Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Art Silk

There has been some tetchy reaction from the legal profession over the latest episode of the BBC drama 'Silk', due, inevitably, to the writers' taking liberties with the law and with court procedure (despite the fact that a QC is credited as legal adviser). I remember feeling the same about Judge John Deed, who wouldn't have lasted a week in the real world. Nevertheless, when I lunched with the judges at Crown Court at the time, the main topic of conversation was the fictional judge. I suspect that the assembled Hizonners rather liked seeing a brother judge portrayed as being a bit flash and a bit randy.

So I enjoyed Silk, and put any legal criticism to one side for the sheer pleasure of watching the delicious Maxine Peake strutting her stuff. It's only pretend, anyway.

27 comments:

  1. If you take any of these series involving legal or medical matters, they all wander into the realms of fantasy.

    I know of someone who wanted to be a pathologist after seeing Silent Witness. He managed to speak with a real life path expert and asked if it was so easy to solve crimes. The fellow replied 'You cut up bodies and you make reports. That's all you do.' His ambitions soon changed.

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    1. It is commonplace for the legal profession to disparage other trades, and probably vice versa. In fact, pathologists do a lot more than cut up bodies and write reports.

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  2. Ex-everything

    The very worst for building false expectations are the CSI series. I attended a neighborhood dispute where the complainer believed that, ‘her next door,’ had trained her cats to conduct their toilet in her garden. Whilst taking a drag on her cigarette she lent in and announced that she had, ‘proof’. Foolishly I asked what it was. Whereupon she produced an old fashioned sweetie jar packed to the brim with cat feces. It took me ten minutes to persuade her that modern forensics was not up to the job of matching feces to a cat despite what she had seen on the telly. That was my first case in the Police. My tutor found it most amusing.

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    1. Oh, I don't know. What happens in Texas in 2013 may well happen in Worthing in 2023...

      http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/24/texas-apartment-to-track-dog-poop-offenders-using-dna/

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    2. Yes, forensics is up to it. Really.

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    3. Ex-everything

      I learn something new everyday. In this case I wish I hadn’t (or at least not followed the link –insert smiling emoticon here). My next concern would be to show intent. Either that of the cat or the neighbor. If one was malicious and the other a circus-trainer than a Breach of The Peace may have been appropriate – I am not aware of a cat-fouling offence, but I am prepared to stand corrected.

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    4. The worst trade for building false expectations is the polce.

      'we have several lines of inquiry'
      'we care'
      'we're investigating'
      'we're looking into it'
      'we expect a result soon'

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  3. Another Ex-everything but nowadays a JayPee

    Still amused at the fictional portrayal of plod. Rules and procedures seem to have no place in the world of the fictional bobby. The frustrations portrayed are usually the wrong ones entirely. The Bill started out OK but soon enough went the farcical route that these things always do. The problem is that reality is either unsuitable for broadcasting or just too boring and repetitious to hold an audience. I always enjoyed Frost but it too made little attempt to portray reality.

    Still, as the blog said, "It's only pretend, anyway"

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    1. If only Frost and the team went straight down to Denton Mill each time there is a murder they would have solved the case pronto and saved a massive amount of police time.

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    2. But stay away from Miss Marple... her peri-person fatality rate is huge.

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  4. So let's introduce a note of reality then in a new series called ‘The Law At the Sharp End’.

    Scene 1. A retiring room in the fictional town of Lots of Cautions on Sea.

    A group of people arrive by 09.30 and spend half an hour discussing a topic from today’s papers, the price of coffee and where they will be going on holiday next.

    Scene 2. The court room.

    Smack on 10.00 three people enter the court room. They are then told by their legal adviser that nothing is ready but there is a report to read. They are handed a report and retire to read it.

    Scene 3. Back in the retiring room.

    They read the report, which is in fact a non-report because the defendant didn’t turn up, again, for his meeting with probation.

    Scene 4. The court room after a twenty minute wait in the retiring room.

    The first defendant arrives in the dock. The CPS lawyer asks for time as there are no papers. The legal adviser offers to help, finds the file in her pile and then discovers that’s one of several that are empty. The case is put back.

    The next defendant is brought in, identified, the charge is put and he pleads guilty. The prosecutor puts the facts. It’s another theft from a shop by a twenty year old who has a number of similar offences. His lawyer tells the court the defendant is really sorry. He is on a methadone prescription and goes to Alcoholic Anonymous. He stole a single sandwich from Poundland as he was starving. His family threw him out and he is living on the streets. The bench considers, fines him and deems it served.

    The next case is a video link appearance. The bench retires as the link isn’t working. Twenty minutes later they are told that there is definitely a fault and someone will have to be called in to fix it.

