On 2^nd May 2007 a twenty-nine-year-old married female teacher, Jenine Saville-King, was found not guilty of eight charges involving alleged sex offences against one of her fifteen-year-old male pupils, at the conclusion of her trial at the St Albans Crown Court. Seven of the charges related to alleged sexual activity with a child and one, abuse of trust.

The Crown’s evidence involved not only the “victim’s” evidence, usually the only evidence available in a large number of cases involving sexual offences, but also Mrs Saville-King’s admissions of “having strong feelings for the boy” and of having sent six thousand text messages to him over a six-month period, including one hundred and thirty-one messages in a single day.  The Crown was able to produce records of these text messages as well hundreds of pages of MSN messages between the two.  Mrs Saville-King denied there had been any sexual relationship between her and the boy and claimed there had been only an emotional bond.  In effect, the defence attacked the boy’s character and called him a liar.  The jury duly deliberated upon the evidence and dismissed the charges.  I have no doubt that their decision was right.  Twelve of Mrs Saville-King’s peers weighed the evidence and found it wanting.  Anyone who read the lurid details of the trial published in the national press might raise an eyebrow, but bear in mind that press reports are supposed to entertain and juicy summaries never do justice to what is actually said in the court room. Every day the jury quietly made their notes, digested and balanced the evidence, gave all due consideration to what had been said, used their judgment and did their duty in reaching a just and fair verdict based upon all of the facts. At the end of the day, they preferred the account of Mrs Saville-King over the boy’s.

With good reason, there will not be any cry that justice has not been done, that young boys are being abused by teachers who are getting away with it.  Nor will there be any demand for a change in the law making it easier to convict defendants in cases of this nature.  How very different when the offence is one of rape by a male against a female.

After the trial, Mrs Saville-King described the allegations against her as “boastful fantasies and dishonest, spiteful untruths.”  Judges and juries sitting in Criminal Courts regularly face witnesses who give dishonest and untruthful testimony.  That these witnesses are found out depends upon allowing advocates to vigorously challenge their version of events, including putting to them matters appertaining to their character.  Humans tell lies, sometimes.

A seventeen-year-old teenager who made false allegations of rape against an Asian taxi driver, Aftab Ahmed, told her lies not “out of malice, but naivety and immaturity.”  Mr Ahmed did not suffer the ignominy of charge, remand in custody and the stress of standing trial, but he did lose his home, livelihood, reputation and found his family relationships and marriage under strain in the fourteen months it took for the lies of his accuser to be exposed in Court. The young lady in question received a four-month detention and training order from the Bradford Youth Court after admitting (very belatedly) a charge of perverting the course of justice.

Teacher cleared of having sex with pupil

Girl’s rape lie destroyed taxi driver’s life

The BBC has highlighted a report prepared by Rob Allen on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies that claims that too many children are prosecuted and criminalised.  Previously Mr Allen had been engaged for eight years as a member of the Youth Justice Board and as such it is safe to assume that he is well versed in the realities of child offending.  He considers that there should be greater emphasis on the educational, social and mental health needs of younger offenders. Mr Allen believes that we have become preoccupied with protecting the public from young people and that there is a growing intolerance of teenage misbehaviour of all kinds.

It is easy to dismiss Mr Allen's views as typically air-headed, left-wing liberal and soft on crime, but I happen to agree with him. More children are badly behaved, or allowed to be badly behaved than when I was a child.  Similarly, a growing number of young adults no longer appear to know how to conduct themselves responsibly in public.  The rule and convention abiding public have come to feel besieged and the howls of the tabloid press purporting to speak on their behalf has bullied successive administrations Labour and Conservative into "doing something about it".  The "something" has borne all the hallmarks of being knee-jerk, rather than being calmly and coolly considered whilst in possession of all the material facts.  It was inevitable that once the age of criminal responsibility was lowered, an increasing number of younger children would be sucked into the criminal justice system and most unnecessarily.

There are offences so bad that even a child should know that they are wrong, but nuisance and silly offending should not be the subject of criminal sanction.  "Pecking order fights" in the school playground now result in prosecution.  That should not be so.  Such behaviour represents a phase of male development.  It is ridiculous and wrong-headed to apply the same opprobrium or a criminal sanction to a playground scrap between two thirteen year-old boys as to a bar room brawl involving two men.  Hormones or whatever, it is a phase boys "grown out of" as they mature.  Only males with serious problems still fight by the time they reach their late teens and early twenties.  It is those individuals with whom the State ought to concern itself.

The BBC, in its usual impartial and helpful way, reminds us in its report of the age of various offenders who committed very serious crimes, children such as Jon Venables and Robert Thomson, Danny and Rickie Preddie and Mary Bell. However, these children were the exception to the rule.  It is important to point out that crimes of that  gravity committed by children occur very rarely. The murder committed by Mary Bell took place in 1968.  James Bulger's murder by Venables and Thomson took place twenty-five years later in 1993 and Damilola Taylor's in 2000.

In essence, most child crime is very small beer and is committed largely for reasons other than just plain "badness" or "poor upbringing".  Children can be immature and silly, behave irrationally, empathise with others to a limited degree only or not at all.  They possess all manner of "flaws" caused by their lack of life experiences which can limit their being able to behave well or responsibly in each and every social situation.

The truth is that in most cases "kids" just grow up.  "Special intervention" by the Court system is more likely to do harm than good.  The Nanny State should heed this research and just butt out.  The Shadow Home Affairs minister Edward Garnier should take note.

A Government Man doing the Government’s business

New Labour has set its heart upon imprisoning more motorists

Bending rules to ensure higher conviction rates is fraught with danger

The NHS: It is time to return to basics

Is this the thin end of the wedge?

