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The farcical and tragic case of Bob Ashford

August 9, 2012 10:53 am

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Bob Ashford was recently selected as Labour’s Police and Crime Commissioner candidate for Avon and Somerset. It wasn’t a particularly close selection – Bob won by around 400 votes – and he had every chance of becoming one of Labour’s first police commissioners in November. Except yesterday he had to step down as Labour’s candidate, due to an “offence” that he “committed” 46 years ago.

When he was thirteen.

As the Guardian rightly notes, Ashford could become Prime Minister, but thanks to the way the legislation was drawn up, he can’t become a Police and Crime Commissioner. I wouldn’t wish to do down the role of PCC before the roles have even been filled, but I think we know which one is more important, don’t we?

Ashford has chronicled the full story of his ‘imprisonable offence’ on his website. In short, by his account, 13 year old Bob went out with some other boys. One of them had an air gun. Bob never touched it – but he was caught by police. He pleaded guilty, paid a fine, and that was that. Thanks to that single incident, the people of Avon and Somerset will be denied the chance to vote for Bob because of an irrelevant act from a lifetime ago.

Since then, Bob has clocked up all manner of relevant experience. He’s worked as a senior social worker, a Youth Offending Team Manager and been a member of the Youth Justice Board (becoming the Director of Strategy).

He even has Whitehall security clearance, has worked with ministers and has signed the Official Secrets declaration.

All of that is more relevant than his proximity to an air gun 46 years ago. But none of that matters. Bob is still not allowed to stand. We trust him with official secrets and government ministers, but because he once spent time with the wrong person at the wrong time as a child, we evidently can’t trust him with a police force.

What an absolute farce.

Labour should commit to amending this this flawed legislation so that good candidates like Bob Ashford aren’t excluded again in future, and to think again about how youth convictions can blight even a life as impressive as Ashford’s. As Bob himself has said:

“This new legislation barring myself and others from standing as a PCC because of offences committed as young people perpetuates the disadvantage inflicted upon all young people convicted of offences.”

A 46 year disadvantage. The government evidently believes that mistakes and criminal behaviour are enough to tar someone for life, even if – as in Bob’s case – he appears to have done little wrong. The Guardian also reports that Labour went along with the extremely tight rules on the treatment of juvenile convictions when the legislation was drawn up. So shame on us too.

So much for rehabilitation. It seems we’d rather look tough, than have a man like Bob Ashford playing a role in policing.

And that’s more than a farce, it’s a bloody tragedy.

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  • Bill Lockhart

    Meanwhile in a parallel universe, a parallel Mark Ferguson is raving about the “disgrace” of a Tory with a spent airgun offence being allowed to stand for Police Commissioner because the legislation was changed so as to ignore long-past minor offences…. “Tory armed robber stands for PCC scandal”

  • KonradBaxter

    “Labour should commit to amending this this flawed legislation so that good candidates…”
    Labour should work with the government to amend this legislation sooner. Put it on the agenda as an issue to fix now, not wait until 20XX to start to maybe do something about it. This is a cross party issue and should be dealt with as one.

    He seems like a good candidate and should be the catalyst for change here along with Simon Weston.

    ” The government evidently believes that mistakes and criminal behaviour are enough to tar someone for life…”

    Does it? Or is it a case of legislation being applied?  He does not seem to blame the government especially.

     ”…there was cross-party agreement on the extremely tight rules on the treatment of juvenile convictions when the legislation was drawn up.Home Office and Election Commission officials were asked to look again at the regulations. They came back and said the way the law was drafted meant there was no room for manoeuvre…”

    so it does not seem to be a government issue alone but because of cross party support for poor legislation.

    • markfergusonuk

      In fairness Konrad, I do say that Labour went along with it too…

      • KonradBaxter

        Yes you did and kudos. But this is not ‘the government’, this is the legislation. Labour evidently believes that mistakes and criminal behaviour are enough to tar someone for life.

        This is prime cross party campaign territory. Common sense says he should be able to stand.

        • Dave Postles

           Yes, it should be amended swiftly by cross-party collaboration.   It’s too late for Messrs Weston and Ashford, but surely the relevant Select Committee could start some activity in this front as a cross-party initiative.

