Why Is A School Using Libel Lawyers?
On BBC London News this evening, there has been a story about a primary school, using well-known libel lawyers to sue their local council for damages over something written in a report. I didn’t get the full story, but I shall be watching later tonight and searching the papers in the morning.
After all, as a taxpayer, I don’t like schools wasting money and hiring libel lawyers definitely comes under that category.
C did her first pupillage as a barrister in libel chambers and it never ceased to amaze her how much money was wasted by clients in cases.
Prison or Tagging
The debate this morning on BBC Radio 5 is about punishment for crimes.
Most seem to be in favour of more prisons, but would we accept the extra taxes and where would we build them and where would we find the prison officers.
Having been over a prison recently, the biggest problem would appear to be lack of education and lack of jobs when they come out. In fact most of those I met, were extremely courteous to me and all the officers and others that worked and visitors. So the basics are there, it just needs to motivate them in the right way.
I am constantly reminded of the book, Menace to Society by Bill Fletcher. Fletcher had been in minor trouble for many years and had had all sorts of punishment. None had worked. In the 1960s, he ended up in Bow Street Magistrates Court in front of a Stipendiary Magistrate, who said he was going to give him the worst punishment he ever had. He let him go into the care of The Apex Trust, an organisation that rehabilitated offenders and still do. They taught him to read and write and he ended up as the doorman of the Shaw Theatre in London. I don’t think he was ever in trouble again.
I would agree that many offenders are beyond reform. On the other hand, a lot are good people underneath it all and with the application of a bit of training and a job, they can be set on the straight and narrow.
Exploitation of White Girls “is Asian problem”
The headline of this report comes from a piece from the front page of The Times and is based on quotes from Nazir Afzal, who is the Chief Crown Prosecutor in North West England.
He also says he will not turn a blind eye to crimes in any community.
I totally agree with that last statement and The Times and their reporter Andrew Norfolk is to be congratulated on their coverage of the subject. I suspect that the paper doesn’t go down too well in Pakistani communities.
A Man Who Got More Than He Wanted at Wal-Mart
This story about a man, who got bitten by a snake in Wal-Mart, looks like a beanfeast for American lawyers. Incidentally, in all of my travels, I can’t remember seeing a snake in the wild. I did have a taste of rattlesnake once in Texas. The old joke is it is like chicken with bite.
C also was very brave when it came to handling snakes and there are several pictures of her with them round her neck. The only animals she had a phobia of was chickens, turkeys and large ducks.
Connecticut Abolishes the Death Penalty
About time too, but it’s here on the BBC
London Is The World’s Divorce Capital
I’ve read this story in a couple of places today, but the Evening Standard has a long piece.
If C was still alive, she’d be disappointed, that the celebs and mega-millionaires never seemed to come to her chambers in Cambridge.
But who knows what might happen in the future or even be happening now, as there quite a few Cambridge companies, who’ve created a few billionaires and some men will always move on to pastures new.
Divorce may be a messy business, but someone has got to do it!
Abu Hamza Can Be Extradited
I’m not going to comment on the legal reasons, as it does seem to me, that the verdict of the European Court to allow the extradition of Abu Hamza may create more problems than it solves.
After all, it’s unlikely he’ll get a slap on the wrists in a United States court, so what will be the reaction of his apologists here in the UK, when they realise he’s not going to come back? I think it might be better for everyone here if he was kept in a nice warm cell and released when his time is up.
But then I don’t have to get elected in a few years time.
The EU could put a whole cap on it, by passing a law that says that no-one could be extradited to a country with the death penalty on the statute book.
America Has Too Many Lawyers
This must be true as lawyers are now suing the law schools for producing too many lawyers and it’s reported in today’s Times.
I think we’ve had the same problem here for some years, as C always said that when she retired, the new barristers wouldn’t or couldn’t afford to do the important work she used to do with respect to sorting out children, as there was no money in it.
She always said that fewer and better lawyers, might produce some, who had the conscience and ability to do the work she did.
There is always the old joke.
Q. What do you call a 1,000 American lawyer at the bottom of the sea?
A. A good start!
This Backlash Just Had to Happen
Last night in Rochdale, various factions attacked the takeaway and the police, that used to be owned by some of those on trial for sex offences in Liverpool Crown court.
And people wonder why Rochdale has such an awful run-down town centre.
With all the goings on there, would you let any of your children go near the place? And would you go there yourself, if there were a decent alternative nearby? Of course, you wouldn’t!
It strikes me before you try to build up the town centre, you must give it a steam clean first, to remove all the low life of whatever race they are to a place, where they can’t do any more damage.
The Anonymous Widower 