Valerie Elliott reports in The Times today about the cancellation of a planned chase involving an artificial scent[1] in Central London by members of the  “Connaught Square Squirrel Hunt”.  Threats had been made by animal rights activists against the event such that the Police feared that they would create a public order incident.

Once again angry, resentful fanatics threatening violence have  successfully curtailed a lawful activity.

Whilst the Police seem to be very willing to protect our rights when a lawful pursuit is followed by the majority or a pet minority, when a pursuit by the unfavoured is involved, it is just too much trouble to police.  I can well imagine that the drag hunt organisers were warned darkly that if the event proceeded and any trouble erupted, everyone would be arrested, including the riders, for “public disorder.”

The animal rights activists have shown their true colours.  This was nothing to do with animal welfare.  They don’t like the sort of people comprising the Connaught Square Squirrel Hunt and they are going to stop them doing anything they do, just because. I shall leave the last word to Duncan Macpherson, joint master of the hunt, who is reported to have said:

“These activists are clearly even more absurd than I thought if they were going to protest about huntsmen and dogs chasing a smelly sock.”

"…it is sad that at the very moment free will is becoming a reality for many of us, or at least for those of us living in Western democracies, the prevailing left-wing orthodoxy has become to condemn those who accept the consequences of that freedom."

Robert Crampton[1]

In any liberal democracy, an independent, strong legal profession is allowed to defend fearlessly and robustly those who the State charges with criminal offences.  No matter how heinous the offence or how unpopular with public opinion the defendants’ cause, as a matter of course their legal representatives are expected to vigorously test  the prosecution case and unflinchingly put their clients’ case.

Arani & Co is a firm of solicitors that represents very unpopular clients.  By all accounts, they represent them very well, or at least well enough to make the Police and other elements comprising the State to take umbrage.  Now we are told that some of our representatives in the House of Commons have demanded that the Law Society investigate this firm, to establish whether they have acted throughout with the necessary degree of compliance with amongst other things, professional ethics.  Of course, it is very important that any profession is policed to ensure that it maintains the very highest standards, but my concern is this. Government, particularly this Labour Government, does not like lawyers (save those who represent its interests, almost invariably against Joe Public.)

It would be a simple matter to make an example of one firm which is unpopular with the public, a signal of intent that the HM Government is not going to have any truck with any other law firm that defends causes that it considers unpopular.  Defend who we consider to be indefensible and you will be investigated.  The message is all too clear.

This article in The Times today by Nigel Hawkes says all that need be said.

As the Home Office research conducted by the usual suspects has now begun to appear in the liberal legal press with the expected wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, it was fortuitous that this article appeared in the press.  True to my promise, I shall continue to highlight the dangers of weighting the trial process against the presumption of innocence or by well-meaning but misguided procedural devices, rigging the evidence against the defendant.

Elvira Fairhurst, a teacher who was aged forty-nine years, had a four-month affair with a fourteen year old pupil in her charge.  The boy suffered from learning difficulties.  The affair came to light when a crane driver witnessed her having sexual intercourse with the boy in her car, in a car park.  She was jailed for four years after pleading guilty to eleven counts of sexual activity with a child.

By all accounts, until her frolics with the boy, Mrs Fairhurst was a regular churchgoer who had led a constructive and exemplary life.  The point of this article is not to dwell on her criminality.  The poor woman will be punished enough for her four months’ of madness.  It was perhaps a small mercy that she was a woman.  Had a male teacher so ravished a fourteen year old girl, we know that public reaction would have been wholly different; hysterical and disproportionate, in fact.  The point is this: when first interviewed by the Police, Mrs Fairhurst claimed initially that the boy had sexually assaulted or raped her.  On this occasion, the male had an independent witness who could testify to the contrary.

Let me state my position very carefully.  I believe that an effective Criminal Justice System should convict and punish[1] the guilty.  It follows that such a system must acquit the innocent. Any system that convicts the innocent cannot be described as a Criminal Justice System at all.

Alan Travis of The Guardian reported today that Home Office sponsored research indicates that barristers and judges are undermining rape reform.  According to Mr Travis,

“The research, published yesterday, says that rules introduced in 2000 to ban defence barristers from depicting rape victims as promiscuous have been “evaded, circumvented and resisted” with the result that the reform has failed to have any impact. The finding will be a further blow to Home Office ministers and the law officers, who have tried for years to find ways of boosting the low 5.6% conviction rate in rape cases (my emphasis.) The study of the case files of more than 400 rape trials says that defence barristers used “devious tactics” to ensure that evidence of the sexual history of the victim was raised in two-thirds of the trials that were observed.”

Also,

“the difficulty is compounded by the fact that almost half the judges interviewed by the researchers were unaware of the crown court rules setting out how the ban should work: "Some judges had only a vague knowledge of section 41 [of the 1999 legislation which contains the ban] and few non-legal practitioners and no complainants understood the new law.”

Worse still,

“Findings from case files, trial observations and interviews raise the possibility that both prosecution and defence share stereotypical assumptions about ‘appropriate’ female behaviour and that these continue to play a part when issues of credibility are addressed in rape cases”

and,

“defence lawyers still used evidence and “rhetorical devices” to impugn the character of rape victims and make their testimony less credible, and were often unchallenged by the prosecution or the judge.”

The authors of this Home Office sponsored report were Liz Kelly, Jennifer Temkin and Sue Griffiths.  Professor Temkin features in one of my posts late last year.  Since 1982 she has spent a considerable amount of time researching and writing about the crime of rape.  I suspect that she has a thing about the subject.  Certainly a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to which she contributed in March 2002 unquestionably made some people angry because of its perceived bias.

