THE FAILURE OF SUPERVISORY BODIES BODES ILL FOR ALL

Earlier this month Mike Dean a hitherto respected and highly experienced football referee now retired acknowledged that he intentionally overlooked an incident and neglected to use the VAR technology to protect his "mate"during a match between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur last season. The new technology was introduced to provide fans and the players with as much information as possible in cases where line of sight decisions proved to be difficult for the on field officials. A decision visible to all spectators live and on TV to overrule the VAR was disgraceful and has brought the whole system into disrepute notwithstanding the financial implications for the clubs involved. The referees` supervisory body will be unlikely to take cognisance of his opinions ever again and fans will have further cause for disgruntlement when a debateable decision goes against their team.

Football is a game and big business but murder is murder and one of the most distressing facts to emerge from the Letby case is the failure of several supervisory bodies and individuals to take action when eminent qualified personnel presented prima facia evidence of malpractice by Letby. But this failure was not an isolated misfortune within the NHS. Between 2005 and 2008 at Stafford Hospital the regulator condemned "appalling" standards of care and reported there had been at least 400 more deaths than expected between 2005 and 2008. It listed a catalogue of failings, including receptionists assessing patients arriving at A&E, a shortage of nurses and senior doctors, and pressure on staff to meet targets. The Alder Hey organs scandal involved the unauthorised removal, retention, and disposal of human tissue, including children’s organs, during the period 1986 to 1996. During this period organs were retained in more than 2,000 pots containing body parts from around 850 infants. These were later uncovered at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool, during a public inquiry into the organ retention scandal. In the 1990s at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, babies died at high rates after cardiac surgery. An inquiry found "staff shortages, a lack of leadership, a unit 'simply not up to the task ... an old boy's culture' among doctors, a lax approach to safety, secrecy about doctors' performance and a lack of monitoring by management". The scandal resulted in cardiac surgeons leading efforts to publish more data on the performance of doctors and hospitals. One could say that the cover up of scandal is endemic within the NHS.

Between 1970 and the early 1990s, an estimated 26,800 people in the UK were given contaminated blood transfusions and blood products infected with hepatitis C or HIV. People with haemophilia, a condition that affects the blood's ability to clot, were particularly affected. The then government and those following knew of contaminated plasma long before it admitted it. A minister privately expressed concerns that Aids was being transmitted by contaminated blood products while the government publicly insisted there was no “conclusive evidence”, newly uncovered documents from 1983 show. Once again the cover up is equal to or more sinister than the original disaster.

Perhaps the scandal involving the Post Office is the most revealing of all. Over many years the Post Office, aided by its lawyers, engaged in what looks like a cover-up due to repeatedly failing to disclose what they knew about problems with Horizon across a number of court cases. Hundreds of innocent people lost their livelihoods, their homes and some were imprisoned as a result. Some committed suicide. In April 2021 39 former subpostmasters had their convictions quashed at the Court of Appeal. The court concluded that the Post Office should not have prosecuted them in the first place and found the Post Office’s conduct “an affront to the conscience of the court”. Such comments by the Court of Appeal are damning and rare. The Court of Appeal’s judgment in 2021 built on findings in a High Court case in 2019 where the failings of Horizon were exposed. The judge in that case also found the defence by the Post Office to be aggressive, excessive, misleading, and otherwise unsatisfactory. It included an application to unseat the presiding judge whom the Post Office considered was biased. Even in those High Court proceedings, the Post Office failed to disclose critical information about the problems with Horizon.

In all those matters those charged with the supervision of systems and personnel not only failed in their task but were active in the suppression of evidence which was contradictory to their interpretation of the investigation. And so to the magistracy with its internal supervisory system no different in its structure from those in medicine or football. Secrecy surrounds most complaints both from without the system and within. Individual complaints by magistrates are met with obstruction and obfuscation whatever the rights or rarely the wrongs of the matter. Advisory committees, if matters progress that far, are generally obstructive. Delay in investigation is the norm. Threats are commonplace. Investigations which reach the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office are just the tip of the iceberg. But what is common in all the above instances is the failure of supervision in one form or another. My point today is that the real failure is of those who appoint the supervisors. It has been estimated by those more knowledgeable than I that there are about 10,000 individuals who are this country`s decision makers. They are colloquially known as "the great and the good". A definition might be "worthy, distinguished or important people especially when gathered together." These are the members of interviewing panels for the likes of the General Medical Council and/or its disciplinary committee. These are the people who appoint government commission members. These are the people who appoint members of investigatory committees. These are the people who are responsible for the repeated instances of supervisory failings in so many areas of our lives.

