Not ANOTHER Trevor McDonald prog ?? YEP !

san miguel

cheers for that, i think it's a big jump to the next property!.  I certainly need to keep a sense of humour dealing with  UK agents and Spanish developers. Hopefully  when our case comes up in 2008, that will be the start of seing justice at last?

Have a great xmas.

Hi POOLEY-SANTOS,

If its any consolation i totally agree with your last post,the reason i left the UK was unfortunately because i began to fear for my childrens future safety,i think people are in denial if they think that what made the Uk a once great country now exists in any amount and that the streets are as safe as in the past,i remember in the summer when that poor little boy was shot in Liverpool by another child while kicking a ball against a wall,i have a son of identical age and the thought that i could not let him play in the street in case something like this happened turned my stomach.

I know Spain is nowhere near perfect but after some time your children are allowed an element of freedom here without the fear of being shot in the street,my children play out like i used to and still have an element of innocence without us having to darken their minds with what the real world may have in store.

I too was very patriotic about my homeland untill you cannot defend it any longer without blind faith.

Thre are so many British young families here now and surely you do not bring your children to another country to live just to enjoy the weather.

I guess this will continue to be a bone of contention up untill,during and long after the programme is aired.

My views are generally based on experiences before i left but are reinforced by every single brit i meet that is here trying to find a quality of life for their family.

My original post was concerning the fact that why does a british documentary program wish to make programs about crime in another country,if they advertised with the same question in the UK,"HAS ANYONE BEEN A VICTIM OF CRIME"do you think they would put that out on prime time tv,people just tune into sky news for that .

I totally agree with your post Georgia - I also wanted a better life not just for me but my kids. Now 13 years on, I am more worried about them being knocked off their scooters or hit by a bus than being attacked or threatened.

When they were young (and there is only 16 months between them,) I remember walking along the high street with son in the buggy and daughter skipping on in front and being actually scared that if she was more than a couple of yards in front of me that someone in a car could pull up alongside and snatch her off the street before I could stop it. That was a real fear as it had happened at that time in Northern UK and was the type of crime going on - and thats without the young 10 year old yobs throwing glass at them in the playground and telling my 6ft 2 husband there was f***all he could do about it as they would report HIM to the police if he touched them!

That was over 13 years ago as well!!

Kids here still get a clip around the ear and adults can tell them off without fear of reproach - and that is today in a working class town with supposedly underpriviliged gypsy kids who dont use the excuses the english kids do of deprivation blah blah blah! I have only known them to apologise and move on or stop what they are doing!

Not so sure about the ineptitude of the Spanish legal system, although I am quite happy to be corrected.

I believe the 'problem' with the Spanish legal system is more attributable to:

1) The representing Lawyer having such an incestuous relationship with the developer/agent/promoter that he either doesn't turn up, turns up late, mis-represents the case or does a half hearted job in his representation.

2) The people he is representing do not speak Spanish and are unable to either self represent or ensure there legal advisor is representing them properly.

My own experience has been that if you have the correct paperwork with all t's crossed and i's dotted and you speak Spanish then nothing is to much trouble; I recall on one occasion being taken into a judges chambers at Lorca to get papers signed, 'so we didn't have to wait'!

Incidently, I confess that it is my son who is totally fluent and not I

NOT just at Christmas

but EVERY day on EOS.

So lets get it right then San Miguel as to what you feel we are and are not allowed to say, what we are and are not allowed to think, what, if any, statistics we are and are not allowed to quote, no critisism of the UK permitted, Have I got it right so far? Now perhaps you could be a bit more enlightening regarding people with business interests; is it just in Spain or just in the UK, either or, or both? Oh and no comparisons allowed, is that about it?

Now what does that leave? Oh yes weathers nice, cold but at least its sunny; do you think it will snow for Xmas?

Been back to the original post,

They haven't even started filming or interviewing yet  .

Well I'm finishing work now and off to the pub hoorah!!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

I thought for once Trevor produced a quite balanced view,obviously they have had a few emails in the past regarding their usual half cocked rubbish about Spain.

Yes Pat,They are very badly paid.

I have a friend who works for the Local police and they do not get anywhere near what they deserve.

I thinkl i am pretty safe as well,if the burglars broke into our house they would probably leave us a couple of euros on the table and quietly close the door as they left!!!!