As a result of this research the Solicitor General Mike O'Brien has written to the criminal law procedures committee asking it to tighten the rules. Apparently the Bar Council has been put upon also to set up a training course for barristers involved in rape cases to ensure they deal with the issues involved with “greater sensitivity”.

I shall not revisit my thoughts about the issue of he purportedly low 5.6% conviction rate in rape cases.  Neither shall I make great play of the fact that since 1997 and the gradual politicisation of the Civil Service; research sponsored by Government departments seems to have been sought in the main from trusted sources known to be sympathetic to the view of the New Labour Administration.

Professor Temkin might be very learned and well researched in her chosen specialist subject but I detect the myopia of single issue-ism.  The findings of Ms Temkins’ research reported by Mr Travis’ are hard to believe.  We are told that “…almost half the judges interviewed by the researchers were unaware of the crown court rules setting out how the ban should work.”  It took me just seconds to access the relevant sections and narrative on my electronic version of Archbold, the Crown Court bible, the tome that each and every judge who sits in a criminal Court possesses at his fingertips.  If I can check the rules so easily and grasp their import, it is a fair bet that learned counsel and judges do routinely, too. Whilst I accept that applying the rules and ensuring that a defendant had a fair trial might prove a little fraught, particularly as ensuring a fair trial is the judge’s foremost duty, it is utterly implausible to suggest that almost half the judges were unaware of the Crown Court rules.

The weakness of nearly all academic lawyers is that not having had the opportunity to spend years at the “coal face” they never develop any significant insight into the human condition or any deep or meaningful understanding of what a real live trial involves.  It is not sufficient to attend a handful of specially selected trials here or there, making copious notes, poring over the transcripts and exhibits and picking holes in the advocates’ cross examination, submissions, speeches or the judge’s decisions or closing summary. It helps if you were present in the Police Station when the defendant was detained, interviewed and charged.  You might have to attend numerous preliminary Court appearances or make a succession of unsuccessful applications for bail. Proofing witnesses including the defendant, attending identification parades, examining and cross-referencing prosecution witness statements, appointing forensic experts on behalf of the defence, all provide an opportunity to gain that insight that allows you to make sense of the system and why it works the way it does.  It is whilst performing these functions that you might develop a sense of unease about the prosecution case.  On paper the defendant might look as if he is bang to rights but you might have a sense of there being something that isn’t quite right. That sense of unease may arise because having become acquainted with the defendant over a course of months (and probably having met his family, friends and girlfriend) it becomes incongruous that this defendant behaved in the manner alleged by the victim.  To the defence lawyers, the defendant is a human being whose life, career and future become worth defending. Thus whilst it is easy for some academic lawyers to form a view that the low rape conviction rate is irrefutable evidence that heinous monsters responsible for routinely raping thousands of  women each year are “let off” by the Courts, those involved in the process, including jurors, know different.

In a rape prosecution, it is almost invariably the case that the defendant must claim that the complainant is a liar.  For that reason, the cross examination is very robust and must be robust.  The judge understands this as does counsel for the Crown. The “character assassination” the feminists complain of arises from this process.   The complainant’s credit is being challenged, so when the defence cannot be conducted without being hamstrung by being barred from raising the sexual history of the victim (as will very often be the case) that evidence has to be heard.  It is insulting to the intellect of the jurors to suggest that a defendant can effectively destroy a prosecution case by falsely besmirching a truthful complainant’s character.  If the Crown’s case is strong, any character assassination will rebound upon the defendant.  Suggesting horrible things about the complainant has no effect unless there is something else about the evidence (the Crown’s evidence, not the defendant’s - he would say he didn’t do it, wouldn’t he?) which makes the jury think twice.

This discredited Government will no doubt continue to tinker with the rules in a vain attempt to increase conviction rates for rape and indeed all other offences.  The judges and barristers (both for the defence and Crown) will continue to use or allow evidence and “rhetorical devices” to impugn the character of rape victims and make their testimony less credible in an endeavour to ensure a fair trial.  Harry will become even angrier and just to prove our point people like me will increasingly flag and highlight cases where women are convicted of making false allegations of rape.

Towards the end of May 2006, animal rights activists discovered the secret location of the accommodation in the Cotswolds village used by builders working on the construction of Oxford University’s new £20 million laboratory in South Parks Road.  Speak, the group responsible for the Oxford University anti-vivisection protests, posted the address on the internet. The group had intended to demonstrate outside the men's quarters today. The demonstrations were already restricted at the building site by an injunction granted to the University. Furthermore, to prevent the activists from harassing the workers at their living quarters, the injunction had forbade anyone from following vehicles ferrying contractors to the site.  Now a High Court Judge has extended the injunction to cover the workers' living quarters. Although Speak says it uses only legal means[1] to protest against vivisection, there are concerns that high profile sympathisers such as Morrissey will encourage hard line activists to go beyond peaceful protest. However, Thames Valley Police seem unimpressed by such an argument.  They are reported to have said that they were not investigating the singer's comments because there was,

 "no reasonable prospect of getting anything out of it in terms of a conviction".

This limp response from the Police is unimpressive, not only because it is of dubious validity and will be seen as carte blanche by the protesters but also because as is so often the case, the Police forget that their brief is to not only to detect crime, but to deter it.  They can make their presence felt and show that they are not putting up with any harassment or intimidation against the workers by these “protesters”.