There is no civic duty more important that being a member of a crown court jury. Life and death, innocence or guilt is in the hands of ordinary people with few caveats. 18 is the minimum age; being a British citizen is not a requirement, lack of fluency in the English language is not a bar and even a person with a serious criminal record can be a jury member. It is my opinion that a cadre of ordinary citizens be assembled from which cohorts should be entrusted with the choosing of professional supervisors in various trade and professional areas. Ordinary citizens with ordinary lives, interests and hopes for the future able to sift the often uniform education, backgrounds and aspirations of wannabe supervisors. Certainly the iniquitous results from current practice are now way beyond mere chance. They are a direct result of current system failure. When the cry in so many areas is more "diversity, diversity, divercity" where is it when actually needed? It`s not for more brown, black, tall short, trans this or trans that people. It is to salvage the confidence of British people in their form of government and its tentacles which reach right down to the nitty gritty of all our lives.  The pitifully repeated excuses of who? what? where? when? should no longer be even remotely acceptable. Failure to do so will be a catastrophe: it bodes ill for all of us. 

CURRENT CRIMINAL EVENTS AND INITIATIVES

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f ever the term "scourge" were used as a noun subsequent to its use to describe the Black Death or the Great Plague  the calamitous addiction of so many in Scotland to narcotic substances would be a good place to start. It is a sad fact that Scotland has the highest number of per capita drug deaths in Europe.  The latest figures show that drug deaths in Scotland fell to 1,051 last year from 1,330 the year before. However, this small reduction in deaths contrasts against fewer than 300 deaths total  in 1996.  It is fair to conclude that this awful statistic is the Scottish government`s biggest failure by design, incompetence  or ignorance since its inception. Having belatedly accepted the situation  there might be just the tiniest chink of  intellectual light at the end of this abysmal social tunnel.  

Decriminalisation is one of those words which brings out the best or the worst in many seasoned observers of drug addiction. For my part I have long been in favour of such a radical change in how society treats a problem which in addition to the misery inflicted on those involved and their families costs the UK £20 billion a year.  Latest  government information for England and Wales is available here.  Drug misuse is estimated to have a total economic and social cost to Scotland alone of £3.5 billion a year.  There are the very loud mouthed Cassandras who refuse to think of this catastrophe without looking through the prism of their fixed and stubborn right wing views which colour their thinking on most political endeavours whether drug addiction, immigration or other headline issues. I am anything but a supporter of Scottish independence in general or the SNP in particular but in this instance I wish the Scottish government nothing but goodwill for grasping this nettle.  

There can be few in this country who have not reacted with horror at the conclusion of the Letby baby killer trial.  That this monster refused to attend court for sentencing is the latest manifestation of arrogance exhibited by some of the most heinous  criminals of this century.  But for leading politicians  to state publicly that Letby should have been dragged if necessary kicking and screaming into the dock to face the sentencing judge is populism at its lowest level.  For those not faced with a whole of life sentence there is certainly an argument that such refusal as a contempt of court would invite an increased sentence but I doubt that in the few cases which would be likely to occur, additional time, e.g. an added year, would be no deterrent to those whose arrogance and possible psychopathy put them in the dock in the first place.  

THE MAGISTRACY//IS THERE A FUTURE?

What is a criminal justice system?  The collection of agencies including, but not limited to, the police, the courts, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office which are involved in the detection and prevention of crime, the prosecution of people accused of committing crimes, the conviction and sentencing of those found guilty.  What is the purpose of a CJS?  According to various sources it is:-

to deliver justice for all, by convicting and punishing the guilty and helping them to stop offending, while protecting the innocent.

to deliver an efficient, effective, accountable and fair justice process for the public.

a set of government institutions and systems that aim to apprehend, prosecute, punish, and rehabilitate criminal offenders.

The website of the Ministry of Justice has the following as its purpose:-"Protect the public from serious offenders and improve the safety and security of our prisons, reduce reoffending and deliver swift access to justice". 

