Very Nearly a Life Lesson

Surprisingly, no one else has made the point, if I had a team of strangers working on my farm, I wouldn’t be sitting my kids in a tractor with them 🤷‍♂️

A very common occurrence in these parts, I've tried to stop it on a health and safety grounds but they (the farmer) don't care.. the kids want a run in the tractor to see the silage going in.

In the days of yore when I was part of the silage gangs it drove me mad having a customers kid beside me all day
 

PostHarvest

Member
Location
Warwick
I worked for a number of years in international development projects in odd parts of the world including several assignments for the EU. The problem of people fabricating their CV's and references became so bad that EU recruiters insisted on certified references and contact information for each job listed on applicants CV's. Several times I worked with people who claimed - for example - several years working experience in Ukraine, but when they were actually in Ukraine, didn't have a clue what they were doing or how to get anywhere once they left the airport.
 

Lofty1984

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South wales
A very common occurrence in these parts, I've tried to stop it on a health and safety grounds but they (the farmer) don't care.. the kids want a run in the tractor to see the silage going in.

In the days of yore when I was part of the silage gangs it drove me mad having a customers kid beside me all day
Covid should put pay to that situation at least
 

Danllan

Member
Location
Sir Gar / Carms
In answer to your first paragraph, I am not sure if a person legally has to declare any convictions, I would seek guidance on that as obliging people to declare them may be illegal itself under current employment law, I have no idea. It is understandable someone would be ashamed of any past convictions and may try to conceal them. Is this automatically suspicious though? Hard to say.

Secondly, as I understand it, sex offences comprise a vast array of criminal acts. I believe a 15 year old who sends an explicit picture of themselves to another 15 year old has committed a sex offence but this is rather different to someone who has sexually assaulted 10 people- same offence but clearly incomparable crimes. It is worth noting that not all sex offenders are linked to crimes perpetrated against children but I accept many will be.

As to your last question, it would depend on the nature of the business, the environment and the potential risks. Many businesses employ people who have done their time and been released from prison or similar establishments. I would imagine there are mechanisms in place where this is done. I honestly cannot tell you one way or the other.
From memory, any unspent convictions must be declared if asked about, spent ones effectively never happened - except in a few special instances; but I've not kept up on this so that may now be changed.

I've an interest in a firm that produces fairly complex and esoteric kit, and we certainly don't want any sensitive info' about it or clients going to the wrong people - that means excluding anyone dishonest from employment. We check all CVs and volunteered references fully, making certain that we have an uninterrupted timeline from school to present.

We also seek references from all former employers and face to face interviews are in three stages - the only time we've broken these rules has been when employing direct from the services - armed and security - and then only to reduce the interviews on a couple of occasions.

As for sex offenders... the thing is, I've seen people put on the SOR for the most ridiculous reasons when they are in no way a threat to anyone. But... anyone who has been registered for a genuinely unpleasant offence would never be trusted near my family, end of story.

For what it's worth I am yet to come across or even hear of anyone who has been a one-time-only paedophile, it's an offence with a 100% recidivism rate outside of prison, and anyone saying otherwise has a 'social agenda' they want to push, and no conscience. Stalkers come a very close second with regards to never stopping.
 

PSQ

Member
Arable Farmer
Absolutely. He nailed his father in law in the same movement. I advised the brother in law to break into the grain store over the weekend and recover their grain. Unfortunately he didn't although a merchant did. Cost about £250000 I think to them alone.

He was sentenced to three and a half years for defrauding his own mother of £32,000 in the weeks after her husbands death.

He's currently serving 4 years 10 months for defrauding a lady friend of £18,000.

And he was previously sentenced to 7 years for defrauding his business partner and others to the tune of almost a million, and asked for 88 further offences to be taken into consideration.

But there doesn't appear to be anything in the press about his earlier 'career' in the Borders...
 
There is another side to this mind. If no one is ever prepared to employ anyone who has committed a crime, what is the long term solution to them forever being a drain on society because that is basically what will happen if they can't ever do any work.

On this forum there is often much talk about unmentionables who won't work and expect the state to pay for their existence. Here you have a guy who no one will allow to work? What is the answer?

Many of these people have in fact been failed by society at some point in the past.
Unfortunately a leopard finds it very difficult to change its spots. I don't know if it was the same estate mentioned here but he left the Borders and eventually did time courtesy of her Maj. And not before time. His wife at the time defended him against all the crap at the time but eventually got rid of him. Possibly visiting times and body searches were not attractive.
 