  • ThePurpleBooker

    In this particular position perhaps Bob should seek an appeal or something, but I do not believe that it is at all right for us in Government to be tough on crime and to have tough consequences on that. I see no shame.

    • Chilbaldi

      stop reading from the 1997 manifesto.

      • treborc

        well that’s where he gets most of his idea from.

  • http://twitter.com/ToryUturn Tory U turn

    In my mind this is daft and it only goes to further prove how hard it is for many ordinary members of society with cautions for petty/juvenile crimes who can’t get jobs for a wide range of low key/low skilled ares, due to abusive CRB checks by scandalous employers. These types of actions neither promote justice or rehabilitation for offenders.

    I believe it’s about time something changed.

  • Amber Star

    Labour shouldn’t be fielding official Party candidates anyway. If  Labour people what to give it a go, e.g. John Prescott, let them stand as independents with the Party’s ‘blessing’. We opposed politicising the police; we should’ve stuck to our guns.

    • ThePurpleBooker

      No, it’s an election and we want to fight it. The Tories opposed a Mayor of London they fought the election, the Lib Dems opposed a Mayor of Bristol and they are fighting for one, the Tories opposed devolution and they are fighting for seats in the Scottish Parliament. That is not how politics works. Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with bringing police forces under the control of directly-elected mayors and local government.

      • http://www.facebook.com/ric.euteneuer.3 Ric Euteneuer

        We (well, at least non-Progress members of the Party) are not Tories or Lib Dems, though.

        It may have escaped your notice, Purplebooker, but the Police have been thriving under the dead hand of the state for some time now. What we’re talking about is handing responsibility from a democratically elected group of people, to a single person. Something that, incidentally, the private sector (and Blairite local givernment thinktank) the New Local Government Network (NLGN) have been advocating for years.

  • John Spellar MP

    But this is symptomatic of a much wider problem whereby tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people are denied employment opportunities because of problems in their youth, even police cautions , leading them to fail CRB checks.The intention of the Rehabilitation Offenders Act is being subverted and there needs to be urgent legislation  

    • http://twitter.com/ToryUturn Tory U turn

      I agree, but when are Labour going to commit to rehabilitating criminals and not criminalising everyone for any reason under so many laws?

    • http://twitter.com/NewhamSue Newham Sue

       and access to mainstream insurance (even if their conviction has nothing to do with fraud/ arson or anything else that could be related to swindling their insurance)

  • Hamish

    So, when’s Eric Joyce going to resign?

    • John Dore

      Different circs, this is a tragedy, Joyce is a politician. If Joyce is an issue to you, write an article if you want.

    • Amber Star

      Eric will be standing down at the next election, I believe.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/UIVHWRHBE3SAXD62FZDP43GNIE Dave

    It’s a pity the same wasn’t said when Simon Weston experienced the same problem for the South Wales post or are we only interested in seeing fairness for Labour Party Candidates.

  • http://twitter.com/NewhamSue Newham Sue

    The worst thing about this is that his experience of dealing with the police in that situation should have been a plus not a minus ..madness!

  • John Dore

    A real shame, he didn’t try to hide it. What’s really galling is that he brings wide experience and could really have added some value. 
    A loss for everyone.

  • Quiet_Sceptic

    There’s a lot of partisan bluster flying about but it’s actually a very tricky issue because some youth convictions are for very serious offenses.

    Would we ever want someone convicted, albeit as a youth, of serious violence, racist or homophobic acts, murder or rape in the role of a PCC? Even if they were convicted 5, 10, 20, or 40 years ago.

    Ignoring all youth convictions just isn’t credible, you’d have to give some serious consideration as to which types of crime would be discounted and which would not.

    • PeterBarnard

      Perhaps a starting position could be indictable offences vs non-indictable offences, QS?

      • Quiet_Sceptic

        It’s one solution although what do you do about either-way offenses?

        • PeterBarnard

          I’m not sure how many “either-way” offences there are, QS (I guess by “either-way” you mean where someone charged with an offence can themselves elect for trial by jury?).

          If the law has decided, in the first instance, that an offence is “summary,” I would (at first bat) say, “If it’s good enough for the law, it should be good enough for election as a PCC.” 

          If the incidence of such instances of “way back when” is low, perhaps a panel (three member?) of “the great and the good” in a locality could be established to say yea/nay?