 And the obvious supplementary question is whether these  definitions or aspirations have been, are or ever will be achieved at least by present circumstances. As far as the purpose, operation and performance of magistrates courts, to use an appropriate idiom, the jury is still out.  It seems that there are four driving forces leading to this conclusion; the pursuit of "diversity" as a symbol of  local courts, the mirage of court being local,  the appearance of defendants driven to law breaking by their addictions to drugs and or alcohol and the sheer logical necessity of limiting the numbers sentenced to immediate custody.  All that has changed in the last quarter century. Local justice, when there were indeed courts sufficient in number to allow anyone travelling time of well under an hour from home by public transport to arrive at court is now just a memory. District Judges(MC) are not appointed owing to their local connections.  The pursuit of "diversity"  in the magistracy seems to be the be all and end all.   

The first Jewish magistrate was appointed in 1847. Female magistrates have been appointed since Ada Summers (1861-1944) was the first woman magistrate to sit in court on 31 December 1919, one week after The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act became law. Although she was not named officially as one of the first seven women magistrates, as Mayor of Stalybridge she became a magistrate ex officio.  Eric Irons on 15 May 1962 made history by becoming the first black Justice of the Peace.  Now a statement of a JP applicant includes his/her religious affiliation if any. Although denials are the common response there can be little doubt that quotas are in the minds of advisory committees when considering whom to appoint as Justices of the Peace. 

300 magistrates courts in 2010 have been halved in number with many rural courts in Wales and the north of England now being up to three hours distant by public transport from their "local communities".  The refusal to acknowledge the benefits to individuals and society of the decriminalisation of drugs, at least cannabis, by offering users a legal supply route to drugs of certified origin and composition is muddle headed and prejudiced.  Considering that  roughly 40% of inmates who are incarcerated for violent offences were under the influence of alcohol during the time of their crime and it also costs the NHS and wider society at least £25 billion a year such  limited thinking affects all of us.  The purposeful refusal to construct sufficient prison accommodation when simultaneously increasing sentences is not careless; it is beyond parody. 

And so what do we have today?  A new magistrate who writes with apparent pride, " I work full time, so I sit the minimum sittings and then pick up additional sittings during my annual leave or on a bank holiday." [my bold].  The most frequent reason for magistrates to be struck off is owing to their being unable and/or unwilling to complete even their minimum sittings. Any senior JP will attest to the fact that real competence, not the nodding through as currently happens, requires many more hours on the bench than 13 days annually.  The obsessions at the Magistrates Association, a unique body which is unable owing to its charter, to actually represent its members, since its appointment of a new CEO, have been that word again diversity and leading the judicial field in its application of woke to all that it can possible encumber. Its latest folly is to ban the use of ‘Policemen’ and ‘Chairmen’ in Woke Language Guide.   Notwithstanding that the M.A. wants to increase the expenses allowances for magistrates.  This is another excessively wordy supposed  investigation which might have some researchers in Petty France looking for this in the archive:  a report two decades ago which has application today.  In essence inter alia it states that if District Judges sat alone without a legal advisor the court costs would be equal to or even less than the costs of using lay benches and there would be greater efficiency with a quicker throughput of cases. 

And so to the reality of what actually happens in a magistrates court.  This month was published The Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 policy summary.  This needs to be understood in conjunction with the Sentencing Guideline: Common assault / Racially or religiously aggravated common assault/ Common assault on emergency worker.  The reality is that there is a proliferation of  civil orders being the outcome of many cases brought to the magistrates courts with the breach thereof being the subsequent criminal offence.  It began with ASBOs and has begotten  many offspring this offender being an example of one handed a criminal behaviour order.  Earlier this month some of the legal "great and do good" opined that shoplifters; thieves by any other name, should be spared jail.  I offer only a current example from the thousands of thefts committed weekly courtesy of DorsetLive. 

The Council of Europe states  that to have democratic security a reality, there must be namely: an efficient and independent judiciary, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association, the functioning of democratic institutions and inclusive society and democratic citizenship. Readers will have their own opinion whether or not our CJS helps to that end. 

