Cunning Plan

My daughter lives in a street of Victorian houses that is shared by families, students, and a variety of people of varying prosperity. As is common in some areas residents who want to dispose of sound but unwanted goods may put them in the front garden, perhaps with a note saying 'help yourself'. Last month one of her neighbours put out a serviceable fridge that had no place in her new kitchen. It lingered sad and unwanted for about a week until the neighbour's husband had the brainwave of putting a notice on it saying "For Sale - £25".
It was gone in two hours.

Sledgehammer 1, Nut 0

I can't add much useful comment to the torrent of opinion on the web and in the papers about the Twitter 'bomb threat' that sounded like nothing of the sort, and the absurd overreaction to a man's expressed irritation at Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's BBC radio interview.

Of course, anyone who mentions the word 'bomb' at an airport check-in deserves all he gets, but these two cases both seem to be way over the top to me. There is a world of difference between a phoned-in bomb hoax and a light-hearted not-very-funny gag on Twitter addressed to your mates. And as for Ms. A-B; come on love, do you really, in your heart of hearts, think that anyone was going to pelt you with stones? Really, that is?

Making Whoopee

The latest issue of 'Magistrate' magazine includes an application form for tickets to attend a reception on the 20th of May 2011 in Westminster Hall, to mark the opening of an exhibition to commemorate 650 years of the magistracy.

With tickets at forty quid a pop, not including travel costs up to the big smoke, I shall not be one of the expected 950 JPs joining in the fun.

More On That Demo

Thugs who hurled fire extinguisher off roof on to police during student demo may be charged with attempted murder

By Daily Mail Reporter

Wanna bet?

Recreational Mayhem

Today's headlines about yesterday's demonstration that got out of hand induced a few minutes' nostalgia here at Bystander Towers. I was at university in 1968 when radical students were mostly Marxists or Trotskyists, and the big issue was the Vietnam war. Across the Channel the 'Évenements' of student and worker protest caused a few lively nights in Paris, and the workers at Renault welded the gates of their usine shut. President DeGaulle took the precaution of squaring the generals before deciding how to handle matters.
A few coachloads of students went from my university down to the big Grosvenor Square demo and the ensuing scrap with the police led to the same sort of headlines that we can read this morning. Then, as now, there was concern, there was anger, there was indignation, but above all, the whole thing was tremendous fun for the participants.
Whether you are a member of the Bullingdon or a militant Trot, the sound of breaking glass is deeply satisfying to a young man, and today, as in 1968, the press reports will be avidly scanned by the protesters. Politicians and columnists will huff puff and fulminate, and in a week or two the whole business will be forgotten.
The leaders from 1968 must be feeling nostalgic too. Jack Straw, still a student in the second half of his twenties now a right-wing Rt.Hon., Tariq Ali (comfortable media person) Daniel Cohn-Bendit (aka Danny Le Rouge) (Eurocrat) Anna Ford, then President Manchester SU, (media celeb) will all be able to get out their press clippings and have a good old wallow. From Right-on to Rt.Hon is quite a leap.
Ironically, mine was the most spoilt and indulged student generation ever, with grants, new facilities, plenty of academic staff, and firms eager to snap up the four per cent or so of young people with degrees. Now where's that photo album?

Hmmmmmmm

From The Independent, quoting a PA report:-

Sunday, 7 November 2010

A haul of cocaine, believed to have a street value of up to £3 million, was seized following a crime squad operation, police said today.

Nine kilos of the class A drug were uncovered by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (Ersou) on Thursday.

The commonly accepted street value of cocaine, allowing for no more than the usual adulteration, is £40 per gram, or £40,000 per kilo. So 9 x 40,000 equals 'up to £3 million'?

LA-Oops!

The scenario that led to this High Court judgment will be familiar to most JPs. Legal Advisers have a delicate path to tread, most particularly when a Bench decision looks a little eccentric on the facts, or, most treacherously, on mixed law and fact. A perverse conviction can always be put right by the Crown Court, but if the LA suspects a perverse acquittal, he or she might be tempted to trespass on the justices' territory and nudge them in the 'right' direction. That's when the Chairman will earn his salt, and decide whether to invite his colleagues to have another think or whether to thank the LA politely, send him back into the courtroom, check the written-down reasons, file back in, and announce the verdict. I know that most of my LAs read this stuff, but I am not trying to curry favour when I say that their professionalism is invariably impeccable.
Their Lordships said a few kind words about the LA involved, who must have passed a few deeply uncomfortable months. Let's hope that the principles are taken on board and he will be able to flourish in his career.

The final submissions regarding costs make, as ever, an interesting postscript.

Hail To The Chief

We have a new Chief Magistrate.

I have linked to the Press release because I know nothing whatever about the new man.

Worth A Read

Joshua Rozenberg, one of our most experienced legal commentators, deals in his recent Guardian column with, inter alia, the Louise Casey debate about whether certain lesser offences ought no longer to be triable before a jury of the Crown Court, and the alleged conduct of one of the police officers who shot Mark Saunders dead when giving evidence at the barrister's inquest.

I agree with the good Mr. Rozenberg on both issues - read his piece here.

Miss Casey's appointment as Victims' Commissioner, announced a short time before the recent election, was a stroke of luck for her, as her style (remember the 'Respect Agenda' that wasted so much time and money?) probably has little appeal to the more hard-headed Coalition, being redolent of the Blair bright-ideas-from-the-sofa years.

She was appointed to look after victims and witnesses. Mission creep is already under way, and she is using arguments about victims to widen her brief to comment on the wider justice system.

Going For A Song

If this disturbing report turns out to be true it will lead some of us to suspect that the discipline and management of London's armed police needs to be looked at.
Police officers who are armed and authorised to kill do a potentially dangerous job in all of our interests, and they usually do it well, but the corollary of their accepting that job must be iron discipline and an awareness of their responsibility. Some of the evidence presented to the inquest seems to reveal an esprit-de-corps that went too far and descended into arrogance. To lard evidence about the death of a man with song titles, in front of a High Court Judge is utterly unforgivable, and it must be right that the officer has been removed from firearm duties.