There's times I realise how detached I am from what goes on about me. Maybe it's a good thing to be in a bubble sometimes. I ended up in this disabled unfriendly, plush, multi - storied place with a neighbour (no disabled parking nearby).
He accidentally ran a red traffic light on a rare visit to Belfast. He was caught on camera. The first he knew that he had committed a punishable offence was receiving a bundle of documents by post that included a 'witness' statement signed by a police person, effectively verifying the veracity of the camera equipment that photographed him go through a red light. It mattered not a jot that he has had a clean driving licence for 43 years.
So it's a politically designed money generating scam; with the police just another taxman. Why the camera couldn't be verified by an administration person as it's a soft crime detected electronically and put lazy police out on the beat to properly earn their pay would be sensible. Maybe given his life-long clean driving record perhaps the penalty could be waived. This too would be reasonable.
My neighbour had accepted the £90 fine and 3 penalty points on his licence just to avoid the further time and cost of going to court (if one hits 12 points in 3 years their driving licence is revoked). He sent off his licence and payment. This got lost either in the post or at its destination.
So we ended up here trying to get the paperwork resubmitted to the payment office to avoid a court hearing. We were dealt with by a pleasant barrister; and while she felt the re-referral might work she was uncertain.
This place is built on prime city centre real estate at Belfast's waterfront. It is marble floored, heated sufficiently to grow pineapples, filled with an abundance of security staff and stuffed with coiffured lawyers & barristers dripping in Prada, Gucci & expensive watches and shoes serving 'clients' many of whom need help not punishment.
The abundant legal aid overpaid to self important legal technicians would be better spent on crime prevention. The lawyers have their own entrance to the building here and a separate place for refreshments so minimising the risk of their spending any more time than absolutely necessary with their clients. Heaven fore fend.
The law is expensively dispensed here; rarely justice only the law, though people usually confuse the two when really they are third cousins twice removed who rarely meet.
If it were my decision I'd locate this place in an industrial estate at the edge of the city where there's much reclaimed bog land on a bus route with plenty of disabled parking, a tea/coffee vending machine and charge the legal technicians parking fees.
Contrast this surreal, expensive, pampered and perfumed world with our cash-starved health service where someone close to me recently paid to park in a hospital car park to go and sit on a torn, stained chair in a cool drafty Victorian corridor in a hospital in much need of modernisation, waiting thirty minutes beyond appointment time to see a medical consultant having been on a waiting list for 15 months to be told they needed a camera examination to determine if a cancer was present.
The consultant felt it wasn't urgent. This means a 28 week wait or until mid 2018. Had he determined it urgent the wait would be 12 weeks or early in 2018. When asked about private treatment the same consultant (who would be using the same NHS hospital & equipment) instantly said the cost was £900, if you wish please pick a date to attend within the next week and we'll sort you out.
So we live in a place where soft law is indiscriminately, electronically and quickly dispensed by a lazy police force, and processed by an overpaid, pampered, rich legal profession in 5 star cosseted conditions yet those under the threat of cancer pay to park to attend a deliberately run down intentionally cash-starved hospital and either live with the anxiety of uncertainty and without treatment (treatment only follows diagnosis) or stump up enough money to attend a worn out hospital, which has already been paid for by taxpayers, to be examined using equipment already paid for by taxpayers, to be diagnosed by a medical consultant who already takes at least £150k in pay annually from the public health service further lining his already gold stuffed pockets.
This is the wilfully politically designed reality for many millions of people throughout this country. Am I glad I stay in my own bubble as much as I can. We treat our chickens better under an RHI scheme. read more
