Nanny really does care about her "charges" and their human rights. In fact she cares about them so much, that even criminal drug addicts are set to receive a special payment to compensate them for the fact that they can't access the drugs of their choice when in jail.
Yes, you did read that correctly!
It seems that around 200 drug-addicted convicts will receive a compensation payout of almost £700K, after Nanny gave in to claims that stopping their use of drugs breached their human rights.
It seems that if the claims brought by the inmate junkies had reached court, the inmates could have been granted even more compensation.
The 198 prisoners were receiving treatment to help them kick hard drug addictions.
They had been receiving drugs such as methadone, paid for by Nanny (oops, I mean paid for by us). However, the policy was changed and the most effective treatment was deemed to be a slice of "cold turkey" - as it were.
How appropriate at this time of year!.
The junkies, using legal aid, argued that this was unlawful under Nanny's Human Rights Act and should count as "torture" or "degrading treatment".
Given that it was not Nanny who made them take drugs in the first place, I find that argument to be somewhat tenuous.
They went on to argue that the prison system had no right to make them stop, or to put them through detox programmes without their consent.
The average payment will be around £3.5K each.
Norman Brennan of the Victims of Crime Trust said:
"This case loses sight of the fact that taking drugs is illegal,
and these prisoners took drugs of their own accord
and broke the law to fund their habits.
The Human Rights Convention was set up
after the war in response to Nazi atrocities.
It is disgraceful that 60 years later
the Human Rights Act is benefiting offenders bringing such frivolous claims."
There are two ironies in this story:
- Prisons are awash with illicit narcotics anyway, so these guys will readily have access to the drugs of their choice.
- Honest, non drug addicted people, are being denied life saving drugs by Nanny's NHS in order to save money.
wonder if i will be able to claim compensation next July?
ReplyDeleteNow that is an interesting point Dave - presumably the smoking in enclosed spaces ban covers prisons (as they are public buildings), so there are going to be thousands of claims submitted in June following this precedent!
ReplyDeleteSeems Prisoners are exempt from this rule, although prison officers will not be allowed to smoke at work, will there be a hotline for the inmates to grass on officers that break this rule? perhaps they could recive a reward for doing their civic duty, a half ounce of snout should suffice.
ReplyDeleteI have been searching for days for this post and I am so glad I found it again.
ReplyDeleteI discoved some weird changes going on with the way people are getting treated regarding mental health and addiction and often these changes happen so quickly and quietly that we never really understand them.
This 'Human's Rights Act' we have in NZ looks like it can be totally exploited.
Since learning that women's rights to vote was something that happened by accident I am optimistic enough to believe we can change some of these laws that are cripling the country like the 'Child Support Act' by accident also.
Apparently, the Human Rights Act over-rides other acts and if it means you can't force people to do things and such ... But I am only at the beginning to find the potentials. This is very helpful. It is tempting to let it loose in our criminal system but I don't want to do that in haste without first knowing if we can hit 'Nanny' from heaps of sides.
If you have any other information like this I would really appreciate it.