I make plain at the outset that I will forever, until the untimely end of my days and beyond, harbour a residual affection for anyone, of any political persuasion, who tells Diane Abbott to fuck off. At any time of day, in any given context, this is surely always the right thing to do. But…
Read moreMr Gove must now hammer the final nail into Grayling’s legacy – and abolish the Innocence Tax
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 moreProsecutions are in crisis – how can the DPP suggest otherwise?
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” ― Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot Fashion dictates that the first written offering of a new year be contorted around a vague theme of resolutions and renewal. And those who know…
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 moreFantastic Dr Fox may be not guilty, but he’s also far from vindicated
As Robert Duvall didn’t quite say, I love the smell of an acquittal in the morning. Nothing else in the world smells like that. Granted, I’ve only enjoyed the olfactory pleasure vicariously, but as a barrister there are few feelings as gratifying as taking the fight to the state on behalf of a client and…
Read moreSo you’ve witnessed a crime…10 things you should know as a witness (but probably won’t be told)
This is a little later than promised. But, following on from the Criminal Justice Alliance report last month, chronicling the collected misery of witnesses in Crown Court trials, herewith a litany of dirty little secrets masquerading as home truths, which I as a witness would want to know in advance. Just to make the heartbreak…
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…
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