Since Covid offered me the perfect excuse to live a hermit like existence without having to excuse my curmudgeonly behaviour to anyone my visits to the supermarket have been replaced by a weekly home delivery of groceries by Tesco. Having been a regular customer in the past the Tesco Clubcard saved a pound or two each week albeit at the cost of their marketing department knowing a bit more about my lifestyle than I would have generally found acceptable. However as a card user and home delivery recipient I have noticed that there is an increasing marketing emphasis on offering Tesco Clubcard holders substantial discounts on many every day items. In other words Tesco is openly operating a two tier pricing system which its customers can take or leave. They can do as I have done for some years, continue to shop at Tesco without a card or take their custom elsewhere. All very reasonable in a democratic capitalist believing free society. But.........receive a summons to attend a magistrates court for eg assault, a driving offence, criminal damage or myriad other offences deemed suitable for summary justice and also be at your wits end as to how you`ll be able to afford to pay the rent or buy a new school uniform and you will have to rely on your own verbal eloquence to convince the bench that you are not guilty of the charge(s) put to you. Twenty years ago there would have been the possibility of a state funded duty solicitor to assist you with advice and possibly actual representation before the court. That entitlement is no longer available. In addition to that change there is now reduced opportunity for legal aid and thus legal representation for those faced with being charged to appear at the crown court where the consequences of conviction for most defendants are grave indeed. Just as at Tesco there is now a two tier pricing system for criminal justice in this once great nation which for so long had been a beacon of light to others of how law should be applied to all without fear or favour. The blunt truth is that only rich defendants can afford the services of a lawyer to put their case before a magistrates court. Anecdotally there are many defendants who are now pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity to receive a 33% reduction in any sentence they might expect to receive in order to end the matter for which they consider themselves unable to defend whether or not they are actually at risk of being found guilty or are indeed innocent. At the crown court where the stakes are considerably higher for defendants striking barristers have increased trial delays for over two years in some cases, such delays reducing considerably witnesses` abilities to recollect with certainty events around which the case revolves. Thus a trial becomes a lottery where any witness testimony for prosecution or defence can be challenged on that basis alone: "Mr (Ms) X how can you be sure that what you tell this court of the events surrounding this matter now two years distant are accurate and did indeed take place as you testified under oath?"
Of course the so called great and the so called good will still bring their divorces, libel cases and contract disputes to the Royal Courts of Justice where the best and most expensive legal brains this country has to offer will plead on their behalf for £5,000 for every day the proceedings last. Meantime the little people will soldier on as they did 150 years ago in thrall now to the whims of the Sentencing Guidelines and their exponents. After all it was only on 9 January 1868 that the last transported felons from England landed in Australia. None of them had legal representation.
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