          And, surely, the statute of limitations if it is to mean anything should also be considered?

          • PeterBarnard

            For QS (added) : the “great and the good” could be, say, three electoral registration officers (with a probity level of 100% in the public estimation) from outside the area?

  • Alan Giles

    It is absurd to preclude anybody for a minor offence committed 46 years ago.  What concerns me much more than what a 13 year old schoolboy got up to in 1966, is that at least two candidates (Prescott & Vera Baird) were outed as expenses fiddlers less than 3 years ago, one had been Solicitor General!

  • Mr Chippy

    John is right. Newly qualified teachers in Wales have their right to join the teaching register questioned by youthful misdemeanours.

    Something John may not agree with me on is the class based application of justice. The Bullingdon Boys are demonstrating youthful exhuberance so may not have minor convictions. Working class youths are hooligans and are arrested and prosecuted.

  • https://mikestallard.virtualgallery.com/ Mike Stallard

    OK.
    “Labour should commit to amending this this flawed legislation”.
    So the killers of Jamie Bulger should be allowed to run the Police?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPXYLRVP4XOIGGDJWAL6HUO7U4 David

    This article raises some interesting points which are potentially difficult to reconcile.

    Firstly however, a minor beef:
    “due to an “offence” that he “committed” 46 years ago”

    I do not see why those words are in quotations: later on the article states that he was caught and pleaded guilty (the fact that many years afterwards he has taken pains to point out he was innocent really strikes me as being of limited value as evidence goes): carrying a lethal weapon in public was (and is) an offence, and at the time he said he did it, so justice was served.

    So the question comes down to three main points:

    a) Was it a mistake for the legislation to exclude all former criminals from running?  I find it difficult to believe such a point was not debated in one or both of the Houses, but have not had the time or inclination yet to scour Hansard to confirm this.  The suggestion here is that it was a mistake, although I would propose that this was likely to be the settled will of Parliament.  If this case serves to encourage politicians to re-visit this issue then they are free to do so, but it should not be “because” of this case (justice should be blind, after all), but instead as a considered position that Parliament believes is appropriate to write into law.  If that is the case then we get to point 2:

    b) What sorts of “crimes” are we willing to accept for our Police Commissioners? I would suggest that the public would have very little tolerance for any form of crime that speaks to their “character”.  Offences as a minor can perhaps be treated differently, but as is pointed out below even there some crimes would clearly be unacceptable (c.f. Bulger case), and so creating a law that is both comprehensive and blind would be difficult, and exceptions (where a Commissioner is elected and subsequently reveals a crime that “slipped through”, to much public revulsion) would create a far more serious problem than the travails of Mr Ashford.  Which leads us to point 3:

    c) How and why were Mr Ashford and the Conservative equivalent allowed or encouraged to stand?  That points to party officers being unaware of the details of the law in circumstances where they are putting candidates forward (who will typically have a much greater chance of election than independents, in all practical likelihood) and that is a serious concern: if they’ve got this wrong, what else have they got wrong, and are they definitely putting the best candidates forward if they don’t fully understand the job specs?  As it happens, it sounds to me like Mr Ashford is excellently qualified (his disqualification notwithstanding), but I think it is folly to suggest that he is, by definition, the best candidate as there may be other equally excellent candidates standing there and elsewhere outside the party.

  • Never Again Labour

    Oh dear, the authoritarian Labour Party which I left in disgust many years ago finds that such idiotic legislation can turn around to bite them on their backside. How very suitable.

    How many children did Labour’s vile excuses for Home Secretary’s send down the same road with such wonderful legislation as Section 30 Dispersal Orders, where anyone could be criminalised at the drop of a hat simply by returning to a piece of tarmac?

    Mind you, at least Bob Ashford didn’t have his DNA profile taken, to be kept stored, ready to be used as evidence against him at any point in the future should his DNA ever accidentally turn up at a crime scene due to a stray hair for example.

    The Labour Party were too tribal, arrogant and stupid to listen to the arguements many of us put forward when Labour were in power, so it seems fitting now that a certain amount of “I told you so” will emerge. And let’s be honest, it could happen to a more vile neo liberal excuse for a Labour Party than the vermin, pond life and parasites who pray on the working classes than the current Labour leadership could it?

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