Let’s Help Crime Victims and Families More
This excellent article was written from an American perspective, but it is applicable everywhere. We spend fortunes on punishing offenders and not enough on the one hand providing services such as mental health care to stop them offending in the first place and also to provde real support to victims and their families. All we do is get more vindictive and cut services in the place where they might make a difference. If we take Derick Bird, who so callously murdered 14 in Cumbria, was enough done to check he was the right person to have a gun licence and also did he get the mental heath care that he probably needed. My GP worries about me, because I’ve lost my wife to cancer and can I cope with that and my strokes.
For those in favour of the death penalty, just think what difference it would have made to the Bird case. It would not have deterred him from killing and as he killed himself, it wouldn’t have made any difference afterwards except to give a ghoulish pleasure to the tabloids.
If we retain the death penalty, we are just as inhumane as the likes of Bird.
Years ago, I met Jimmy O’Connor, who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death. But he was repreived and later married the barrister, Nemone Lethbridge. He became a successful playwright and probably did more good in his later life. Do read the story of Jimmy O’Connor’s life in Wikipedia.
Where did I meet Jimmy? At a children’s birthday party in Notting Hill. Whether it was one of his kids, I don’t remember.
Lowering the Drink Drive Limit
At the moment, I’m not allowed to drink because of the stroke, but I’m not sure that lowering the limit is the best way to improve road safety.
I’m always very careful when I drive and do most of my drinking at home anyway. I did once drive to an emergency on the stud in my Discovery on the tracks after drinking a couple of pints and it frightened me. Nowhere did I break the law, as I went nowhere near a public road. In the end, I more or less abandoned the car at the problem and walked home.
I think most people are sensible and do things to stay legal anyway. Ask any policeman and they will tell you that many of those who drink and drive are serial offenders and have been caught at least once. The lowering of the limit would not affect these people, as they are well over the existing limit.
But are we after the wrong cause of accidents. About a year ago, I was nearly involved in a very serious accident. Luckily, I was in the Jaguar and was able to steer out of the way andbrake safely. A guy about twenty had overtaken dangerously and driven straight into the car in front of me. It was just plain bad and reckless driving. He should have been prosecuted, but the police refused to turn up. We need more proper traffic police on the road, whereas they are being cut drastically.
On another point, if I want to go to the pub now, as I can’t drive and it’ three miles, it’s either walk or get a taxi. But there are no local taxis round here and I would have to pay for them to come from the nearest town. We need the rules on taxis to be relaxed, so that we get more affordable taxis in rural areas. This in itself would probably discourage people from drinking and driving.
We also have the most serious penalties for drinking and driving in Europe, although our limits are higher. Many people have lost their jobs because they have been convicted and have no way to get to work. In a big city, this would not be a problem, but here in rural Suffolk it is.
So perhaps, we should exanmine everything to make sure that we end up with less accidents on the roads and also provide sensible alteratives for those who can’t or shouldn’t drive.
Trouble at Court
On Monday, there was a serious incident at Cambridge County Court. C used to work there a lot.
What the idiot’s motives in trying to burn the place down are, are uncertain, but is it part of a general unhappiness at the way people are treated by the courts in areas such as divorce and child matters? C had many angry clients, who in many cases felt the law shouldn’t apply to them. Typical would be the man, who felt that his ex-wife didn’t deserve a penny from their failed marriage.
Will we see more incidents like this, as costs are cut from legal aid and court budgets, which will mean that people get more and more unhappy with the service they get? I hope not!
Adoption
They are talking about the problems of adoption on BBC Radio 5 this morning. I feel I must comment.
C was adopted and for most of her working life, she was a barrister dealing with family matters, like divorce, money, care and adoption.
In her view most of the times, things worked out well provided that you had good professionals involved. What worried her in the last couple of years of her practice and life was the cutbacks imposed on court and social sevices by government, which meant problems got worse rather than better. Surely, it is better to get problems properly sorted earlier, rather than have a child grow up to be a drain on society.
But to end this on a happy note. Several times she was acting in an adoption case, where at the final hearing, the new adoptive mother had got pregnant. So instead of one new child, they had two and were twice as happy. It must have been the relief at it all.
It’s a pity she’s not here now, as being uniquely adopted, a mother to three and a barrister working in the field, she would know exactly what should be done.
She was also involved in a unique case, where a black 18-year-old girl, who had been in long term care with a white family applied for her own adoption by them, when the care system expired. The judge and my wife both said that it made being a lawyer worthwhile.
ouIn Ohio if a Policeman thinks you’re speeding, you are
Just heard this on CNN.
You could apply this to more serious crimes. Visions of Rowan Atkinson.
Somerset House
The imposing building, that is Somerset House, has had many Government uses in recent years and I can remember going there to look up my birth certificate.
But to my wife it was her favourite court, as she appeared there many times in the Principal Registry of the Family Division. It’s now in High Holborn, but she always said that it didn’t have the class of the old courts in Somerset House.
Somerset House
The Inns of Court
There are some things that no matter how many times you are told them, you never remember them. For instance, I can never which Inn of Court my wife belonged to; Inner or Middle Temple.
She always moaned about the fact that provincial barristers got very little out of the Inns compared to those who lived and worked in London.
The Inns of Court
Behind the trees are some wonderful buildings and some of the most cramped offices you will find in London.
The BCA Drops the Case Against Simon Singh
The title says it all. But read about it in full on the BBC. Here are the first two paragraphs.
The British Chiropractic Association has dropped its libel action against the science writer Simon Singh.
Dr Singh was being sued by the organisation because of comments he had made in the Guardian in 2008 about the effectiveness of chiropractic.
I’m very happy for Simon, as this sort of case and costs give British justice a bad name.
If Simon had said something that was truly offensive, then the case should have been quickly found in the BCA’s favour.
If on the other hand what he said was fair comment or genuine scientific unease, then it should have been quickly settled the other way.
But the case was not and it cost Simon upwards of a six figure sum. That is too high a cost to get real justice, as how could the average man on the Clapham Omnibus be able to afford such a sum?
But will Simon’s comments about chiropractors really make much difference? I’ve used them in the past and in most cases they have done just a little for the problems I’ve suffered from. On the other hand, others swear by their treatments and go all the time. We all have our views and follow them, so I suspect you’ll either back Simon or the BCA.
In one case though, I had spectacular results from an alternative form of therapy. At school my humerus was broken in a bullying incident and I’d been plagued by pain in the upper arm and shoulder for well over forty years. I’d seen several doctors, surgeons and osteopaths and no-one had been able to sort it out. I’d even had a full MRI Scan.
But then I went to a guy, who put judo players back together. He analysed the problem and gave me a set of exercises to do. The result was that the shoulder acted like the other.
If there is a moral, it’s that you must try everything.
But let’s not resort to law to stop the competitors or promote things that may be against the established order.
The good methods will eventually win out and there will be losers.
Unions, Strikes and Courts
Last week unions flexed their muscles in both the UK and France.
In the UK, the rail unions wanted to go on strike and were stopped by the courts, but in France the port workers and seaman at Calais just walked out.
We have laws about ballots, unofficial strikes and conciliation, but I’m not sure about French law. So perhaps if they have laws against unofficial strikes, the French just ignore them.
I would have no idea, which set of rules are best. But lets put it this way, lots of strikes might well sway votes against parties connected to the unions. Or they could get other workers in solidarity with them and move the vote the other way.
But to me strikes are wrong, as if they need to be called, then they indicate a failure of proper communication and negotiation.
The Anonymous Widower 