Another fine example of the overwhelming wisdom and common sense of our wholly tuned-in and responsible judges implementing our security-enhancing, life-affirming human rights law. The Guardian reports:

'A teenager who was ordered not to wear a hooded top as part of an antisocial behaviour order has been allowed to don it again after a court heard the ban breached his human rights. Under the interim Asbo, the 16-year-old was forbidden from wearing a hoodie or a baseball cap that could obscure his face. He was also prevented from entering certain streets in Portsmouth and barred from associating with named youths...William Ashton, representing the teenager, told Portsmouth magistrates court that the headwear ban is "a breach of his right to personal development".'

But of course! What’s the fact that hoods are worn in order to intimidate innocent people and to obscure the faces of those who are about to attack or rob them so they cannot be identified by comparison with the right of such youths to ‘personal development’ – which of course will be stunted by having to display their faces, a horrific encroachment on their right to intimidate which will undoubtedly blight their lives and cause them to seek counselling for trauma. Doubtless Scotland’s approach is nearer to the judiciary’s sophisticated grasp of human rights. As the Times reports:

'Angus Council in Scotland has outraged locals by its decision to spend £1,500 of taxpayers' earnings on a bronze statue of a teenager in a "hoody" and baggy trousers... Residents say the council is wasting money on a celebration of unruly youths. The sculpture, Nike, will be created by Des Smith, an art student at Dundee University, who won the Angus Art Commission. The council says the work will force people to re-evaluate their concept of the state of youth.'

Re-evaluate the state of Britain's sanity, surely?

Posted by melanie at August 30, 2005