For all lovers of the wider concept of freedom of expression, this should make us warm to Mr Moyles, for a start.  It is not the first time  he has been singled out and criticised for amongst other things, being allegedly homophobic.  In an article in The Guardian on 7^th June 2006 he was roundly condemned by a contemporary, Tim Lusher.  A cause of Mr Lusher’s angst appears to have arisen not so much by virtue Mr Moyles’ perceived homophobia but rather his use of the word gay to mean rubbish.  Apparently, to the under-twenty-eights, this is the current meaning of the word gay.  I can understand Mr Lusher’s irritation in this respect.  I was more than a little miffed when the meaning of gay transmuted from “full of or disposed to joy and mirth; light-hearted, exuberantly cheerful, sportive, merry”.  Mr Lusher’s Guardian article leads me to imagine him to be a rather po-faced, humourless, politically correct  individual.

By all accounts, our Mr Moyles behaves occasionally in a coarse, insulting and rude manner to all and sundry during his radio programme and worst of all, he swears.  This makes me like him even more. His target audience appear to think he is good and worth tuning into, insulted or no.  The ratings certainly prove it.  He is very popular.  Some people have felt constrained to complain about him, but not that many.  Curiously, the BBC has shown remarkably good sense and judgment by avoiding censuring Mr Moyles, but giving a general warning to all of its Radio 1 DJ’s concerning “watching their language”, as reported in The Times today.

There are numerous, vociferous minorities who are all too ready to tell us how to think and how we should behave, so as not to upset their sensitivities.  They should be told to grow up and get a life, whoever they are.

How ironic that whilst our servicemen and women were trying to help create a democratic Iraq, most were denied the chance to vote in our last General Election;

“…a damning indictment of the Government”

says Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary.  Quite.

It is time for the local constabulary to have a word in Morrissey's  shell-like.  Whilst it is true that he is all mouth and trousers and utterly harmless, what he is saying is not unlikely to give succour to or even incite others to undertake criminal acts against individuals who are performing a lawful activity.

Jasper Gerard reports today in The Sunday Times that when attending Oxford in support of animal rights activists last week Morrissey said,

“Make no mistake, for anyone working in the labs, we are going to get you.”

This is wholly unacceptable.  Should any member of Joe Public threaten harm to another person, whether or not it was just hot air or a statement of intent, the Police would investigate.  Morrissey should not be exempt from the discipline of self-restraint merely because he is a has-been celebrity.  It is no excuse that all he intended to do was show solidarity with a handful of similar thinking individuals and in reality he doesn't intend to “get” anyone.  There are members of his wider audience, who do.[1]

As cross-party opposition to the imposition of the Home Information Packs (“HIPs”) scheme begins to grow, the press is becoming increasingly aware of its weaknesses and the misinformation upon which the whole HIPs edifice is built.  What appeared to have a hopeless cause when I posted my first article concerning the issue is proving to be anything but.

In her article in The Times entitled “Don't be fooled by a pack of lies” on 27^th May 2006 Alice Miles reports,

 “Estate agents hate the HIP. Chartered surveyors hate it — understandably, as it takes their business away. Building societies, mortgage lenders and lawyers are dubious about it. Various professionals claim that it will slow the market; that those being trained to carry out the tick-box home condition reports are “people like taxi drivers”, as one put it to me this week; that not enough of these inspectors are being trained; and that, although the minister claims that 40 per cent of sales that fall through do so because of problems thrown up by the survey weeks into the process, the figure is in fact 12 per cent: in other words, the HIP wouldn’t make any difference in nine out of ten sale collapses” (my emphasis.)

Ms Miles continues,

 “But the central argument against the HIP is that if mortgage companies and buyers are not able to rely legally upon the home condition report, and have some form of legal redress if it turns out to be inaccurate, then they will still have to pay to have their own surveys carried out. This would mean that the Government had introduced a new layer of complication and expense to the process rather than simplifying it. At the moment, in law, usually only the person who pays for a survey can rely upon it.”

In an earlier report in The Times on 18^th May 2006 entitled “Home Information Packs branded as 'ridiculous'”, Rebecca O' Connor reported the views of  The Building Societies Association (BSA) which is calling for the packs, which will cost home sellers as much as £1,000 each, to be made voluntary when they are introduced in June 2007.

Building Society chief executives say that HIPs will be costly and will not achieve the Government's objectives to reassure buyers or speed up housing transactions. Ms O'Connor reports that Adrian Coles, director general of the BSA, said at the Association's annual conference in Manchester:

“People's homes represent their most important asset. As such it is imperative that they can have confidence that there will not be any unexpected fluctuations in the market”

and

 “It is ridiculous that someone selling their home without a HIP will be punished by a fine. If people feel that HIPS will be of benefit, they will opt to have one without the need for compulsion.”

The Law Society, which is endeavouring to be supportive of the HIPs project[1], is more specific about unsavoury facts involving cost and criminal penalties for non compliance. Anyone marketing their property for sale after 1 June 2007 faces a fine of £200 per day if they do not provide potential buyers with a HIP. The Law Society also estimates that the true cost of producing HIPs, which will be borne by the seller alone, could range from £600-£3,000, depending on the size of the property, far more than the “modest” sum the Government would have had us believe.

New research shows most people are totally ignorant of the biggest ever shake-up of the property market which is only one year away.  Sixty four percent of people questioned by ICM have never heard of the term "home information pack" (HIP). To deal with this lack of awareness, The Law Society has created a question and answer page on its Website, which can be found here .  I have updated my webpage concerning HIPs which can be accessed here.

It is to be hoped that once the general public comes to realise what is being foisted upon them, the howl of righteous indignation will be too loud for this Government to ignore.

