Same Crap, Different Sewer

My kids sent me a Kindle for my recent birthday, and I took the opportunity to download, for a tiny fee, "In Stitches" by a doctor who writes as Nick Edwards. He started off as a blogger and moved on to write a proper book (memo to self - what's wrong with that idea?).
The main thing that we have in common is the overarching feeling that the Establishment (aka Civil Service) is out to get you under control while enhancing its own power and being unaware of the effect on the poor sods, professionals or punters, down at the sharp end.
In more than two decades on the bench I have seen many reorganisations and bright new ideas come and go, along with their authors. We are currently working on complex bench mergers, alongside staff who still don't know if they will have a job in six months' time. Just to produce a rota for one of the 400+ strong London benches has already taken a couple of hundred hours' work, and it isn't finished yet. I take my hat off to the staff for ploughing on when their reward might turn out to be a P45.

Why Be Messed Around By Amateurs When You Can Be Messed Around By Professionals??

This email from a colleague in another part of London deserves wider circulation:-

I was in court yesterday and two trials cracked due to witnesses, counsel and defendants going to the wrong court. In the retiring room we shook our heads and remarked that this came as no surprise to those of us at the sharp end who could see this coming when the new LJA’s were announced meaning that cases in our area could appear in one of three possible courts and indeed, with each hearing being in a different one. On top of that, JP’s were crossing paths as ‘Bromley Magistrates’ were allocated to sit at Bexley (say) and vice versa. Hardly a sensible use of time or resources as expense/travel claims increase as a result. While we understand the rationale (or rather we don’t!!) is that as certain courts are allocated particular types of case so as to concentrate expertise, those JP’s will require to go to other courts to maintain competency generally, we are seeing the inevitable consequence of an ill thought through system.

I know that our clerks are keeping a record of such happenings but in our area, the movement of JP’s has been declared ‘not negotiable’ which has led to the inevitable resignation of some and a lot of muttering from others about the ridiculous position we now find ourselves in.

I spoke to one colleague who lives 4 minutes from Bexley Mags and who had taken well over an hour and a half to come to Bromley. It would take me a similar time to go the other way and at least an hour to get to Greenwich. My current rota gives me nearly half my sittings at a ‘foreign’ court. Crazy!! Of course we would all be willing to ‘fill in’ if need be, but this compulsory rota-ing is a nonsense.

Front Line

This report highlights the everyday risks faced by frontline police officers. A man is in custody so we shall have to wait to find out just what happened, and why it happened, but it seems to have been one of those run-of-the-mill incidents that suddenly escalates into mayhem. Here's wishing a speedy recovery to the officers concerned.

Could Be Worse?

The MoJ has just published this report about the operation of the judiciary in the lower court. It's a pretty big document that appears to conclude that the difference in performance between lay and professional benches is not all that great, in cost or outcome. The one conclusion that can surprise no one is that DJs will always work faster, as they do not have to consult on their decisions, nor do they have to refer to the Legal Adviser as often as a bench of JPs.
See what you make of it.

Roll Up! Roll Up!

Here is a part time job that pays the best part of five hundred quid a day.

Let me know how you get on.

Unanswered Question

I spent this morning in a church in Tottenham that had been taken over by BBC Radio 5 Live for a Victoria Derbyshire Show discussion of the summer riots. The debate did not get near my particular expertise, so I decided to hang back from contributing. The audience of 150 people included victims who had lost their homes or livelihoods, senior police fire and ambulance officers, and local representatives, as well as Tottenham's MP and a government minister.
Unsurprisingly some people's contributions generated more heat than light, and a common thread among some locals was the claim that the riots were a product of anger felt by 'the youth' at police oppression, especially stop-and-search. A number of speakers spoke passionately and angrily to denounce the 'murder' by police of the man whose shooting sparked the riots, as well as reeling off a list of people who had allegedly died while in the hands of the police. I won't attempt to summarise a two-hour programme, but I came away feeling that the question that Ms Derbyshire posed several times went unanswered:-
If you are aggrieved by the way that the police behave in your neighbourhood, how does it help to burn people out of their homes and steal luxury consumer goods?
One disturbing fact that did come out was the unacceptable delay in paying compensation to victims who have literally lost everything - nobody appears to have received a penny so far.
Thus far, and pending a definitive report, I remain convinced that the riots were at bottom recreational, offering young (mostly) men the thrill of broken glass and huge fires, the chance to have a go at the police (who were caught badly off balance in the first couple of days before they finally put enough officers on the street to bring the riots to an end) and the lure of free stuff that looked at the time to be risk-free. That last assumption turned out to be wrong.

Pointer

The Court of Appeal judgment that endorsed heavy sentences passed on some of those involved in the August riots said, in brief, that the overall situation of mayhem in the streets justified sentencers in going beyond established sentencing guidelines.

I suspect that the same will apply to those convicted of theft or handling of valuable metals, especially copper cable. The consequential losses caused to third parties far exceed the value of the stolen metal, and I am sure that thieves and dodgy scrap dealers can expect to be sent to the Crown Court even if the amount of metal stolen is quite small.

Hizonner will know what to do.

Whatever punishments are imposed, they won't be as severe as seems to have happened to this fellow.

Blame Game

The terrible accident on the M5 at the weekend has turned out, mercifully, to have killed fewer people than at first feared. The emergency services faced a gruesome task with their usual professionalism, and the police, as they must, are investigating exactly what happened.
The crash is likely to have been caused by a combination of factors, including restricted visibility, rain, and the lethal mix of cars and heavy lorries moving at speed.
In our democracy we accept a trade-off between safety and convenience, and most people are relaxed about a road death toll that equates to a medium sized airliner crashing every couple of months. If the motorway limit is lifted to 80 mph there will inevitably be a rise of some sort in casualties, but many people think that its a risk worth taking. Of course 80mph is already the actual speed of the right-hand lane on most motorways, but human nature says that drivers who now do 80, a speed at which you are most unlikely to get a ticket, will nudge up to 90. I drove to Bristol and back at the weekend, and there were quite a few cars moving at well over the hundred, often tailgating until people moved out of their way. So we can expect to see another look at the 80mph proposal, politics being what it is.
Bonfires and fireworks are another problem. On my journey on Saturday night I saw several large bonfires within a short distance of the M4, but no sign of smoke. But fires and local climate vary, and you cannot guarantee that any one fire will not put smoke across a major road. I do hope though that we can learn from this without the need to prosecute anyone, unless the most gross recklessness can be proved. Bad things happen, and it is not always necessary to drag people through the courts to ensure that lessons are properly learned.

Inspiring

One of the fiddle players in this inspiring clip is a colleague of mine.

I'm off to play it again, with a silly grin on my face.

Suppressio Veri, Suggestio Falsi -Part 97

The Sun has splashed a headline about the Legal Aid funds paid to a firm that has been involved in the Dale Farm brouhaha.

The article is carefully constructed to imply that the large sums involved went to defend the nasty p*keys in Essex.

Read it again though, and that appears to be the firm's total take for legal aid for a variety of cases in a particular period.

There is a firm on my patch that received a vast amount in one recent year, but those payments were booked when received, and were for work spread over several years.

Sadly, the Sun will have achieved its objective of convincing its knuckle-dragging readership that the government is shelling out millions especially for travellers.

It's okay if you work for News International, because the firm seems happy to stump up for the fees of serious London briefs on the increasingly numerous occasions that one of their staff comes to grief with the police.