Mike Graham speaks to barrister Chris Daw for what was originally intended to be a discussion on Britain’s prison capacity crisis.
However, the conversation takes a turn to Donald Trump and a previous civil trial where the President was found liable for sexual assault against writer E Jean Carroll in May 2023.
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#donaldtrump #trump #crime
However, the conversation takes a turn to Donald Trump and a previous civil trial where the President was found liable for sexual assault against writer E Jean Carroll in May 2023.
Click here for more from Talk https://talk.tv
If you need any help visit: https://talk.tv/helplines
#donaldtrump #trump #crime
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00:00Let's talk to Chris Still first though. KC Barrister, writer and broadcaster, he's
00:04going to tell us what he makes of what David Gauke has said. He's the former
00:07Tory Justice Secretary of course who's leading a review on the state of our
00:12current prisons and he's come out and basically said that responsibility for
00:17the prison service failing is down to politicians who want to be tough on
00:21crime. Chris, a very good morning to you. Morning Mike. I don't know if he's right
00:26about this. I mean David Gauke was never one of my favourite Justice Ministers I
00:29have to say. I don't think he was much good at it. He's been given this sort of new
00:33operation to look over the prison service which for me is clearly not fit
00:38for purpose. I mean everybody knows that the prison service doesn't work but is
00:41it really the fault of, it's the fault of politicians for not building more
00:44prisons in my view, but what do you think? No, quite the opposite. We've been
00:48building prisons and increasing our prison population and increasing number
00:51of people in prison ever since the early 1990s when I first became a criminal
00:55lawyer. We've seen the prison population go up from around 40 something thousand
00:59to well over 80 thousand at a time when the crime rates and the general
01:04demographics of crime in our society have actually been falling and we've
01:07done all of that for the very reasons that David Gauke has identified which
01:11are that successive governments, and it really began with the Blair government
01:15in the 90s and has carried on ever since, have always gone to the
01:19election promising to increase the length of prison censuses and that's
01:23exactly what they've done. The problem Mike is that it hasn't achieved anything
01:27other than increasing criminality amongst that group of people who are
01:30sent to prison and increasing their long-term offending rates whereas all
01:35the other alternatives have a much better success rate at achieving the
01:39number one priority for our criminal justice system which I hope you agree
01:42with me Mike is to reduce the amount of crime in society and to reduce the number of
01:46victims of crime in our society. That would be nice. The trouble is Chris is we keep
01:51hearing that crime is now lower than it was and it doesn't feel like that so
01:55there must be a reason for that there must be a reason why people feel less
01:58safe less secure you know less likely to be victims of crime because I think
02:03there's a problem with some of the ways that crime is now recorded I think
02:06there's a problem with the way that statistics are put together because
02:10there's no doubt in my mind for example that in London right now where I've
02:13lived for a very long time and I've lived in various different decades of it
02:16you know the crime in London right now has never been as bad as this. Well
02:21that's just not true Mike. It is true actually. It's not true it's not true
02:26that crime in London is bigger than it's ever been that's complete
02:29nonsense I mean when were the last time you were a victim of crime when was the
02:32last time 99% of people were the victim of crime? I was a victim of crime in October of last
02:36year. And what was that? I had my phone stolen. Okay and stolen from what
02:41location? Robbery or just a sneak theft? It was snatched out of my hand on the
02:45Jamaica Road. Okay. By a bloke on a moped and a thousand of those crimes
02:51happen every single week in London right? That didn't happen ten years ago.