The thing that struck me that was the woman they interviewed who was threatened with an axe,two knives and a machete in the campo was aked if it would make her want to move back to the UK,after all thats what these programmes are all about.

She replied "no i love spain and why would i go to the UK,it would have happened there years ago!!!"

Not sure that was quite the answer Trev was looking for but credit to him for putting it out...............

Do you know, it makes me really cross watching these programmes!

Why not take their cameras to some of the run down estates in the UK and show the violence and crime there?

We have real problems here in the UK, Spain does have it's problems agreed, but they are far less than in the UK.

The programme showed "knife culture" in Spain, saying that "every youth carries one".

Really?

How many fatal stabbings has Spain had compared to the UK this year alone?

Programmes like this will only scare people off buying in Spain, but maybe that's the intention?

In the paper last week, it told of the loss of UK professionals who are migrating in droves abroad.

Perhaps programmes like this are comissioned by the Government to halt the Brain Drain, as they don't give any other incentives to stay in the UK.

agree totally Fibby although i think they have really run out of amunition as this was very tame and matter of fact........

Imagine if they did this every week on the UK!!!!

One,they would never keep up and two,it would turn into a telethon!!!!

People are taking this with a pinch of salt now,untill they can turn around and say it worse here than the UK  they are fighting a losing battle.

I noticed none of the stories were " i went outside to tell a group of hoodies to stay away from my car" like the guy who was kicked to death in the UK a month or so ago.

Or the latest one in Weston super mare a couple of weeks ago and the British police have still not found out who shot dead a 8 year old boy in the street and............

Give it up Trev!!!!! get your own house in order first.........

It was certainly more balanced than usual, but I'm not sure that I agree that the Spanish police and justice system do not have teeth, as was suggested.

We were burgled, unknowingly, by someone who took cheques from the back of two cheque books and we only found out when we received bank statements showing HUGE amounts missing (we were building at the time or there would have been little to take).  We got all the info from the banks to make the denuncio. Cajamar were brilliant, they even gave us a dvd of the cctv footage and a copy of his passport.  Banco de Andalucia were useless and it took three times as long to get our money credited by them.  Anyway we took it all to the Guardia at 12 noon on a Thursday.  They said 'we think we know him'.  At midnight we had a call saying 'we have got him, you need to go to the Juzgados to confirm your statement'.  We did and on the Monday afternoon we had another call saying come and 'receive his sentence' - a proper follow-up where the victim gets to find out what the sentence is.  He was a Bulgarian with a horrendous list of previous and he went straight to a two and a half year stretch, reduced because he pleaded guilty and he insisted that he came through an open door.  Quite likely at that time, but we are more careful now.

If it had been in UK, even if he had been apprehended as quickly, the wheels of justice are not allowed to turn so fast - I had plenty of experience of that as a JP!

It's never a nice experience to be stolen from.

It's never happened to us thankfully.

What made me shocked JaneB, was that he got a lighter sentence because along with pleading guilty, he "came through an open door"!

Goodness me, so trespass is not considered too bad if the door is open then?

Maybe if he had blasted it open with explosives, he may have got another couple of months...............

Don't seem right to me!

This thread caused such cufuffle before christmas when when i predicted it would be about burglars rather than the real criminals here(lawyers,agents,mayors,developers etc...)

In essence it turned out to be exactly that....................

You can tell by the replies to this thread after the fact  that all the people that were saying it would be a revealing expose were actually dissapointed to see that it was actually the usual jolly boys week out to Spain for trevors crew.

I guess the actual reality of it  wasn't strong enough to raise any eyebrows after all?

Next week on Tonight with Trevor Macdonald," Beware,it sometimes rains in Spain"!!!!!!

Regarding "coming through an open door" how many of us leave the door open then go to chat over the fence to our neighbours leaving the door out of our view ? No way am I saying if a person enters our homes for whatever reason uninvited, it makes it right but, as I once said (& I was pounced on by a member in this forum ), no burglar asks permission to nick your stuff !  We just need to be over diligent.

Personally, forgetting that it was another Sir Trev prog on the pitfalls of living in Spain, it was sad to see the devastation these people have been through & that poor dad whose son was knifed. He can't have his son's body yet either to take him back to the UK.