The purpose of Bryan Appleyard’s article in The Sunday Times on April 23, 2006 was to argue that British television news is dull and lacks substance, whilst in America, anchors have “authority and zest”.

Interestingly, in passing he had this to say as well: -  

[The BBC’s] primary news shows are now unwatchable. Of course, they have long been unwatchable if you object to political bias. The BBC won’t listen, but I’m afraid that the case is unarguable. The corporation is suffused with soft left and hard anti-American prejudices that seep into almost all the news coverage. By the time one gets to Newsnight and sees Gavin Esler treating any old hoodlum or crook with extravagant respect before turning to sneer at some decent American congressman, one can find oneself indulging in that awful, crazed habit of shouting at the TV.  Looking down at the vast BBC newsroom, I once made this point to an executive, who just looked blankly back as if I had unaccountably lapsed into Hungarian. To get her attention, I asked her to tell me which newspapers she could see on the desks. Amid that sea of reporters, only one title was visible — the eccentrically left-leaning Independent. 

Many of us no longer watch or listen to BBC News because of this bias and those of us who still do take what we are told with a pinch of salt.  For a public broadcasting service this is unacceptable. We demand more balance.  A significant proportion of the Licence Fee paying public (almost certainly the majority) is not Soft Left or anti-American or very pro-European Union.  Perhaps the BBC should, before dismissing criticism out of hand, bear in mind that he who pays the piper, calls the tune.

The answer is nothing, save that it does not allow Mr Blair to get on with the important job he has in hand.  In The Daily Telegraph today, Simon Heffer addresses some questions to the Labour MPs who will grant Mr Blair the new powers he desires.  I should like to hear the answers.

An elected House of Lords might prove to be an unmitigated disaster.  In the unlikely event that its political composition was significantly different from the Commons, it should claim to have a mandate to balk any legislation with which it disagreed.  This could result in either deadlock or an unseemly, prolonged scrabble for a compromise that satisfies no one and accords with neither party’s manifesto commitments.  More likely, is that the upper house would more often than not reflect the political composition of its sister house, thereby ensuring that any Government of the day could simply ramrod through its entire legislative programme with little resistance.

The idea that members of the new upper house should be appointed also raises fears, particularly if any political organisation is able to influence the making of any appointment even to the slightest degree. However, if that risk can be eliminated, an appointed House of Lords comprising of the great and the good would be viable, though it would suffer two fatal weaknesses.  Without being elected, it could never possess the authority to stop dead bad or deeply unpopular legislation.  Should it seriously offend the Commons, it could find itself reformed into oblivion. An unelected upper house must be possessed of a weapon by which the Commons can be made to listen, even against its will.  Perhaps that power could be the right to call for a referendum upon the contentious issue at hand.[1]

What we must not forget is that Mr Blair is a man with a mission; a mission to get his way and ensure that his New Labour “legacy” lasts.  What better method than by creating an upper chamber that not only assists him to ramrod through his pet legislation but can balk any attempt to repeal the same by an incoming Government of differing political persuasion?  The current House of Lords and opposition parties must deal with Mr Blair and his plans to re-reform the upper chamber, robustly.

In his article in The Sunday Times today, Rod Liddle rightly rails against The Labour Government’s new proposals concerning rape law.  I have already made my views know regarding this matter in a recent post and previously.  The article deserves to be read in its entirety but Mr Liddle concludes: -

"Now the government wants to have it both ways: it wishes the legal system to assume that actions undertaken by a person who is drunk are in one case the responsibility of the individual who is drunk and in another case — the extremely serious charge of rape — they are not. This makes no sense, either moral, logical or legal.

 

Further, O’Brien’s [Mike O’Brien, the Solicitor General - the Government's second most senior Law Officer] proposed change to the law ignores the probability that people drink alcohol precisely in order to loosen their inhibitions and to enjoy the consequences that come from being in such a state. In other words, the state of dereliction or abandon in which they later find themselves was planned at the beginning of the evening. If this were not the case, why would people drink alcohol? Are we to assume that they drink not realising what is to become of them?

 

Not so long ago Amnesty International carried out a survey which revealed that a substantial minority of the British people thought that in some rape cases women were partially “responsible” for the crime. Again, this strikes me as not entirely stupid — and yet the poll results were greeted with unmitigated horror by Amnesty and indeed the media. The British public needs educating about rape, they all howled. But it does not. People live in the real world, rather than the political world: they know what rape is and the actions which might be taken by women to avoid it.

 

My guess is that they also know that when a woman drunkenly consents to sex it is not the same as rape, and that any later sense of culpability or shame rests in equal proportions upon the shoulders of the man and the woman, however “immoral” either party might consider the act to have been."

These new rape proposals are just the latest evidence of a wider malaise,[1]  but my real concern is how these imbalanced and so often clearly flawed ideas and opinions are fed to us by our “free” pro-Labour media.  We are softened up routinely by a creeping barrage of sympathetic, uncritical media reporting in support of the “new establishment” view.  Opponents of the new “consensus” are given short shrift or disparaged.[2]

A confederacy of disparate single issue pressure groups, united by their belief in the absolute righteousness of their cause, now have the ear of like minded individuals in the Government, the media and beyond.  Unable to forge a society in their image through the ballot box,  they use the media to manipulate the public by misinformation.  Their views are right and ours are wrong: so we need re-education.

The public perceives that it is not being told the truth and distrusts both journalists and politicians alike.  So long as this manipulation continues, politics will continue to be an irrelevance to the majority of people, television viewing figures will continue to fragment in favour of the entertainment channels and newspaper circulations will continue to fall.