02:55That didn't happen ten years ago because because mobile phones were a
02:59different kind of phone they're much more valuable now they're much easier
03:02for people to sell on. No, when mobile phones first came out you paid an awful lot more money you do
03:07for one now you can now get one for ten quid a month people had to spend two
03:11thousand pounds in in the days when they first came out and if you nicked one
03:15you'd make a lot more money. Well if you look on the Apple website you'll find that iPhones are costs that can cost well over a
03:19thousand pounds. Yeah I know but you can get a plan that gets you one for ten quid the fact is
03:23they're not very difficult to get is my point the point is when mobile phones
03:27were first invented back in the 1980s and you had to carry around a suitcase
03:31they're worth about three grand. That's true but we can get stuck on mobile
03:35phones but the truth of the matter is the mobile phone companies Apple and all
03:38the manufacturers could stop that dead in its tracks by simply bricking each
03:43phone as soon as it was reported stolen to the police so it was utterly useless
03:46and could never be used then we'd have no more mobile phone crime because it
03:49would be completely pointless the government's already pointed this out to
03:52the manufacturers but they don't want to do it for reasons no doubt commercial or
03:56otherwise it doesn't suit them to do it but but that's that mean that we should
03:59have to get manufacturers everybody manufacturers should not be changing
04:02what they sell in order to stop crime what I'm saying to you is that street
04:06crime in London, we have car alarms, we have all sorts of technology. Yeah but people will steal things because they're bad people right if you've got
04:15they want to steal things because they're usually desperate for money to buy drugs or alcohol or because they're part of a gang.
04:21Which desperate people are stealing Range Rovers and selling them to
04:26Russians and driving them all the way over to Russia? Are they desperate or are
04:29they organised crime people? Mike some of them are organised crime you're
04:33absolutely right the individuals on the streets committing these crimes are
04:37often young people they are people who are on the margins of society they're
04:42They're criminals Chris. Mike what's the point okay so I've got an idea Mike how
04:49about double the sentences for everyone again like we've already done let's have
04:53160 or 300,000 people in prison and then see if that's a society you actually
04:58want to live in. I want to live in a society like many other societies in
05:02many other countries where there are not dangers when you walk on the street
05:05you're going to get stolen. Are you talking about Dubai? I've been to many countries where you can walk around quite safely and talk on
05:16your phone without it being stolen out of your hand. So have I. I've been to Norway, I've been to Finland, I've been to Sweden, I've been to countries that don't imprison many people they
05:24hardly imprison anyone at all. Sweden right now has got one of the worst gang
05:28problems that any country has ever had you know why? Because they've imported, not anymore they haven't because they've got an
05:35absolute epiphany going on right now with their criminal justice system. I'm sorry you're just dragging this all back to immigration again. I'm not dragging it back to immigration. You're the one that mentioned immigration. I'm talking about gangs in Sweden some of which are
05:51homegrown gangs actually I don't know why you suddenly jumped on immigration. Many of them are homegrown gangs. You're not thinking of homegrown Swedish gangs Mike. Your agenda here every single day. I don't have an agenda. You talk about Trump. Donald Trump grabbed women by the
06:04vagina without their consent and you are largely about Donald Trump. What's that got to do with prisoners in Britain? What's wrong with you? You're a bit deranged today Chris. No you're deranged Mike. You've just been binging up Donald Trump for about 20 minutes when the guy is an international
06:18psycho. Why is that bothering you? He's looking to take 2 million people out of their homes and put them in a foreign country. Why does it bother you Chris? Why does it bother me? Because there are certain values that the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe fought for in the Second World War. Oh yeah. Stood up to Nazi Germany, stood up to Russia and the Soviet Union and now Donald Trump is basically getting into bed with exactly the mindset and the philosophy that destroyed the continent of Europe for decades. So you're not in favour of him stopping a war in Ukraine then are you?
06:48Of course I'm in favour of it. So you're in favour of something that he's done then? What does that make you? A supporter of Donald Trump? No I'm not a supporter of Donald Trump because you don't. You've just said you're in favour of something that he's doing. By telling everybody what it's going to be without negotiating with them, without even having a discussion. That's not a peace deal. That's an arrogant narcissist who spends his entire time trying to get news attention every single day, every single headline. He wants it to be about himself. How do you know that?
07:15Because it's so obvious to anyone. This is a self-confessed sex offender. He's not a sex offender at all. That's absolutely untrue. I mean you're a lawyer Chris. He says when I'm famous I can grab them by the you-know-what and they don't even stop me. That's what he said. Play the recording back. Is that evidence that you would be happy to represent and use in a courtroom then?
07:35No you wouldn't. It's crystal clear confession. It's not evidence is it? Of course it's evidence. A confession is one of the most common forms of evidence. And it's quite often inadmissible in court because it might be taken more seriously when you think it's serious. Only when it's been extracted by force or oppression or something. Not when he's laughing with his mates, telling them how he did a sexual assault. Maybe he's just boasting. Well if you were his lawyer you'd probably say he was just boasting. You'd get him off wouldn't you?
