This is a naturalist anti-stupids blog. Stupids = theists. I dislike the term "brights" to describe the rest of us but, hey, we can get a schism going here! Then we can emulate the faith-heads and torture and kill to our heart's content to make sure everyone else lert standing adheres to our precise version of unbelief.
Apparently, Mr Ashby felt that it was a defence, to a charge that his multiple abuse of staff and customers at four different pharmacies was professional misconduct, that he was just a typical Aussie loudmouth. Err, no, mate.
This case is, in the real sense of the word, a tragedy. Mr Ashby has been destroyed by a fatal flaw in his own character. He clearly believes himself to be a wonderful pharmacist and that those he was compelled to work with were, simply, his inferiors. Even if he was right, it is that belief that has lead to his downfall.
If you read this case you will find the sad conclusion:
MR ASHBY: I have no money. I cannot pay anything. I have nothing left.
MRS JUSTICE DOBBS: That does not stop the court from making a costs order, but you say you have got no means?
MR ASHBY: No. I have nothing left.
MRS JUSTICE DOBBS: Anything else you want to add in relation to that?
MR ASHBY: No.
MRS JUSTICE DOBBS: There will be an order that the appellant pay the respondent's costs in the sum of £14,482.82.
MR BRADLEY: I am grateful.
Mr Ashby was not a King, or even a high ranking politician, so this tragedy is not properly to be described as Shakesperian, but it has the essential elements of such tragedy; just on a smaller, perhaps more human, scale.
Jack Straw denies plotting. Erm, isn't that what politicians do? From the cradle to the grave? And, with a further "erm", don't they always deny it?
Geraldine Smith said:
“All this leadership challenge is absolute nonsense. Who are these spineless individuals who are talking about getting rid of the Prime Minister?”
She should know. She is Labour MP for Morecambe and Lundesdale. Now I confess I have never heard of Lundesdale, but I did once holiday in Morecambe. I also liked Eric Morcambe. So, she must be right then.
On the other hand, I was only about 12 when I holidayed in Morecambe so I did not have much choice in the matter. Until now, I had always thought it was spelt "Morecombe".
Dear Geraldine also said that all the plotters should be reshuffled out of the cabinet.
I think that is a good idea. We would then be virtually politician and government free. The whole cabinet would be sacked and there would be no-one mad enough to replace them. Even Gordon, on his own, cannot introduce enough new and stupid laws to seriously inconvenience the rest of us.
And here is the man himself:
I do not plot! I have never plotted! Not even when I was a student radical! In fact, I was never a student radical! Don't you dare print that! The last sentence! No, I mean the one before the one before that! And I never took drugs of any kind! Not even aspirin! So there! No, I am most certainly not a figure of fun and I never use exclamation marks when I am speaking!
Mr Justice Eady said at the end of his judgment in the Mosley case:
It is perhaps worth adding that there is nothing "landmark" about this decision. It is simply the application to rather unusual facts of recently developed but established principles. Nor can it seriously be suggested that the case is likely to inhibit serious investigative journalism into crime or wrongdoing, where the public interest is more genuinely engaged.
This is correct but does not mention that it is Mr Justice Eady himself who has played a leading role in developing the law in this area.
Well, he made Mr Mosley smile:
£60,000 should be a welcome addition to his budget for any future activities of his.
It has to be said that The News Of The World did not cover itself in glory. Their pursuit of this story was cynical and had nothing to do with the "public interest" defence they ran at trial.
The case is therefore a real test for believers, like me, in freedom of speech. I confess Eady J's judgment gives me pause for thought and makes me question the boundaries of free speech where the privacy of an individual is involved. You will need to read the judgment to answer the following questions in an informed manner. See the title link.
QUIZ QUESTIONS:
(1) Was Max morally entitled to victory?
(2) Was Max legally entitled to victory?
(3) Does Max deserve £60,000?
(4) If not, what amount should he have been awarded?
(5) Are the News of the World reporters, involved in this case, mired in slime?
I had a few days off recently and I watched the Jeremy Kyle Show.
It is about as ghastly as these trailer trash daytime reality shows get. He is pontificating and self-righteous. He has no hesitation in launching into a moral crusade against his generally not spectacularly intelligent guests. Yet, he is one of those making money out of them and, in my opinion, exploiting them.
They are silly to expose themselves to this but then, I suppose, silly people do this kind of thing. It seems that fame is enough reward to volunteer to place themselves in the modern equivalent of the stocks.
I can see no "public interest" that is served by Mr Kyle's show. Making a buck on the back of other peoples' stupidity does not strike me as an honourable way of making a living.