    Next is an application from the defence to adjourn a trial fixed for 10.00 the day after tomorrow. Despite two prior occasions on which a bench has set dates for disclosure by the CPS none of it has been served. The CPS has no explanation and suggests it be served on the day of trial. The defence says that gives them no time to review the large amount of information they are waiting for, they will need to discuss it with their client, they give the court evidence of the many times they chased the CPS for it, and expect to have to make a defence case statement for which they should have fourteen days. There is no answer from the CPS when the bench point out this is happening all too often.

    Etc, etc, etc.

    Sound familiar?

    Just full of thrills and excitement isn’t it?

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  5. Some years ago I attended a lunchtime reception at our local Crown Court. Lord Woolf was the LCJ at the time and he was guest of honour. I was Chairman of our local Bench. I had an opportunity to natter with Woolf and found he was a great fan of Judge Deed - mainly because Deed did all the things Woolf wanted to do but couldn't because of law and protocol. As an aside, my Justices Clerk told me that the LCJ could preside in any criminal court in England and Wales including Magistrates Courts. I asked Lord Woolf if he would care to preside over the court that I was due to sit the following morning. His eyes twinkled with the thought of his presence in a humble remand court and the effect it would have on the various lawyers and others who would parade before us. Unfortunately, his timetable did not allow it - but I still smile at the thought.

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    1. That would be wonderful - imagine the panic on CPS and Defence Lawyer faces - it should be done and at random outside London

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    2. When Williams was A-G he once turned up at a CPS office and told the BCP that he was going to take a list that morning in the local Magistrates' court. As a JP (and a lawyer) it would not faze me but think of the poor bloody legal adviser!

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  6. The trouble is this is where the chattring classes get their ideas of how the law works. No wonber then they can't quite understand cases when things seem to have gone wrong- when in fact they have gone right!

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  7. Properties are hard to sell in Midsommer. Maybe that's due to a number of those living there having short life spans.

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  8. My wife and I (both lawyers) gave up watching "Silk" after less than 10 minutes. It was so lacking in any credibility.

    The one thing that did impress me was that they were given filming facilities in the RCJ (possibly a first?), so at least they had an authentic setting for the opening scenes. Pity about the script, though.

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    1. I don't know about the legal stuff or the propriety (legality?) of using RCJ facilities, but I know about film and TV production. Give me enough yards of bright green (or, if you will, bright blue) cloth and some digitized background pics or videos of the real location and I can make the audience believe it was actually shot there even if it were really done in my back garden.

      Or, perhaps there was enough investment available to build a replica set. The "Outlook Hotel" from "The Shining" was, after all, a set built entirely from scratch in a back lot.

      Or, yes, enough political weight to get the real thing might have been swung. But I'm of the opinion that would be last on the list these days.

      Cheers!

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    2. Ooops! Spending too much time hunched over MS Office, I guess. The hotel in point is, of course, "The Overlook".

      "Hello, Old Geezer. Come and play with us. For ever ... and ever."
      -- The Ghostly Twins who read this blog

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  9. I used to drive my wife mad when we watched the Bill as I pulled police procedure apart each episode.The one bit that always got me was when CID interview someone and a silent uniform PC would stand in the background.No idea why that happened.
    Jaded

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    1. Ex-everything

      Although I spoke in jest above the false expectations created by TV is a problem.
      At the lesser end of the spectrum (having served in Scotland) I was always amazed at the custodies who demanded, ‘their phone call,’ something to which they are not entitled (a reasonably named person can be informed on their behalf if nominated). People became vociferous in their demands purely, based on watching cop shows.
      At the more severe end was the expectation that crimes were solved quickly and that the amount of resources to do so was immense. An expectation formed from TV – after all it’s done in 30 minutes on The Bill. Sadly, it would have taken me more than 30 minutes to fill in the crime report never mind actually, solve anything.

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  10. The main character's impassioned over-the-top bail app submissions in the first series was unrealistic enough to rile me up and never watch it again.

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    1. I've never watched it - but I have seen a few impassioned over-the-top bail app submissions in real life...

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  11. Any police officers care to have a go at Keeley Hawes and Line of Duty - or Prison Officers for that matter?

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  12. The scene I could not believe in the first episode is where the officer was found, in court, to have added to his notes after they had been photocopied. Then I thought of Plebgate.

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    1. Not in the least relevant but given where it began, I always thought that Plebgate should have been known as Gategate.
      Sorry.

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  13. As Rumpole always said, never ask a question to which you do not know the answer. What does Miss Costello always seem to do?

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