08:00If I was his lawyer I would certainly try and defend him but I'll tell you what it'd be a tough job defending him on the sex offence. He already found in court who had committed rape in court. Why are we even talking about this Chris? I think you need to go and have a lie down in a dark room. You're obviously very troubled by a man who has no effects on your life. I think he was supposed to be having a conversation about criminal justice policy and the farcical over-incarceration in this country that's been going on for generations. And the best you can do is no let's have more presence.
08:26Why can't we get back to that conversation and talk about why more people should be locked up so the streets are safer for ordinary people to walk around? But they're not. Mike, you say that, look at the evidence. Hang on, you talk about sex offenders, hang on, you hang on a minute Chris, you hang on a minute Chris, you hang on a minute. You talk about sex offenders right? There are more sexual offences committed in this country which are unsolved thanks to the useless criminal justice system and the useless police system. Why don't you talk about them? Why don't you talk about the sex offenders that are raping women?
08:54I've talked about this countless times.
08:56Why don't you talk about the rape gangs that are raping young girls? Why don't you talk about that?
09:00Let me talk about this. If you'd been watching Channel 4 News a few weeks ago you'd have heard me being interviewed by a young woman I was representing who had been the victim of rape gangs and child sexual abuse for years. I acted for her, I defended her and I got her some sort of justice. And that's exactly what I do every day Mike. I don't just talk the talk, I actually talk the war for criminal justice.
09:22Well why do you think that all of those crimes went unpunished for such a long time?
09:26I'll tell you, there's two reasons. One, massive under-resource in sexual offence investigation.
09:30No, rubbish. People ignored it. People ignored it.
09:33No. Have you any idea how many...
09:34Of course they did.
09:35One police officer has to deal with up to 100 individual allegations. It's impossible for a police officer to properly do their job.
09:42No, so there's not enough police then?
09:44That's what they have.
09:45Doesn't that tell you that we've got too many criminals?
09:47It tells you that we have no idea how to deal with crime because our solution is always the same. Politicians will just say, give them longer sentences.
09:56Well let me put it to you this way. If somebody raped a member of my family, I'd want them locked up for a very long time so they couldn't rape anybody else.
10:03Absolutely.
10:04Do you have a different solution for that?
10:05I don't have a different solution.
10:06So we shouldn't be locking people up for longer then?
10:09Mike, it's a very nuanced question because they're very different kinds of crime.
10:13It's very emotive.
10:14Oh really? Tell me something I didn't know.
10:16Sexual offences. Child sexual offences. That is a catastrophic problem in all societies, but particularly in our society at the moment.
10:23We need grown-up solutions, put more resource into it, give victim advocates so that victims can have their own advocate in the process, which currently doesn't take place.
10:33I've been arguing for this reform for years, but it's a completely different argument to the one about our general addiction to the use of custody for everything, and longer and longer sentences.
10:42We've been doing it for 30 years. The reason people perceive things differently, Mike, frankly, from reality, is because people like you are telling them rubbish every day.
10:50So they're all stupid and I've influenced everybody's thought process.
10:52They're not stupid, they're misinformed.
10:54No, they're not misinformed. I tell the truth, Chris, which is what you don't do.
10:58You spent half the interview ranting on about a president of another country that has no bearing on the conversation that we're supposed to be having.
11:05You've been adoring for the last 20 minutes.
11:07I don't adore anybody. You've got me wrong completely, Chris.
11:09Why don't you call it as it is, Mike? He's a self-confessed sex offender and a rapist.
11:13No, he's not. No, you go back onto it again.
11:15I mean, it's like catching fish in a barrel with you.
11:18Just get rid of Chris. He's obviously gone mad.
11:20Go and lie down. Go and see a psychiatrist, mate.
11:23I tell you what, you might need it. It might help you out.
11:25Maybe lock yourself in a room for a while and see whether or not that helps. I don't know.
11:29I don't know what the answer is for Trump derangement syndrome.
11:31Maybe a long holiday in Tennessee or somewhere like that.
11:34See what they do with prisoners in America.
11:52I don't know.