There is an opportunity for the Conservatives here.  Over the course of the past ten years or more they have struggled to speak the same language as the electorate.  That language is very simple.  It is based upon common sense and the truth.  It is a language no longer spoken by either the Labour Government or the pro Labour media.  No amount of spin can hide that.

Nevertheless, everything he writes is well worth reading, particularly this.

This is old news, but I missed it.  Laurie Pycroft of Pro-Test fame, did not.

Mark Stephen’s article in The Times last week that was commented upon by me here, has provoked responses from the claimant in the libel proceedings, Mike Keith-Smith and a Times reader Kristen Roy, which were published in The Times today.

I republish their correspondence here: -

"Sir,

 

As the successful claimant in Keith-Smith v Williams, I strongly object to Mark Stephens’s assertion that the decision by Judge Alistair MacDuff, QC, marks “a dark day for freedom of speech” (news comment, Mar 22).

 

Since when did the right to free speech imply the right of an anonymous malefactor to engage in a long-term campaign of vile and obscene abuse against an innocent individual? This disgusting conduct is not “the democratisation of knowledge”. A far better analogy would lie with the facility, common in Nazi Germany and other totalitarian dictatorships, for malicious individuals to bear false witness against their neighbours from behind a cloak of secrecy.

 

If I have made a stand that in any way assists in the plight of other victims of internet abuse – and I know that they are legion – then I am very proud to have done so."

 

Mark Keith-Smith

and,

"Sir,

 

The High Court ruling in the case of Keith-Smith v Williams demonstrates the application of common sense to legal treatment of speech over the internet.

 

The internet is a technologically unprecedented medium and certainly presents conceptual difficulties for the law where jurisdictional questions arise. However, there is little justification for creating a new set of libel laws for the World Wide Web or, rather, taking them away altogether. A libellous allegation remains exactly that, whether read from a paper in hand or on a screen before the eyes.

 

Are people really so adept at distinguishing “ranters” on the internet from those making viable claims? Should we be? And, if we are, then why are we deemed unable to make these distinctions when the claim appears in hard copy?

 

The characteristic of the internet which sets it apart from others is quite simply its potential for dissemination at mind-boggling speeds, in mind-boggling volumes. The internet is a legitimate mode of communication and to place it in a legal vacuum undermines the very real place it now occupies in today’s society."

 

Kristen Roy

Let me start by saying that I do not think the opinions they profess are either misguided or wrong.  I just do not agree.  I have a different perspective.

Mr Keith-Smith has a political persona to protect.  The palpably false insults made by his nemesis, an obviously malicious woman, could have been used by unscrupulous opponents who were willing to smear his good name behind the scenes, though I am unconvinced of the likely success of this tactic on the part of such miscreants.

As I have already said in my earlier post on the subject, the danger of litigating against small time "slanderers" is that the legal action publishes the libel to a larger audience that will contain even more people who will believe, irrationally, that the falsehoods are true, because for one reason or another they need to believe they are true.

In some cases (though clearly not in the instant case) a libel action is used as a gagging device to suppress a truth (Liberace, Jeffrey Archer.) This is not lost on the public. Thus very often, only the most popular litigants of uncontroversial occupations or pursuits truly escape unscathed.  So often, even successful libel actions do not have the desired result.

I fear this victory is likely to give succour to those who wish to silence critics on the net.  Bloggers have a limited audience and their shelf life is relatively short.  A blogger or owner of a website who is clearly bitter and twisted about something will lose an audience fast and nothing they say will carry any weight, anyway. We are not discussing mass audience newspapers or television media whose utterances have far more weight (and thereby cause more damage) because they try to verify their facts and have lawyers to ensure that so far as is possible, there is not any overstepping of the mark. Only a handful of blogs have a very large audience and the reason for their popularity is that they are amongst other things, interesting, authoritative in their chosen subject and in the main avoid gratuitous offence.

It is the possibility of gagging actions that most bloggers could not hope to afford to defend, which bothers me.  Pitfalls for the claimants, do not.  If they wish to risk doing a Gillian Taylforth, then so be it.

It had to happen of course, as night follows day.  Terrorist elements amongst the Animal Rights fraternity have shown already that harassing and threatening opponents is an effective means of controlling and forcing them to submit to its will.  The tactic is catching on amongst other single issue groups, the most recent example being  anti abortionists, as is reported today by Sandra Laville.  As yet, our home grown hard-line anti abortionists have yet to blow up an abortion clinic as happened in the United States but, no doubt, from now on we can expect little acts of harassment and intimidation here and there against anyone who is seen or suspected to support, legal abortion.

In the case reported today in The Guardian, the miscreant anti abortion group is UK Life League which is run by a James Dowson.  Like Animal Rights groups, it also appears to rely upon doctored photographic evidence as part of its case in drumming up support and finance.

"Life League, which is a registered company, raises money through donations, and stalls on streets across England and Scotland, a tactic successfully employed by animal rights groups."

Remember that name and next time you pass a Life League stall in the high street, please give it a wide berth.

“Labour isn’t wicked…” says Danny Kruger.  However, it is seeking to pass legislation similar to that passed by the National Socialists in Germany following Adolf Hitler’s electoral success in 1933.[1]

The problem is that just like the Nazis, Labour too has a vision.  It believes fervently in the justice of what it does and will not be diverted from its chosen course.  It does not believe that its opponents act in good faith when criticising the measures it proposes.  It is not open to reasonable compromise.  It neither listens nor wants to listen.  It has a mission that will be fulfilled.

