Mark Dixie, the Nat West Three and Steve Wright

Justice is sometimes served by the law.

Only the Nat West Three arguably got off with less than their just deserts.

Sensible Judge Lets The Diana Inquest Farce Continue

Scott Baker LJ

“These inquests, which are an inquiry into two deaths, are being heard by a jury following the decision of the Divisional Court, and they will continue to be heard by the jury, which in due course will return its verdicts,” the coroner told the hearings in the presence of the jury. “I remind everyone, as I have before, that the jury decides the case on the evidence it hears in court and on nothing else. Comments that are made outside the court, often about a limited aspect of the evidence, may render the maker or publisher liable to contempt of court. I again urge great care that nothing is said, written or published that may influence the jury."

Scott Baker LJ made this extremely sensible ruling following rather silly establishment calls to end the Diana inquest farce.

It may have cost a lot of money but imagine what would have happened if the case had been stopped and withdrawn from the jury.

Fayed has said he will abide by the jury's decision. He may not mean it but he has said it and it is on record.

You can be assured that stopping the case at this stage would have given him the green light to pursue his conspiracy theories all the more relentlessly and at ever increasing cost to the taxpayer. He may still do so but we need a jury verdict to have any chance of ending this.

Dearlove Says He Didn't Kill Princess Diana

The problem is that the evidence of Sir Richard Dearlove that MI6 could kill people if it wanted to but never in fact did kill anyone under his watch would be exactly the same (and expressed with the same astonished surprise that anyone should even consider that he may once have stepped on a spider) whether or not he did or did not order Diana's assassination at the behest of the Duke of Edinburgh.

Sidebar Problem Resolved

I was having a problem with the sidebar being moved to the bottom of the page.

I eventually found The Real Blogger Status: What Blogger Won't Tell You. This site is excellent and guided me to a solution. Anyone having a problem with Blogger should make this their first resort.

My problem was in one post (Comrade Durova's Response). I deleted the image (which was the problem) and everything worked again.

This was a quick fix but The Real Blogger has more permanent solutions that I will implement shortly.

I regret having sex with dead body of model: Understatement of the Year? Not Quite! His Barrister Outdid Him.

Mark Dixie Obscured

The Times prints the words before the colon in the title above between inverted commas. That is not strictly accurate. The exchange in court was in fact more chilling:

“I crouched down from behind where the legs were,” he said. “I took full advantage of someone and I should not have done it.”
His counsel Anthony Glass, QC, asked: “Do you mean you had sexual intercourse with her?”
“Yes,” he replied.
Mr Glass asked: “Did you think she was dead or unconscious?”
He replied: “I would not have expected to see anyone dead in that street. I thought she might have passed out or fallen over.”

Remember this next time you come across a disadvanteged female in the streets, blokes. Never mind the ambulance or the police; just get your trousers down. Also, fully brief your counsel on the "that street" defence and the "she might have only been unconscious" defence. If all else fails, get your mitigation in first and tell the court you were a naughty boy and "should not have done it."

This his own counsel questioning him! What is prosecuting counsel going to do with this? Does he/she have to do anything? This is a reservoir dog of a client.

His counsel admitted that this may be "a very unattractive defence."

STARTLING QUIZ QUESTION:

Who is in pole position for having made the biggest understatement of the year: Mr Dixie or his counsel Mr Glass QC?

Mark Dixie Revealed

TOPICS FOR DEBATE:

1) Mark Dixie is innocent of murder unless the jury are persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that he is in fact guilty.

2) Mark Dixie is a disgusting human being and a reservoir dog on his own admission.

3) Thank goodness for the cab rank principle. Otherwise, Mr Dixie would have little hope of decent representation. (NB: the cab rank principle means that barristers are not allowed to turn down unpleasant cases).

Reminder: Link to Current Archive Please

There is a current problem with the January 2008 archive and therefore any page (such as the main page) that references it.

It does not display sidelinks correctly. They appear right at the bottom of the page.

I am hoping this problem will disappear once January items disappear from the front page.

To view correctltly please click the title to this post.

Professor Gary Slapper's Weird Cases

Professor Slapper's column in The Times is always fun. Here are some recent additions with short extracts:

Assault by Handshake

Having just lost a criminal case in which she defended her husband, Kathy Brewer Rentas, an American media litigation lawyer, has been charged with assault for allegedly shaking the prosecutor's hand so vigorously that she injured the woman's shoulder.

