From a recent remand court session:
If you have been accused of assaulting your girlfriend, after she has finally decided to involve the police, you will not help yourself by saying in front of witnesses:- "She asks for it. She's gobby".
It means that when the Crown Prosecutor opposes bail on the grounds that you might cause harm or fear of harm to someone if released, the bench is likely to go along with that view and remand you into custody.
This is why we come back to Bystander. Not the carping.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear he was denied bail, BS.
ReplyDeleteNow, a strong community sentence is what he needs....
Lots of different lessons for those involved!
ReplyDeleteClearly he needs to look for a partner who is deaf, or at least unable to speak English. He is unlikely to learn much of anything, except that prison means not having to listen to gobby girl friends.
Perhaps his licence to marry and take a girl friend could be revoked or heavily endorsed? 6 points or more depending upon ABH?
As I often say, if our customers were bright they wouldn't be our customers.
ReplyDeleteAccording to a BBC report today, the definition of domestic abuse has been widened to cover psychological intimidation and controlling behaviour such as preventing partners from leaving the house or having access to a phone. Such abuse could lead to prosecution.
ReplyDeleteA copper is quoted as saying: "domestic abuse ruins lives. In some cases it ends in homicide. This amended definition will help us all to work together to defeat this dreadful crime." So something really does need to be done about this form of abuse and the consequent rage that victims can resort to.
One victim complained of "incidents of psychological and emotional abuse [...] about control and power and diminishing my self-esteem to the point of not being able to see what was going on or trust my own instincts."
Psychological intimidation, forgivable in judicial eyes for so long, is now firmly back in the sights of our lawmakers, but let’s hope they resist the temptation to reintroduce to the old Saxon punishment described in Wikipedia:-
“The cucking-stool was a form of wyuen pine ("women's punishment") [an] instrument of social humiliation and censure, primarily for the offense of SCOLDING or BACK BITING. […]. Tied to this stool the woman—her head and feet bare—was publicly exposed at her door or paraded through the streets amidst the jeers of the crowd. […]. It means literally "defecation chair" [and] commodes or chamber pots were often used”
Now that it is recognised in law it must follow that, if proved, psychological abuse as a damaging offence can lead to consequences. That gravest of those as cited by the Beeb's good copper is mercifully rare but furious shouting matches (as we all may have witnessed in supermarket and pub) seem unavoidable for us humans. Even the more extreme though should not pose an able brief with too much difficulty in translating the likes of your handyman's colloquial 'gobby' into legalese and claim that it does in fact mean 'provocation' and, therefore, amount to mitigation.
Even Hibbo's ironic community sentence may seem adventurous for the prosecution.
Wiki also tells us that "The cucking-stool could incidentally be used for both sexes—indeed, unruly married couples were occasionally bound back-to-back". An acknowledgement, perhaps, that sometimes 'they're both as bad as each other'.
There may be some value in transposing this element of the Saxon model into the modern Guidelines with, of course, modern sensibilities taken into account.
This could deal with both the physical and mental bullying by imposing, say, a restraining order on him, and a gagging order for madame.
The notion that it is anyone other than the dominant (male) partner who perpetrates such 'mind abuse' is absurd. We are the nurturers of life, not the predators!
ReplyDeleteYES ALL WOMEN ARE BEAUTIFUL NURTURERS ALL MEN ARE BEASTS HOW I HATE MEN KILL ALL THE MEN KILL THEM NOW
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