Wandsworth Council Open Can of Worms Over Looter Eviction.

Wandsworth council have joined in with the cries for retribution, the baying for looter blood and the general knee-jerk concensus by issuing an eviction order on the family of a boy charged in connection with the rioting and looting last week.

Here is Wandsworth's own press release.

Note first the the son has only been charged. There has been no successful conviction, only an allegation. The case has yet to be proved in court. So the son may yet be found not guilty, but the council have still pressed ahead with serving the eviction order? I think there would be a successful claim by the family if that was so. I also wonder whether there is an issue of contempt of court in that a legal body has pre-empted the results of a current court case.

Another point: is this policy only going to be applied with such vigour for looters and rioters and their families? What about rapists, murderers, petty thieves, violent husbands and wives, etc. Would the children of a convicted paedophile then be evicted because their parent assaulted them or possibly the children of neighbours?

Where do you start evictions and just where do you stop? These are not black and white situations and the clunking fist of local government is doomed to failure and ridicule in this matter unless it begins to work in a more subtle way.

I've noticed that Sky News has amended its script to carefully point out that the person involved has only been charged and not yet been convicted of being involved in the rioting. Possibly a way round a contempt of court charge?

Wandsworth council could be made to look a right bunch of twats over this.