MAGISTRATES: ESTABLISHED 1361// BEST BEFORE 2023

I have remarked in the past about the press and PR department at the Ministry of Justice.  Its output volume in my opinion varies inversely with the quality of the progress being attempted in resurrecting what was once upon a time more than the fairy tale justice department it now is; when news, information and outcomes were true, sincere and to to be considered a great benefit of a society in which we were lucky to live.  Along with many other attributes and qualities of leadership there really was a spark, a light, which allowed Britain to be considered "great".  It wasn`t military or empire; it was we the people and our antecedents over the last century who inherited and nourished to the best of each of our abilities a desire to be our best for our families and for each other. It generally included, with some few exceptions, those we elected to power on all the levels from parish to Downing Street.  There was corruption and malevolence of course but it was recognised, faced down and life went on but not anymore.  The output from government departments was generally informative and consequently trusted by those to whom it was directed:  not anymore.  In May 2023 a Freedom of Information request was made to  the Ministry of Justice (MoJ):

"Utilisation rates averaged 64% across the magistrates courts in 2010. Courtroom

utilisation is the time a courtroom is used, against the hours that a courtroom is

available for use. The Government's aim that year was to increase utilisation of

courtroom time to at least 80%. What is the current utilisation rate?"

That request was refused on the grounds that 

"The Magistrates’ Courts are undergoing a transition to a new data and information system called Common Platform. Each court has a system (either legacy, or Common Platform when transitioned) for viewing the availability of its rooms and reserving them. There are some measures available centrally to show the total number of available court rooms, but at present the detailed records of actual use needed to calculate the utilisation rate sought are not available.

However according to Nick Goodwin CEO of HMCTS in his recent blog:- "Last year, with thanks to HMCTS colleagues, judges and justice partners,  we sat over 100,000 days in the Crown Court and in March 2023 we sat the most days in a single month (10,033) since July 2015. Our internal management information (MI) shows that productivity - sitting days per working days - increased in the second half of the last financial year, to average rates not seen since 2015/16, with November 2022 (443) the highest since November 2016. These are incredible achievements – particularly when you consider the operational volatility of the last 12 months – and I’m very grateful to everyone who has contributed to it."

The reality of court efficiency is indicated by today`s published figures of courts actually in use.  

Humpty Dumpty, that well known wall sitting English egg, is famous for his saying, "words mean what I want them to mean."  Now the government watchword could be stated as,  "we won`t collect statistics that are not of benefit to us".  In similar fashion the MOJ has tied itself up from head to foot in the sacred "D" word Diversity.  Like the RAF where we discovered last week that white would be pilots were refused training contracts on the basis that members  within the D ethnic groups were given preference the MOJ does similar but manages to keep all that information secret about the selection of new magistrates. Those interested in criminal law can hardly have missed the publicity over the last year or so where MOJ advertised at a budget of £1 million for 4,000 new magistrates.  This in itself was a self inflicted wound.  The statistics were crystal clear in 2010.  Thousands of JPs were due to retire over the next decade and beyond.  No attempt was made to replace them on the basis that since the then new government was intending (in private) to close half the magistrates courts JPs` numbers could be allowed to to wither on the JP vine.  The result is that there are now less than half the number cf 2010.  Hence the urgency to recruit in a similar fashion to the desperation to return police numbers  to the 147K in 2010 since more than 20K were lost similarly.  The result of the scramble for JPs is a humiliation for the MOJ. Latest figures show that 1,204 were appointed of whom 147 or 15% were considered "ethnic minority".  A FOI request last year asked inter alia, how many of new appointments of BAME identification considered themselves Muslim on application?  This was refused as was an appeal against that decision....."The response to the original request confirmed the information requested is not held. This is because the local Advisory Committees of Justices of the Peace (ACJP) are separate public authorities for purposes of the FOIA".  Perhaps an investigative journalist would be able with the means available to fish out this information which is likely to be somewhere in the bowels of Petty France.  If diversity is so important there can be no limit to the public knowing absolutely if eg born again Christians, Muslim extremists, Buddhists and others resolutely opposed to imprisonment are being appointed by incompetent Advisory Committees  in their rush for a magical ratio to suit their diversity prejudices.  

