Last week, David Cameron offered a masterclass in how to employ a dead cat to maximum effect. A political tactic chiselled from the wisdom of Lynton Crosby – the Snarf to Cameron’s Liono, to maintain the theme – the Dead Cat postulates that, when events are going against you, you throw a dead cat on…
Read moreAnonymity in sex cases: Time does not bleach the stain
And so, as a Durham University student acquitted of rape provides easy meat for indolent editorials in the broadsheets, so renews the now-ritual exhumation of the debate on anonymity in sex cases. Round and round the usual participants go, like those rotisserie chickens at Tesco, only even more bird-brained. In the red corner, the below-the-line…
Read moreIs the CPS really considering putting a dead man on trial?
So, Lord Greville Janner has defiantly – and incomparably selfishly – gone and shuffled off this mortal coil before the various allegations against him can be the subject of a trial of the facts in April next year. There, one would think, this wholly sorry example of the criminal justice system misfiring at almost every turn grinds…
Read moreMichael Gove is a sincere, intelligent man who is doing the right thing. And we trust him at our peril.
Gawd bless that nice Mr Gove! Why, in only a few months he has already been fulsomely complimentary about how smashing we barristers are, has made some tremendously liberal squeaks about rehabilitating prisoners, and successfully squared up to Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on how it’s a rum idea to offer to teach the Saudis how to dismember their own prisoners. And now,…
Read moreGayle Newland’s sentence was both entirely proper and wildly disproportionate
And so here we are again. The relentless churn through the predictable life-cycle of the tabloid-tickling criminal case. Unusual case through to polarising verdict, through to “controversial” sentence and culminating in a red-top digging out a different case sentenced by the same judge to make whatever point fits their agenda. The unusual case du jour…
Read moreWitnesses in criminal cases deserve to know the truth
The criminal courts are horrible. That is an inalienable truth. It is also a succinct way of summarising the findings of a report published last week by the Criminal Justice Alliance following a 20-month study of the Crown Courts. The paper – Structured Mayhem: Personal Experiences of the Crown Court – relies on observations of…
Read moreWho needs Donald Trump when you have Philip Davies MP?
In my time I’ve shot the breeze with some fairly rum types. The kind of cads you probably wouldn’t want to be sat next to at one of those Islington-metropolitan-elite dinner parties to which people with my views are allegedly invited. Men who’ve killed random people for sport. Parents who’ve raped their five-year-old children. Premiership footballers….
Read moreThe Versions of Us: The alternative life and times of Chris Grayling
“Just in case [Chris Grayling MP] is to be completely airbrushed from history, can we have a debate on his legacy as former Justice Secretary? It need not be a very long debate.” When you’re standing in Parliament having your political career mocked by an ex-vicar best known for posting online pics of himself in his pants, it’s…
Read moreIs it worse to rape little Asian girls than little white girls?
A quick apology – I’m coming to this story a little late. That is partially my fault, and partially the fault of Lord Ashcroft and his delicious third-hand allegations of porcine impropriety. It has been a distracting few days. This ground was stomped upon a little by various commentators at the end of last week, but,…
Read moreSexism? Welcome to the Bar, love.
When I was a baby barrister, one particular instructing solicitor used to send me his most unappealing, horrible clients on the basis that, in his words, “You look like a child, and judges will find it harder to slam my clients with your little babyface peeking up at them”. At the time I accepted the backhanded compliment with…
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