That is, of course, just my opinion, Mr Kyle. You are entitled to hold, and may hold, a similarly low opinion of litigation solicitors such as myself.
It is, perhaps, unfair to compare Mr Kyle's lack of physical courage to his apparent lack of moral courage but the Daily Mail reported today that a witness said he was "shaking like a leaf" following his car crash, and you may wish to read this.
The question is not whether Jeremy Kyle should die. Clearly, he should not. The question is whether shows like his should be killed off. I do not believe in censorship. I do believe in free speech. I am compelled, with regret, to answer that question "NO."
I think Mr Kyle's shows have a tendency to corrupt those who produce them, those who present them, those who participate in them and those who watch them. In my opinion, they are worse than slash movies or and obscene movies.
However, I will (in the well known words) defend to the death the right of Mr Kyle and his ilk to do exactly what they bloody like.
Alright, Voltaire is supposed to have said:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Others say that it was actually first said by Evelyn Beatrice Hall.
So what? Who cares? It is the the first principle of freedom by which every individual should be governed. If you cannot say those words aloud and mean them then, well, you do not believe in freedom or free speech.
A tourist walked into a pet shop and was looking at the animals on display. While he was there, another customer walked in and said to the shopkeeper, "I'll have a trainee solicitor monkey please." The shopkeeper nodded, went over to a cage full of monkeys and took out a monkey. He fit a collar and leash, handed it to the customer, saying, "That'll be £10,000." The customer paid and walked out with his monkey.
Startled, the tourist went over to the shopkeeper and said, "That was a very expensive monkey. Most of them are only a few hundred pounds. Why did it cost so much?" The shopkeeper answered, "Ah, that monkey can do legal research and draft documents very fast, no mistakes, well worth the money."
The tourist looked at the monkeys in another cage. "they're even more expensive! £30,000! What do they do?" "Oh, they're fee earner monkeys; they can answer all legal questions, draft complicated documents from scratch, mark-up agreements, write letters and bill clients. All the difficult, really useful stuff," said the shopkeeper.
The tourist looked around for a little longer and saw a third monkey all by itself in a cage of its own, eating a banana. The price tag around its neck read £200,000. He gasped to the shopkeeper, "That one costs more than all the others put together! What on earth does it do?"
The shopkeeper replied, "Well, I haven't actually seen it do anything yet, but it says it's a partner."
There is only one joke on this site at the moment but it's a good one. Pay a visit!
There was once life on Mars and still may be. This seems a reasonable opinion to me. It is not an article of faith; Christians, please note. It is an opinion based on credible evidence. That is, it is totally different from faith.
Add some odd numbers to make the odd sequence logical (pun intended)."
This an apparently simple number sequence puzzle familiar to you from IQ tests.
I, so far, find it difficult. It may be that there is an ambiguity that needs to be resolved (see my posts on the the title link) or it may be that I am simply stupid.
Emulating their exemplary record (ha! ha!) in relation to the Gurkhas, the UK Government has treated its Iraqi interpreters with similar disdain. Or, as a friend commented to me 5 minutes ago, "like shit."
Her ex-husband was in the army for 22 years and was treated abysmally by the Ministry of Defence. She says that the treatment of the Gurkhas and the Iraqi interpreters is simply par for the course so far as the MOD is concerned. They use you and throw you away.
My friend has particular experience relating to the Gurkhas, who she describes as wonderful, friendly people who were prepared to lay their lives down for this country. They are also an elite force and the treatment of them by this country is therefore doubly disgraceful.
This post is simply to pay tribute to Deborah Haynes of The Times who has won an Amnesty award in relation to her reporting of the Iraqi interpreters case. Well done and well deserved. See the title link.
"This beggars belief when you see the paltry sums offered to our servicemen blown to bits by "innocent Iraqis".
The law firm involved found greater rewards looking for Iraqi claimants rather than taking up the labour party & MOD injustices to our own troops.
No wonder half of them want to quit."
These comments seem a bit unfair and I pose the following questions:
1) How much compensation would these claimant's have got without the assistance of Leigh Day & Co?
2) Why should these claimants have been prevented from pursuing lawful claims because others (i.e. soldiers) may not have lawful claims because of their contractual relationship with the MOD?
3) Are there any racist connotations to these and similar comments?
The title link goes to a Times report. This, possibly, indicates that this is not a hoax. It has all the hallmarks of one, however.
Alright, I am an insensitive aninmal hating bastard but what on earth, in the scale of things, does it matter that there is a serial rabbit killer on the loose? There are only so many rabbits one person can kill and there are a lot too many rabbits out there.
