English As She Is Spoke (Revisited)

A couple of years ago I posted this. My good friend Jones has just returned from France, and he kindly brought me a menu from the (apparently excellent) Hostellerie de la Poste in Avallon. Aside from the unlikely name for a posh hotel (can you think of one in England named after the Post Office?) the English descriptions of the dishes on the very tempting menu are exotic to say the least. The Menu Classique looks wonderful, as it should for 50€ a pop, boisson non compris. How do you fancy any of these?

Spotted ham pot "house" radishes crunching with the mustard emulsion, or
Marbled ocean in its frost with grasses of summer and balsamic vinaigrette, or
Eggs poached in red wine with compotée of leeks, plugs and mushrooms, or
Gun of lamb roasted in crust of grass, juice to rosemary and vegetables of provence, or
Choice of refined cheeses with whish, or
Thousand sheet with tepid roast apple and its purée lacté with caramel, or
Tart sanded with the pears vigneronnes and bays of blackcurrant to sweet almonds.

There is more, but I think that I have given you a taste. M.Francois-Xavier Gross is by all accounts a damn good chef, but he would do himself a favour if he hired a young English trainee before going to print on the next menu.
When I was recently in Brittany there were plenty of duff translations on offer, so much so that I would always ask for the French menu if I were offered the Anglais version, but it is only when the cuisine becomes very haute indeed that the heights of absurdity are scaled.

A Nice Day

There's nothing to beat a nice straightforward trial, especially when it gets off to a 10 am start with no complications, and moves to a verdict at 3.45 pm and a sentence twenty minutes later. That's what I was given this week and it was a welcome change from several heavy days in the remand court. It was an allegation of Common Assault, and the issues were mostly factual - who did what, and was he acting reasonably when he did it?
We heard from the (at this stage alleged) victim who gave clear and confident evidence, and who was, unless I am very much mistaken, a former police officer. We heard from six witnesses in all, only one of them truly independent. This lady had been snatching a crafty cigarette outside her place of work, and saw most of the incident. Another lady gave evidence for the defence, but let slip that fact that she knew someone who works with the defendant and that her daughter was a 'friend' of the accused. When she responded to a question with "he was only doing his job" we knew that her evidence should be treated with caution. We then watched five minutes of CCTV that was helpful if not conclusive. We were lucky to be faced by competent advocates - a Crown Prosecutor of much experience and a solid and mature local solicitor.
We retired to consider the case and agreed on a guilty verdict within a few minutes. Best of all, the assault being relatively minor and the defendant being a man of previous good character, there was no need to order reports with a view to a community or custodial sentence, so we got on with it there and then.
A Conditional Discharge and compensation to the victim seemed spot on to us so that's what we did. Unfortunately for the defendant the conviction will have implications for his job, but that was not for us to consider.
As a final bonus I was not the Chairman, because I was sitting in on a Chairman Under Training, so I had plenty of time to absorb the ebb and flow of the evidence, and the nuances of the witnesses' testimony. A good day.

All-Time Great Legal Jokes No. 229

"You have been found Not Guilty by a Limerick jury, and leave this court with no other stain on your character."

(Irish juries did not always take kindly to circuit-court judges coming into their counties to try local people).

What's In A Name?

Witness gives his name address and date of birth, after taking the oath.
Prosecutor:- "You are a car clamper, are you not?"
Witness:- (clearly affronted) "No. I am a Vehicle Immobiliser".

Speaking of the CPS....

The Daily Mail is predictably unimpressed.

Would You Run That By Me Again Please?

There is much to be learned from the just-published annual report of the CPS Inspectorate. We shall return to it, but how about this wonderful example of Whitehall-speak in the introduction?

The Inspectorate was successful in maintaining a proactive and innovative momentum, seeking to strengthen its holistic approach to the criminal justice system while continuing to drive improvement in the Crown Prosecution Service and other prosecuting authorities which it inspected. This was achieved despite the extensive planning for and uncertainty flowing from the proposed merger into a single criminal system inspectorate – which did not in the event happen.

Downfall of a Master Criminal (3)

Jimmy suffers from chronic back trouble - he just can't get off it in the mornings. He was due in court two weeks ago to face community sentence breach proceedings but had his hearing adjourned when he sent in a doctor's letter saying that he was unfit to attend court. He didn't turn up on the new date either, so we issued a warrant for his arrest. Later in the day his solicitor, in court for another client, asked us to withdraw the warrant because a medical certificate had been handed in to his office, and faxed to the court. The prosecutor had a look at the fax and handed it up to the bench without comment. As we were looking at the document, the prosecutor retrieved its predecessor from his file and handed it up. They were strikingly similar, except for the date, and that was the giveaway. When you type a date in Word, it is usual for the day of the month to be followed by a small superscript such as 'st' on the 1st, 'nd' on the 2nd and so on. Someone had altered the date, but left the superscript, so we were supposed to believe that a doctor would have certified his patient unfit to attend court on the '16nd' of the month.
We refused to withdraw the warrant, and the prosecutor undertook to refer the forgery to the police for investigation. If the document proved to be forged, Jimmy will have been in a lot more bother than he would have had for a simple fail to surrender.

Not a Fan

The Sunday Times wasn't impressed by my Channel 4 Radio piece. Here's the review

Back to Work

I did my first sitting for several weeks yesterday, and it was in at the deep end. Instead of a nice gentle trial, perhaps with a bit of law to ponder, it was straight back into the remand court, with about 50 people listed to appear before us, charged with more than 80 separate offences. I had a nicely balanced bench, with one colleague on her fourth sitting, and the other with about four years' experience, giving a good mix of experience (me) and up to date training (new colleague). There were 17 bodies in the cells when we started, and more arrived through the day as the custody sergeant in the police station cleared out his cells only to fill up ours. It was the usual mix of business, small time thefts, a bit of drink driving, and several domestic assaults, including one particularly nasty one. The police photographs of the victim's bruising were very nasty and indicative of a sustained battering. It was charged as ABH, and we had no hesitation in sending the man up to the Crown Court in custody. All three of us on the bench are parents, and it was particularly upsetting to be told that a young child had called the police to ask them to "come and stop daddy hitting mummy". Then there was a couple picked up with £150,000 worth of cocaine - they are probably looking at a sentence in double figures.
Unusually, we sentenced another man right at the top of our powers, which is two consecutive six-month sentences, with the plea discount reflected in the fact that we kept the case in the lower court. He has been a prolific thief for many years, had just been picked up for two more thefts, and he showed no surprise at all when we exercised our discretion to do without reports and put him straight inside.
We didn't get done until after 5.30, so the sight of a pint on the bar when I got into the pub was even more welcome than usual.

Second Thoughts on IPPs?

The Daily Telegraph reports that Jack Straw is admitting that indeterminate sentences are a large and growing cause of the prison overcrowding crisis. The new law was not properly thought through, as with so much late-period Blair legislation, and senior judges had to wrestle with the concept of 'dangerousness' in order to make sense of it. What a mess.

Later: Here's an opinion that it would be hard to disagree with.