UNHEARD TALES OF WOE

I suppose it was Rumpole of the Bailey 1978-1992 and Crown Court 1972 - 1984 which were the forerunners of UK television producers` obsession with legal drama just as it was Dixon of Dock Green 1955 - 1976 which heralded the infinitely variable police series for British audiences.  Indeed the first and last mentioned of these productions became almost a metaphor for the real life activities of their fictional characters. At their root of course was character and plot; the essential ingredients of any first class story whether in print, celluloid or electrons.  The following few tales hardly represent even <1% of daily offerings in the drama of our courts but in the fertile minds of legal and crime writers they could be the seeds to stimulate yet another tale of good - v - evil, prosecution - v - defence , police - v - criminal, justice -v - injustice: all grist to the mill of crime writing.

The wave of support for the cause of Palestinians has gone through western society like a dose of salts through a constipated fatso with middle class students amongst the most vociferous both in America and here.  No campus has arguably been seen as more affected than Cambridge.  In summing up the confrontation between police and students the judge in this case said, "rights to free speech and assembly did not give protesters an "unqualified right" to choose where and how to protest."  

The proscribing of Palestine Action has given very serious overtones to those who might be described as rent-a-protester filling the streets against use of oil, against deniers of climate change, against deniers of immigration limitation and any cause which seems to be worthy of  being defined as "progressive" in their circumscribed mindset.  That so many deny an underlying racist element in their opposition to the legislation is exemplified by the first of three comments published in this report which going by its free subscription is akin to a stalking horse for those who would remake western society and its historic legacy. 

The courts and the public have to listen to some truly evil offenders whose aim is to destroy the very essence of witnesses who testify against them despite ever more efforts to protect them through the legal process. In the days of the razor gangs in the East End and South Side of Glasgow in the 1920s and 1930s that city was described in the novel of the same name as No Mean City.  Whilst the current weaponry of a drug riven society might have changed the sociopaths on trial can be as evil as their forebears when their treatment in the dock is protected by decades of liberal legislation.  As in many cases concurrent sentences for dissimilar offences seem incongruous.  A fine example of current court reporting is available here.  

The case of Clive Freeman should serve as another warning to those who still consider that British justice is the world`s finest where it`s more important that the guilty are acquitted than the innocent are convicted. The recent TV programmes on fictitious juries sitting on "real" cases should be a warning to all that our current jury system is arguably not fit for purpose. This blog 02/09/2025. 

When there is a former soldier who served in Northern Ireland  on trial for committing  murder in 1972 we should be concerned. The trial of former British paratrooper Lance Corporal Soldier F opened this week in Belfast. He is charged with two murders and five attempted murders on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972. In 1991 with The Troubles at their bloody height three men in the province were found guilty of plotting to kill members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.  The Appeal Court has recently overturned their convictions.  If ever serious insurrection took place in Great Britain the law has overwhelming power to render the illegalities in Northern Ireland in that period as merely a prelude to what would happen here.  

With a direct instruction from the Ministry of Justice by its former boss that custodial sentences should be carefully rationed how can we be sure that sentencing is still under the control of the courts i.e. judges and magistrates consider all the evidence and applying the Guidelines come to a reasoned conclusion?  In simple terms; we can`t.  Colin Robson-Durrance appears to be a beneficiary of legal conjuring the effect of which is not unlikely to diminish public faith and confidence in our justice system as much as any tinkering at the legal edges. 

Most of us will not approach any of the scenarios which engulfed those described above but around each case a talented author could produce a tale of woe of which  Kafka would have been proud encompassing our legal processes.  Next time a riveting story as described in the opening paragraph holds some fascination consider that it might be based on hundreds of cases of which we will never have heard.