Ok, if you kill my cat I will find you and exact serious vengeance upon you but rabbits? Cats have intelligence and individual personalities. Not like, say, dogs.
Dogs are obedient to humans. That shows serious intellectual deficiency. Most humans who own dogs are a bit intellectually challenged themselves. They crave unconditional love. They seek it from someone stupider and more needy than themselves i.e. a dog. Actualy, the dogs are a bit cleverer than their owners.
The solution is obvious: the key suspect should be the masked rabbit and I have placed his image above.
His motive is also obvious: the rabbit community needs to raise its profile and gain sympathy ahead of cats and dogs.
Whether you need a libel lawyer or not, you will find the title link amusing. This is worth a visit. I cannot say any more because one of them might sue me!
It's obvious! Suck the bankers' brains out and recondition them so that when we re-insert them bankers behave like normal human beings with human emotions and a sense of morality.
Zimbio and Stat Counter indicate I have visitors. Please comment on something even if you just want to say this all a load of rubbish and I am wasting my time.
This case has been to the House of Lords already and changed the law in the sense that they decided that the shorter 3 year limitation period for bringing claims for personal injury applied to intentional assaults rather than the longer 6 year period generally applicable for other torts.
That was a victory for the rape victim. Why? Because the 3 year period can be extended in exceptional circumstances but the 6 year period cannot.
Whether the period should be extended was referred back to the High Court and its decision was released on the internet today. See the title link.
Mr Justice Coulson has given the Claimant the extension and allowed her action to proceed against her rapist. Instinctively, we probably all feel that he has made the right decision. Why should the undeserving £7 million pound lottery winning rapist not compensate his victim?
Legally, I am less sure. Mr Justice Coulson has done his very best to render his decision appeal proof. I am not sure that it, in fact, is.
Here are his reasons for exercising his discretion in the Claimant's favour:
"... When considering all the circumstances of this case, I have identified a number of factors in the defendant's favour. These include, in particular, the length of the delay, the possible difficulties for the defendant on some aspects of the evidence on causation caused by that delay, and the payment of the £5,000 by the CICB. However, I have concluded that the factors in the claimant's favour are more numerous and of significantly greater weight. They lead me unhesitatingly to conclude that equity requires that the discretion under section 33 be exercised in her favour.
Those factors include in particular:
(a) The nature and seriousness of the underlying tortious wrong; (b) The fact that one of the consequences of that wrong was the defendant's impecuniosity (because he was unable to earn money by which he could otherwise have met a judgment for damages); (c) The fact that, prior to his lottery win, the defendant's impecuniosity meant that he was simply not worth pursuing in an action for damages. This was the principal reason for the claimant's delay and one that I consider to be reasonable on the particular facts of this case; (d) The fact that the claimant acted promptly following the defendant's release from prison and his lottery win: (e)The fact that the 'clinically significant' second bout of PTSD in 2004 will be capable of being fully addressed by both parties at any trial."
Do these factors fully and necessarily trump the purpose of our limitation legislation; which is to enable potential defendants to know when the risk of a claim against them has expired and they can rest easy?
Well, Mr Hoare certainly has the resources to explore this question on further appeal.
No-one, I think, is going to wish him luck. It emerged after the verdict that this little bastard had "six previous convictions for rape, attempted rape and indecent assault." A less attractive client would be difficult to envisage.
I would not touch him with a barge pole and it can hardly be defamation to describe him, quite simply, as a piece of low life scum. Hopefully, he will spend any part of his fortune that does not go in damages to the Claimant on legal fees!
And, what about his other six proved victims? They should be consulting lawyers now.
Here he is at the time:
And here he is now:
A small picture of a small man. You will need the picture as he lives under aliases.
QUIZ QUESTION: What were they thinking of when they let this man out?
The title link reveals a disgusting invasion of privacy. I have nothing to hide and so can post this.
It is, however, simply wrong.
I am an old school long time internet user. Alright, I'm just old. I still think of the internet as properly still "the wild west" without sheriffs. I also think that that is the way it should be.
Today, British MPs have taken a narrow lead over Members of the European Parliament to take the title of the most mendacious and greedy so-called public servants in a supposedly democratic society. See the title post.
They simply will not give up their perks no matter what public opprobrium this entails. No matter the stench; they want their money.
Mind you, it is nice to see such cross-party cooperation on an issue of public interest!
They entered a market they said they did not understand. Indeed, they did have an understanding. It was, however, their own understanding and not one based on misrepresentation by Lloyds. See the title link.
Their understanding was:
If I become a Lloyds name I shall get richer than I am aleady, quicker than I have so far and at no risk to me!