Unlike the Nazis, Labour does not want to intimidate, terrorise, imprison or murder a significant part of the population or wage war against its European neighbours, though it does seem to need to micro-manage the activities of the citizenry.  This Labour Government’s crime is that it cannot conceive that any British Government should ever wish to abuse the powers it is currently seeking to create.  Its arrogance is breathtaking.

It was in Scotland that opposition to the Community Charge first exploded.  I should not suggest for one moment that the anti-smoking ban in Scotland will lead to so much violent protest, but quiet, large scale disobedience is assured.  No matter how softly softly the authorities seek to enforce the ban, it will just cause more hard feeling and generate the political opposition to the measure that was so singularly missing when it was first proposed.

As someone who does not smoke, it suits me not to inhale others’ cigarette smoke or have the dubious honour of my clothes smelling as if I had polished off a pack of twenty, personally.  Nevertheless, I feel that smokers are being victimised.  Many non-smokers I have spoken to feel the same way.  Beyond our politicians and persons involved in the provision of medical or health care, amongst non-smokers the support for a ban is soft  or non-existent.  Smokers are currently resentful but compliant.  This resignation to their fate will not last long once the inconvenience of their being unable to smoke in their favoured pub or club has sunk it.  The sheer unfairness of it all will rankle.

Many hundreds of thousands of Labour supporters will be directly touched by this ban in a way that Iraq and Sleaze did not.  Iraq did no more than reduce Labour’s Commons majority  from epic landslide proportions to a “pathetic” thumping one of sixty plus. Sleaze, taken on its own, is not likely to lose many seats for Labour, particularly if Honest Gordon takes over at No.10. The smoking ban will irritate many natural supporters and the Government should bear in mind that it is not only bad weather on Polling Day that can keep away Labour supporters.[1]

Andrew Sullivan reports today in The Sunday Times concerning the row that has erupted in relation to an episode of the cartoon series South Park being “pulled” from a television schedule because it appears to have offended Scientologists.  Now others seem to be jumping on the “cartoons” bandwagon, the willingness to kow-tow to the complainers is unsettling.  There may be solid commercial reasons for this particular example of self censorship, but nevertheless more people with super sensitivities about their beliefs might to be encouraged to chance their arm.  Should this trend continue, a line will have to drawn. 

Mr Sullivan argues,

“…it’s this artful ability to say in cartoon form what you cannot say in any other without a libel writ that makes cartoons irreplaceable…

 

Cartoons and puppetry, as the classic series Spitting Image proved, can convey truths and explore fantasies no other form can.

 

We need those truths and benefit from those fantasies. A free society survives partly because the powerful are mocked, and their pretensions undermined. Religions, which guard their own illusions carefully, are particularly ripe for satire.  And they should be.

 

Whenever one human being is claiming to tell the truth about the meaning of life he is making a very powerful claim — and in a free society he also runs the risk of getting a raspberry. Laughter matters because piety begets power.

 

Orwell once remarked that one reason fascism never took off in Britain was because the sight of a goose-stepping soldier would prompt your average Englishman to giggle. Someone is now silencing the giggles.  And our world is a lot creepier because of it.”

Yes, quite.

The Court of Appeal's decision in the Shabina Begum case was disturbing for a number of reasons and happily the House of Lords has reversed it. I suspect that Boris Johnson echoes the thoughts of many of us when expressing his opinions on the matter in his article in The Daily Telegraph, today.

I do not smoke, so the recent legislation that will soon ban people from smoking in certain public places does not concern me to any material degree.  I do not hunt, so I have not been deprived of my sport by that means.  I do not shoot, so when that is banned, I shall not suffer, nor shall I when the time comes for angling to be outlawed.  I am astute enough to realise that sooner or later however, one of my little freedoms will be the subject of Government interference.  It is for this reason, that when the smokers or hunters or any other minority whose little freedoms have been trampled under foot finally revolt, I shall be there alongside them at the barricades.[1]

I have little doubt that Tracy Williams went too far when insulting Keith Smith, a UKIP parliamentary candidate, in a chat room in April 2004.  Whether he should have issued proceedings for libel is another matter.  Ms Williams’ insults were palpably false and were merely intended to insult.  No reasonable person was likely to take them seriously.  Mr Smith’s victory has done no more than broadcast the nature of the insults to millions of people rather than the few hundred who might have visited the website in question.

My concern is that Ms Williams’ insults were very tame when compared to much of the criticism directed towards other, more powerful politicians, individuals and corporations which routinely appears on UK blogs.  I hope a precedent has not been set.  Many political blogs, though full of invective and bile (and almost certainly libellous) are highly entertaining, very much in the tradition of James Gillray.  It would be a shame to see them gagged, particularly as the media in general now seems to be so feeble in its criticism of big business and big Government.  We shall have to wait and see.[1]

Some weeks ago, in anticipation of the tenth anniversary of the Dunblane tragedy, I started work on a long article documenting successive Governments’ attempts to control gun crime by bearing down hard on lawful gun ownership, and pointing out the futility and unfairness of it all.  It is enough to say that the article was not completed.  This article by Ross Clark in The Times today says much the same thing, is shorter, better written and far more interesting.

Nicola Woolcock reports in The Times today about Oxford University’s successful attempt to secure an injunction against animal rights activists preventing their screaming through megaphones and taking photographs. The earlier injunction had placed no restraints on noise, which enabled the activists to use amongst other things, horns, whistles and tapes of dogs howling. They had also photographed and videoed staff, students and construction staff.

The report continues,

"However, the University’s attitude towards freedom to demonstrate is called into question by its decision to apply for an even more stringent injunction at a full hearing next month. It wants the weekly protest cut from four hours to one and the maximum number of demonstrators reduced from fifty to twelve."