There are pressure groups trying to push such an agenda. "Transform Justice" began life a decade ago to do what it said on the tin.  Certainly much change was and is needed but it seems the gallop to a world where if Diversity is not attained all manner of tribulation will descend upon us, is becoming its watchword as Climate Change has become for many. The first couple of paragraphs in its current blog describing its latest initiative, appear to complain of the extent to which applicants to the magistracy must jump through many inquisitorial hoops to prove they are suitable for the post. To actually praise for once the MOJ the application process on line is a model of thoroughness and does seem to offer applicants the initial testing to consider if the position is worth pursuing.   The writer, herself a short serving former magistrate,  seems to be trying to justify positive discrimination in the selection process.  Positive discrimination is unlawful in the UK but positive action isn’t. What this means is that employers [JPs are not considered in law as employees but are treated by HMCTS as if they are unpaid employees] can choose to select candidates from under-represented groups as long as they are as qualified for the role as other applicants. Organisations are not allowed to recruit a person purely on the basis of his or her age, disability, gender, race or religion, regardless of their ability to do the job. This would be committing discrimination under the Equality Act. It is also unlawful to set quotas to recruit or promote a specific number of people with a protected characteristic.  It is highly likely that the RAF broke the law in its pilots` selection process referred to above. 

My post of 25th April 2023 concluded as follows, "It might be intolerable to many but the facts on the ground lead to magistrates being recruited from those financially able to  to bear the burden of volunteering.  With the loss of thousands of experienced old hands in the last decade it is, in my opinion, that the intellectual, self assertive and  independent  qualities which made the magistracy such a fine unique feature of the English justice system  are gone forever.  The result is that the day when Justices of the Peace are led out to pasture is just that little bit closer now than when I retired in 2015." 

I have no reason to change that opinion.  Indeed recent events have no doubt increased the pressure within the MOJ and from many legal practitioners, notwithstanding the judicial yes men who must hold their peace until retirement, that a lay magistracy no longer gives value for money {cf  salaried civil servants AKA District Judges (MC) if they would function without a clerk}  nor holds the public`s confidence.  I now must agree that the magistracy is not fit for purpose.  England and the legal establishment should come clean with the English public that the days of relying on unpaid volunteers to administer 93% of court cases belong to a bygone age.  Perhaps the top of magistrates` coffin should read "ESTABLISHED 1361 BEST BEFORE 2023"  

SOCIETAL BREAKDOWN//CONSERVATIVE "BLAH" OR OPPOSITION "RHUBARB"

 

Below is the main headline from today`s Times newspaper.  

It is apparent that the press office of the MOJ is gearing up for the forthcoming general election when the hacks therein employed will have to show they`re earning their salt by pushing the same propaganda they have employed for years past when their masters fear  their period of power is slipping ever more rapidly into the control of His Majesty`s Loyal Opposition.  All those involved in the criminal justice system know full well this is a ritual and like any ritual it is symbolic only.  Just as for Catholics the body of Christ offered by the priest is but a wafer the hang `em flog `em headline lacks substance and is but a modern variation of the rune or the entrails of a chicken to be interpreted in any which way it suits the reader. No doubt there will be further similar headlines ranging from abuse of the domestic kind to xenophobic outbursts on what must be done to stop the boats via increased punishments for knife crime and castration for sex offenders.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

We are now at the cusp of another football season.  And once again today`s Times provides the subject matter.  

There is little doubt in my opinion that the referees will follow the hard line of their paymasters.  Unlike those above, referees` emoluments and indeed their fitness to officiate will be judged  at almost the speed of light by those who pull the financial strings within professional football.  Whether or not football clubs` and police efficiency in identifying and prosecuting those supporters for whom the beautiful game is just an opportunity to cause havoc and mayhem will bring law `n order back to the terraces is another matter. The figures below for those hooligans who have been subjected to recent football banning orders do not offer high hopes that such disgusting behaviour will be any less in the forthcoming season as in the past.  

Of course when viewing the chart it must be remembered that in the wake of the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, the Premier League suspended its 2019/20 season on 13 March and it wasn`t until 17 June that once again spectators attended.  Nevertheless an average of only 347 offenders were issued annually with a banning order over those five years.  Delving a little deeper into those numbers, considering that there were approximately 190 Premier League games played and many hundreds of cup and lower league professional matches between 1st January 2018 and 31st December 2022 the total of 1736 banning orders for the period is derisory. 

It takes more than statistics for historians to decide when a society has broken down.  Public disorder and its treatment or curtailment are one disturbing factor but combined with hidden and not so hidden police corruption the signs are there for all to see as is the failure of supervisory bodies in many professions and organisations.   But it is for government to act.  Over the next eighteen months we will find out if it is Conservative blah or Opposition rhubarb which wins the day.