That is, they believed in fools' gold.
Not many will sympathise with their plight. The decade of litigation they have engaged in has secured them nothing. It has simply been a matter of postponing the evil day.
I thought the whole concept of being a Lloyds name was based on "honour" (ie. you pay up when you lose). It was not. It was simple greed and, if you got caught, you simply wriggled and squealed like a stuck pig.
The Times has created a fantastic archive of cases that changed the law, with summaries by Gary Slapper and links to the origanal Times law reports. Here are the links:
This a wonderful resource that I would love to have had when I was a law student but everyone interested in the law, or even just in human beings or life, will find fascinating tales here.
I will put a link to this post in the sidebar shortly so that it is easy to find.
Anyway, here is a sample of what you will find:
"In 1895, The Times reported on three trials of Oscar Wilde. It was the celebrity scandal of the century. The Marquis of Queensbury, who thought his son was being corrupted by Wilde, sent a card to Wilde’s club saying: “To Oscar Wilde posing Somdomite” [sic]. Wilde sued for criminal libel. Queensbury pleaded justification, accusing Wilde of soliciting more than 12 boys. The case had many marvellous episodes, particularly when Wilde was cross-examined:
COUNSEL: Have you ever adored a young man madly? WILDE: I have never given adoration to anybody except myself.
Wilde lost after a fatal slip in cross-examination in which he seemed to say he hadn’t kissed a boy not because he was a boy but because he was ugly. Soon after, he was arrested for indecency. Wilde was eventually convicted after a second trial — the first jury failed to agree on most of the charges — and sentenced to two years with hard labour. The case included many shocking travesties of justice. For example, it came to light that throughout the proceedings, the young men who were testifying against Wilde were each being paid £5 a week by the police, an enormous sum at the time.
Nevertheless, Wilde’s courtroom wit was bountiful. Asked by the seasoned 44-year old prosecutor Charles Gill whether he exalted youth, Wilde said he did and added, to courtroom laughter: “I should enjoy, for instance, the society of a beardless, briefless barrister quite as much as that of the most accomplished QC.”
He was asked later whether his habit of giving cigarette cases to working class youths was not strangely expensive. Wilde replied that it was “less extravagant than giving jewelled garters to ladies”."
Mr Ramage and Mrs Strachey were in dispute about a very small piece of land. Both required access over the disputed land to other parts of their own land. The obvious solution was to share this valueless patch of earth; but no, this was a dispute between neighbours and when neighbours fall out common sense flies out of the window.
As Lord Justice Sedley said (wryly understating the truth):
"In the present case a poorly drawn conveyance left in doubt the ownership of a patch of ground a fraction of an acre in size. Neither party, so far as one can tell, needed to own it in order to enjoy the use of the rest of their land, though both found its use convenient. Whichever of them held title to it, an easement of use or access should have satisfied the other's needs. But instead of reaching a compromise along these lines, war was declared. Unlike Old Caspar after Blenheim, we can now tell who won; but whether the expenditure on law and lawyers, vastly exceeding the value of the piece of land, has been worthwhile one has to doubt."
I dislike neighbour disputes because everything always gets out of hand.
I tell clients a story about an old case I was involved in. It was a dispute over a parking a parking space on a private road. It did not end up in a judgment but only because my client's opponent, in the course of one of their regular out of court altercations, dropped down dead of a heart attack. I declined instructions to continue the proceedings against the widow.
Never get involved in a neighbour dispute. It is really an area of law where the only winners will be the lawyers. That advice and my little story have never discouraged anyone.
As Lord Hoffman said in an earlier case:
"Boundary disputes are a particularly painful form of litigation. Feelings run high and disproportionate amounts of money are spent. Claims to small and valueless pieces of land are pressed with the zeal of Fortinbras's army."
The reference is to an exchange between Hamlet and a captain in Fortinbras's army (Hamlet Act IV, scene iv):
FORTINBRAS
"HAMLET Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?
Captain Truly to speak, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground That hath in it no profit but the name. To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Captain Yes, it is already garrison'd.
HAMLET Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats Will not debate the question of this straw: This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
Captain God be wi' you, sir."
This leads into Hamlet's final soliloquy which I do not hesitate to quote in full:
"How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the event, A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward, I do not know Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;' Sith I have cause and will and strength and means To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me: Witness this army of such mass and charge Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd Makes mouths at the invisible event, Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death and danger dare, Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour's at the stake. How stand I then, That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men, That, for a fantasy and trick of fame, Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain? O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"
Reflect and consider that if you wish to find quarrel in a straw then you may pay a heavy price and that that is so even if you win.