Why is the University’s attitude towards freedom to demonstrate called into question? The animal rights activists are not there to demonstrate, they are there to intimidate. They have not just turned up in their hundreds, had a noisy march, called their opponents a few rude names and having made their point, then gone home. They are there every day, causing a nuisance and making it very clear that if anyone disagrees with them, that person’s property and/or health might suffer. It is arguable that the University should have sought an even more stringent order. The animal rights daily gathering in Oxford is nothing to do with freedom of expression.

A persuasive plea from Rachel from North London.

It is ironic that the BBC, which strives so hard to serve “minorities” has been so roundly condemned by a report by Stonewall, the organisation that campaigns on behalf of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals.

The report cites numerous examples of presenters on the two main BBC channels making negative comments about gays.  The report's researchers, who included heterosexuals, watched one hundred and sixty eight hours of programming between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. over a period of eight weeks.  During that time, it is said, lesbian and gays, references to them, or related issues featured in just thirty-eight minutes of coverage, of which thirty-two minutes were deemed derogatory or offensive and just six minutes were deemed positive.

A number of things struck me about the report.  Whilst I cannot claim to have watched the same one hundred and sixty eight hours of programming as the researchers, I have watched programmes in which the alleged worst offenders, such as the likes of Jeremy Clarkson, Anne Robinson and Chris Moyles happened to be presenting.  None of these individuals are homophobic.  All call a spade, a spade and are vocal about their opinions.  Chris Moyles might be a piss-taker, but very often the butt of his humour is himself.  I accept that gay characters in so many plays, soaps and other programmes seem to be a parody, but then the other characters are clichéd, as well.  I suspect that as the researchers were specifically looking for bias against gays, they found it.  Seek and ye shall find.  Had they been asked to watch the programmes and note down anything they thought to be significant but without being told what they were looking for, the result of the survey might have been very different.

Too often, focus groups and activists from “minorities” are blind to the “robust humour” to which the general population is subjected.  They are too ready to adopt the role of victim and are far too sensitive and perceive slight where there is none.  It is also a sad fact of life, that the World does not perceive any of us as we perceive ourselves, but so often, the World’s perception is right.

The portrayal of homosexuality in the media is very often trite and silly.  The BBC is pro European Union and Tory-Sceptic, but it is not homophobic.[1]

1. Why does the Bill change the current procedures for the enactment into our law of EU legislation? 

2. What guarantees are there that the Bill could not be used to bring in the EU Constitution by the back door? 

3. If the Bill is just a simplifying measure for deregulation, why does it contain no requirement for any orders to actually reduce the amounts of red tape and regulation? 

4. Why does the Bill give the power to create new law, including new criminal offences, to the Law Commissions, which are unelected quangos appointed by Ministers? 

5. If the Law Commissions are supposed to be staffed by impartial technical experts, why are Ministers taking the power to amend the recommendations of the Law Commissions before they are fast-tracked into legislation? 

6. Why do protections in the Bill against new laws to permit forcible entry, search, seizure or compelling people to give evidence not apply to reforms recommended by the unelected Law Commissions appointed by Ministers? 

7. If the Bill allows Ministers to “amend, repeal or replace legislation in any way that an Act might”, does this not give them an unlimited power to ignore a democratic Parliament and legislate by decree? 

8. If the Bill is so sensible, why has Parliament used a different way of making laws for 700 years? 

9. If the Bill is meant to retain Parliament’s ability to scrutinise regulations and regulators, why does it not contain a provision for automatic sunset clauses in orders issued under the Bill? 

10. If the Bill gives Ministers powers to charge fees by decree, is that not a charter to bring in unlimited stealth taxes? 

11. As the Bill permits an order to be made by a Minister under the Bill provided its effect is “proportionate” to his “policy objective”, since when in our history as a democratic country has a Government Minister’s “policy objective” directly received the force of law? 

12. What guarantees are there that the Bill could not be used to bring in ID Cards by the back door? 

13. Why does the Bill give the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly a veto over Ministers’ power to change the law which it denies to English MPs?

For more “stuff” about this Bill,  see Right Links

Those amongst us who resort to the threat or use of violence to win an argument number a few score and their supporters, no more than a few hundred.  Yet such is the climate of cowardice in Europe, that rather than to face them down we appear to seek to appease them.  It was depressing to read the article of Douglas Murray in The Sunday Times today (26^th February 2006) which seems to suggest that Holland is being cowed by Islamic fundamentalists.  Is this the same Holland that fought for freedom successfully against the invincible Spanish in the 16^th and 17^th centuries and allied with the Austrians and English in the early 18^th century, successfully resisted French hegemony in Europe? Apparently, it is.

The threat posed by these “Islamic” terrorists is nothing as compared with the armed might of Spain or Louis XIV’s France.  The Dutch did not flinch against the Spanish or French and if the challenge ever arose again, they would not do so in the future, either.  The problem is that whereas it is easy to mobilise against an aggressive foreign power, it is not so easy when dealing with an aggressive cancer in your own society. Dutch silence is not a sign of weakness or of submission but of indecision.  How do you deal with your own nationals who do not wish to live by your rules, but theirs?  It is their democratic right to agitate for a society in which they wish to live and in which they wish us to live.

The Dutch know the answer is simple, though unpalatable.  At the risk of alienating their minority Muslim population and perhaps provoking a violent backlash, the secular Dutch must campaign vigorously for a society that remains forged in their image.  They know that they must confront and challenge the fundamentalists.  They must hunt down the terrorists and bring them to justice. They are gathering the resolve to do what must be done … and so must we, for their battle is ours.