jaywick (Google it). It is as I said perfectly possible to have a decent basic life on two minimum wages somewhere like that - it won't be posh but you'll manage a basic car and a week away in the summer holidays even if it's a camping holiday or a Jet2 all inclusive in Torremolinos. It's not the life I have nor one I'd necessarily choose, but it's got some things going for it, not least a lack of pressure in the likely work. It's certainly not anything like the struggle of living on a couple of minimum wages in Reading or Milton Keynes, say, or even worse actually in London.

You can thus see why kids like these might have gravitated to a life of crime for the excitement and the fast cars and girls, as it were, Grand Theft Auto style. But for each criminal there are probably twenty (or loads more than that) young people who have some morals just getting on with their more normal if a bit poor life without harming others.

 

[Bantamzen]

I'm struggling with this thread. It must be desparately hard to thrive in an economically depressed region, particularly if you've had a less-than-good upbringing. But none of that excuses driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway, sorry!

No it doesn't excuse it, but it does explain it. When the (seemingly) wealthiest people immediately around you are the gang members and drug dealers, it's not hard to imagine the allure of getting in with the wrong crowd. And when these kids do, they quickly come to believe they are bulletproof, until they're not.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm struggling with this thread. It must be desparately hard to thrive in an economically depressed region, particularly if you've had a less-than-good upbringing. But none of that excuses driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway, sorry!

Exactly. Even if you have chosen a life of petty crime, deliberately driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway is just nuts. It's almost certain death in a way getting a suspended sentence for nicking someone's iPhone isn't.

 

[Bantamzen]

Exactly. Even if you have chosen a life of petty crime, deliberately driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway is just nuts. It's almost certain death in a way getting a suspended sentence for nicking someone's iPhone isn't.

These kind of kids live in a world where they could end up getting beaten up, stabbed, shot or any combination of those at any moment. As a result they lose the sense of fear, and just take the risk of dying as a matter of fact.

 

[AlterEgo]

I'm struggling with this thread. It must be desparately hard to thrive in an economically depressed region, particularly if you've had a less-than-good upbringing. But none of that excuses driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway, sorry!

Yes I think the thread has definitely drifted a lot. And it misses the crux of the issue - these are people with a blood feud against another gang. They're organised criminals. These people are not a symptom of a broken society; they don't want to be part of society and they've taken over public spaces in their area at the expense of ordinary law abiding people who are certainly struggling and doing so on the right side of the law. Many of the people who feel unsafe as a result of their activities no doubt felt partial relief at the car crash, which killed five of them. And a lot of the more extreme solutions will be found coming from the mouths and keyboards of people who are local and directly affected.

 

[martin butler]

For me, its quite clear, if you want to join a gang, commit crime one day, if you do, you are going to die a violent death, either at the hands of another rival gang member, or if your really stupid by being shot by the police,

The Police need to take back the streets from these gangs, because that's what they are, its often turf wars, and the courts need to do their job in making crime not worth the risk, people who commit crime only do it when they think the risk is worth it, and there is a high chance they will get away with it, Longer sentences, no bail, no probation etc, if you're going to do the crime, expect to do the time,

 

[Tetchytyke]

Exactly. Even if you have chosen a life of petty crime, deliberately driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway is just nuts.

The trouble is, there is a certain logic to doing it. The police are obliged to call off pursuits where they get too dangerous, indeed they had called off this one just before the crash happened. So if you really feel the need to get away from the police (and the people involved here were definitely several notches above petty criminals) the most effective way of doing so is to escalate your driving like this as it forces the police to back down.

And it misses the crux of the issue - these are people with a blood feud against another gang. They're organised criminals. These people are not a symptom of a broken society

If organised crime isn't a symptom of a broken society, I don't know what is.

These five kids are dead and I won't be shedding any tears for them, only for the innocent people they took with them.

But they'll already have been replaced with someone else. If you don't stop the conveyor belt of people joining these gangs then you don't stop the gangs. As we've seen with the Kinehans in Ireland, the actual gang leaders won't be anywhere near Middlesbrough- they'll be in Dubai or Marbella.

Stockton isn't exactly a business paradise, but the upside of that is that rents for premises are very low.

They can't give the premises away yet they're still empty. There's a reason for that.

 

[AlterEgo]

The trouble is, there is a certain logic to doing it. The police are obliged to call off pursuits where they get too dangerous, indeed they had called off this one just before the crash happened. So if you really feel the need to get away from the police (and the people involved here were definitely several notches above petty criminals) the most effective way of doing so is to escalate your driving like this as it forces the police to back down

Ultimately the Overton Window will shift as @LowLevel alludes to upthread. People may now wish for the police to end the pursuit using extreme force before you even need to call it off. Policing is by consent and that consent can be conditional and can be fickle. You can see the shifting attitudes to police shootings in England.

People in Leighton Buzzard were relieved when the problem Travellers left after someone tried to blow up a caravan. (For balance, the town also has a few settled Traveller encampments who have been there for a long time and cause no problems to anyone)

If organised crime isn't a symptom of a broken society, I don't know what is.

Lots of very successful and thriving societies also have organised crime. It is hardly novel to England. Britain might be broken but it's not because a small nunber of families - who are worse than cancer - decide, like so many no-marks worldwide, to get into organised crime.

 

[WelshBluebird]

I'm struggling with this thread. It must be desparately hard to thrive in an economically depressed region, particularly if you've had a less-than-good upbringing. But none of that excuses driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway, sorry!

Nobody here is saying it does excuse it. But all of the discussion points go a long way to explaining why it happens. Not as an excuse, but the actual reasons that you need to understand if you want to see real positive change in these kind of parts of the country. These issues exist in deprived areas for a reason (well a number of linked reasons really).

 

[styles]

Ultimately the Overton Window will shift as @LowLevel alludes to upthread. People may now wish for the police to end the pursuit using extreme force before you even need to call it off. Policing is by consent and that consent can be conditional and can be fickle. You can see the shifting attitudes to police shootings in England.

I believe this isn't helped by the sheer amount of time taken for the IOPC to investigate fatalities, then the amount of time taken to get to court, then how long court can take.

The Chris Kaba shooting happened in September 2022 and the IOPC only decided a few weeks ago to drop the misconduct proceedings. That's 4 whole years of not only stress for the officers and Kaba's family, but it leaves far too long for speculation to rise, bearing in mind that the CPS only made a charging decision in 2023, then it wasn't heard until 2024, so in the meantime the police themselves can't release any material evidence. The media and social media are left to run amock with speculation and allegations of racism or other profiling to surface. How the CPS even decided it met the evidential test I don't know. The jury took a mere 16 minutes to come to a verdict. I've done jury service and even the most obvious decisions took longer than that.

It's a similar story with these driving cases. A couple of months ago an officer in Manchester was cleared of causing death by dangerous driving while undertaking a pursuit. That pursuit happened in 2022. 3.5 years to get a serious case like this to court is not justice for the family of those who have died or indeed the officer who ends up suspended for years until it's sorted.

I'm all for checks and balances against the police, and the IOPC and the CPS/PF do need to carefully gather evidence, but they do also need to be conducted in a least a slightly timely manner.

In the inevitable long gap it's going to take for the investigation and inquest into what's gone on in this A66 chase, we've got parents of the perpetrators saying the police should've called it off earlier, and martyrs being created from the friends of the perpetrators whipping up anti-police hatred.

 

[Cowley]

I think that’s probably a good place to leave it for the time being.

As and when there’s anything to add, let us know and we’ll look into reopening it.

Thanks