I have today written a piece for iNews on Harriet Harman’s resurrected plans to ban all evidence of sexual history from the courtroom, and why this is quite simply one of the most dangerous and stupid ideas of recent times. Full piece is here: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/harriet-harmans-proposal-keep-sexual-histories-court-will-put-innocent-people-prison/
Read moreGoodbye Liz Truss, Hello David Lidington – a brief look at the new Lord Chancellor
Liz Truss, we hardly knew ye. Three days short of eleven months since her appointment as Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor in Theresa May’s debut cabinet, Ms Truss bows out to a slow handclap. Her achievements can be shortly listed, for they are none. Liz Truss never asked for the job, and,…
Read moreMyth-busting the “Tory election fraud” – A 10-point guide
1. So what’s all this about a Tory election fraud? The Crown Prosecution Service today announced that, following a police investigation into allegations relating to Conservative Party candidates’ expenditure during the 2015 General Election campaign, no charges will be brought. Fourteen police forces submitted files of evidence for the CPS to consider, said to show that candidates…
Read moreUKIP’s “Integration Agenda” is a masterclass in legal ignorance and shameless racism
Some political proposals are so self-evidently preposterous that to analyse them is to risk conferring dignity on the undignifiable. However, UKIP’s “Integration Agenda”, a rat’s nest of racialised assumptions masquerading as putative legal reform, trespasses egregiously onto the criminal law. Which, as any fule should know, is this blog’s turf. And on this turf, no…
Read moreConvicting the dead shows that we misunderstand the purpose of our criminal courts
Monday’s column for the i newspaper, for those interested, can be found here: “Convicting the dead shows that we misunderstand the purpose of our criminal courts” https://inews.co.uk/opinion/convicting-dead-shows-misunderstand-purpose-criminal-courts/ And while we’re at it, a couple of other recent pieces for iNews that I forgot to link to: “Both sides are wrong in the Marine A controversy” https://inews.co.uk/opinion/sides-wrong-marine-controversy/ “At…
Read morePost-script: Mustafa Bashir, a non-existent cricket career and victim vulnerability
As predicted in my last post, Mustafa Bashir, the wife-beating amateur cricketer who received a suspended sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment after hitting his wife with a cricket bat and forcing her to drink bleach, was today recalled to court and re-sentenced under the “slip rule” (section 155 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000)….
Read moreWas the cricketer who forced his wife to drink bleach spared prison because his wife was “too intelligent”?
A quick one for tonight. Several tweeters have today wondered, queried and thundered about a news report hot out of Manchester Crown Court, which tells of an amateur local cricketer who assaulted his wife with a cricket bat and forced her to drink bleach, and who, in the typical tabloid argot, Walked Free From Court. How,…
Read moreThe “Rape Shield” Bill is well-intentioned, meaningless and dangerous
Like the tide or the relentless ignorance of Iain Duncan Smith, the rhythm of certain recurring natural phenomena offers a comfort of certainty in an otherwise torrid and unpredictable world. One such inevitability was the reignition of the “Ched Evans row“, as media fiat demands it be termed. After several heady weeks in which almost…
Read moreDo we really need a law telling people not to assault NHS staff?
Today’s PMQs offered a public airing to a campaign which struck a chord with me, but which may have been overlooked by others amidst the farce of Jeremy Corbyn mistakenly offering “condolences” to the family of a dead police officer who was in fact very much alive and trying to excruciatingly dissemble his way out of his…
Read moreWill Quince MP: An addendum
This serves as an addendum to the previous post, but I thought it was worthy of attention in its own right. To those who missed it, a brief recap: Will Quince, MP for Colchester, publicised a letter he had sent to the Lord Chancellor, in which he expressed his view that a sentence passed in a…
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