GETTING AWAY WITH IT

15-02-2007

Thousands of criminals who've dodged nearly £500m in fines are to escape a crackdown after ministers quietly dropped the initiative reports our "man in the know", John Mellor.

The Department for Constitutional Affairs has confirmed this week that it's abandoned Operation Payback, a high-profile campaign with radio and TV advertisements and even beer mats with a slogan warning criminals: "Fine dodgers: we are coming to collect."

The cancellation of the campaign, which should have started on January 29, appears to be the first victim of industrial action by civil servants who have been working to rule since a one-day strike at the end of last month. Officials at the department have admitted as much.

The campaign was to have been the fourth in a series to catch criminals who are avoiding paying fines which are increasingly being used by the police and courts to tackle antisocial behaviour and yob violence.

Some 165,000 offenders last year were issued with penalty notices for shoplifting, criminal damage, being drunk and disorderly and harassment.

Previous campaigns launched under the slogan, Think You'll Get Away With It? Think Again, sought to recover compensation owed to victims of crime and money owed to the courts. The first campaign recovered £750,000, the second £2m, and the last in October recovered £2.5m.

The department said yesterday that it was reviewing future campaigns but had not set a date for the next blitz. In practice this means that any fine imposed will rely on the honesty of the person fined to pay it, otherwise, no one will bother.

The glories of a government, which has abandoned commonsense.