Danllan

Member
Location
Sir Gar / Carms
I worked for a number of years in international development projects in odd parts of the world including several assignments for the EU. The problem of people fabricating their CV's and references became so bad that EU recruiters insisted on certified references and contact information for each job listed on applicants CV's. Several times I worked with people who claimed - for example - several years working experience in Ukraine, but when they were actually in Ukraine, didn't have a clue what they were doing or how to get anywhere once they left the airport.
A few years ago a good friend in Herts had an applicant to work in an East African branch of his family firm. Cracking CV, references checked out, so they called him for interview. I was staying for a couple of days and his wife is from Kenya anyway, so when the interview was being prep'ed the day before we were interested to hear that he was a fluent speaker of several African languages.* Then my chum listed them and the alarm bells started to ring, one was from West Africa, one was Amharic and the other Swahili, not related and an unusual combination that didn't fit with the rest of his CV.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of the interview my chum's Mrs started speaking in Kiswahili and the bloke didn't have a clue what she was on about. So she asked in English if he had understood her when she has spoken, he said no... She then asked if he would understand her if she spoke in Amharic (a bluff, she can't speak it) and he said no, he wouldn't be able to... turned out that most of his CV was BS... but he had genuinely good ref's from genuinely good previous employers... :banghead:




*Not as uncommon as you might think, if you can speak one Bantu language you can pick up others pretty quickly - I started with Shona and found Swaheli easy to learn after that. I know people, black and white with those two, Lingala, Chinyaja and more.
 

Hilly

Member
He was sentenced to three and a half years for defrauding his own mother of £32,000 in the weeks after her husbands death.

He's currently serving 4 years 10 months for defrauding a lady friend of £18,000.

And he was previously sentenced to 7 years for defrauding his business partner and others to the tune of almost a million, and asked for 88 further offences to be taken into consideration.

But there doesn't appear to be anything in the press about his earlier 'career' in the Borders...
That’s unreal , will I know him ?
 
That’s unreal , will I know him ?
Does the name David Watmuff at Marchmont Est Greenlaw ring any bells. The land agent and accountants should have been sued over that. Probably reason it never surfaced. Lady McEwen is a friend of a friend and a nicer family you could not meet. Too nice to my mind, badly advised as when it went wrong there should have been proverbial blood on the walls. If that was me it wouldn't have been proverbial, there are thousand of acres of hungry pigs locally and only thing left is the fillings. Ask Nat Fraser and Hector the pig man near Elgin about that.
 

Hilly

Member
Does the name David Watmuff at Marchmont Est Greenlaw ring any bells. The land agent and accountants should have been sued over that. Probably reason it never surfaced. Lady McEwen is a friend of a friend and a nicer family you could not meet. Too nice to my mind, badly advised as when it went wrong there should have been proverbial blood on the walls. If that was me it wouldn't have been proverbial, there are thousand of acres of hungry pigs locally and only thing left is the fillings. Ask Nat Fraser and Hector the pig man near Elgin about that.
No I not heard of him fortunately , sounds a right wrong one .
 
He was sentenced to three and a half years for defrauding his own mother of £32,000 in the weeks after her husbands death.

He's currently serving 4 years 10 months for defrauding a lady friend of £18,000.

And he was previously sentenced to 7 years for defrauding his business partner and others to the tune of almost a million, and asked for 88 further offences to be taken into consideration.

But there doesn't appear to be anything in the press about his earlier 'career' in the Borders...
As stated those whose nuts were on the line were very keen for it to disappear.
I knew he did time but your info better than mine.
 

Hooby Farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
roe valley
This thread has got me thinking about two local farming guys when it comes to being called sex offender's. 1 guy did over 10years for rape always said he didn't do it turns out he actually didn't. The woman confessed several times in text messages years later. At the time it was all over local papers about him, very embarrassing for the family etc. I'm not sure what happened the woman but i know she didn't get half of what he served.
A friend was arrested at school and charged for sexual assault after a night out. Denied everything, took a real toll on this guy, hair fell out, dropped out of school wouldn't leave the house didn't want anyone around him, complete personality change (he's now in his early 30s and if he goes on a date he will keel detailed notes of the date in a notebook, nearly 17 years later). A few days before his court appearance CPS drops the case. Solicitor told him this girl has done this several times before once in the same nightclub and thought they were waiting on a last minute guilty plea. So you never know.
 
The problem is that both should be anonymous unless proven guilty. Can be used as above as blackmail or just lunacy. However it has to be borne in mind that 30% of women have been the subject of some form of serious sexual assault, not necessarily rape. Until I read that would have thought it would have been 3-5%. Reference sex register it seems mental to put somebody having a p#ss in a close or shop doorway however gross in the same category as a paedo or rapist. Our justice system is not fit for purpose.
 

Danllan

Member
Location
Sir Gar / Carms
Does the name David Watmuff at Marchmont Est Greenlaw ring any bells. The land agent and accountants should have been sued over that. Probably reason it never surfaced. Lady McEwen is a friend of a friend and a nicer family you could not meet. Too nice to my mind, badly advised as when it went wrong there should have been proverbial blood on the walls. If that was me it wouldn't have been proverbial, there are thousand of acres of hungry pigs locally and only thing left is the fillings. Ask Nat Fraser and Hector the pig man near Elgin about that.
Never heard the name 'Watmuff' before, being suspicious and not wanting to be childish, I just had to google it to make sure it's genuine. Apologies to any Watmuffs out there, but it does sound like a wind-up to the ignorant such as myself...*








*Watmuff... :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
Never heard the name 'Watmuff' before, being suspicious and not wanting to be childish, I just had to google it to make sure it's genuine. Apologies to any Watmuffs out there, but it does sound like a wind-up to the ignorant such as myself...*








*Watmuff... :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
May have been Watmough can't remember exactly. Ask @PSQ he knows the history better than me and could correct the spelling?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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