There is a comment at the end of Professor Slapper's article concerning barristers not shaking hands with each other. I am a solicitor and was always told that I should not shake hands with a barrister (or he/she would decline to shake my hand) because I might be passing him or her a bribe. In fact, all of the many barristers I have instructed have been only too happy (indeed, eager) to shake my hand. Reflecting on this, as occasioned by Professor Slapper's article, I do wonder whether I have been deficient in the provision of bribes.

Judges at War

The hearing has involved a jaw-dropping sequence of testimony in which senior judges have accused each other of being “volatile” and “schizoid”, of lying, having hotel sex with court employees, and of threatening behaviour.

And these are the people who criticise me for forgetting to turn off my mobile telephone? Ok, it was playing Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry". Ok, it was an Employment Tribunal. Ok, no-one told me off. In fact, everyone had a quiet smile or, at most, a minor titter. I fumbled hopelessly but eventually succeeded in turning the thing off. That would appear to be the difference between here and America. Our judges stand on ceremony when it is really necessary but not when it is simply a matter of their "personal dignity."

Is this a Person?

Courts sometimes have to make difficult decisions about whether something is in a legal category. Is, for instance, a sawn-off piano leg an offensive weapon? Sometimes even human categories can be a challenge. Is a woman married if, after she and her partner have said “I do” at their wedding, she stops the ring going fully on her finger and runs out shouting that she’s changed her mind? An Australian court in 1953 said yes, and that, wait for it, Mrs Quick was married to Mr Quick.

But new ground was broken recently when the Supreme Court of Austria was asked to rule that Matthew Hiasl Pan is a person. That sounds easy enough for even an inexperienced lawyer. But the challenge was that Matthew is a chimpanzee.

World's Most Litigious Men

Omorotu Francis Ayovuare, a Nigerian-born surveyor, is apparently Britain’s most litigious man. By 2003, he had clocked up 82 race discrimination claims, and won only two of them. In the US, Billy Roy Tyler from Nebraska claims to be the “greatest writ-writer in the world”. He has sued everyone from his neighbour to the Governor. In the 1990s, he issued proceedings in 113 federal cases during one two-year period.

But both have been trumped by Taso Hadijiev, 74, and his brother Asen, 75, from Malka Arda in Bulgaria. They began suing each other in 1968 in a dispute about a land inheritance from their parents. They are still at it, and have now litigated over 200 times.

Fired For Not Smoking

The company laid off three non-smokers and said it would not be hiring any more people who don’t smoke. "Smokers have always been our best employees. Non-smokers interfere with corporate peace,” Jensen said. "They just complained all the time about smoking, and I don't like grumblers.”

Every day across the world, people are told they are no longer wanted by their employers for all sorts of reasons. They’re too old, too young, too aggressive, absent from work after serial booze binges. But being sacked for refusing to smoke is not something heavily indexed in the law reports.

Battle Of The Trial Lawyers (reminiscent of a Monty Python Sketch)

The AAJ, however, has thought twice and has issued proceedings in Minneapolis in order to force TheATLA to drop the name, arguing that the existence of the old name was confusing AAJ members and infringing a trademark. The claim also demands that AAJ is awarded any money that TheATLA collects in membership dues, and —you guessed it — treble damages and attorneys' fees. The lawyers who argue the case will no doubt be very good: a trial lawyer whose client is composed of 56,000 other trial lawyers can expect some professional feedback.

Christmas In Court

The jolliness of Christmas works in almost all venues except courts. Courts can’t do jollity. Just before Christmas in 2000, at Luton magistrates’ court, a sullen convicted man was about to be sentenced for a property crime when the courtroom suddenly rang out to the tune Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

The magistrate awkwardly opened his jacket and began fiddling with his musical novelty Santa Claus tie. The courtroom was aghast. The man in the dock stood slack-jawed. The magistrate’s tie then burst into We Wish You a Merry Christmas before stopping, at which point the defendant was jailed for four months.

See my comment on mobile telephone usage above.

The Speeding Wheelchair

In England and Wales, we issue more than 1.5 million speeding tickets each year. The offence has a long history. The first person in Britain to be fined for speeding was the pioneer of the petrol-engine car, Walter Arnold. On January 27, 1896, when there were only 20 cars in Britain, Mr Arnold was driving through Paddock Wood in Kent at 8mph — four times the 2mph limit imposed for built-up areas by the Locomotive Act 1865.

Suing Your School

No law school can keep everyone happy. Sir John Mortimer, QC, creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, complained that as a student he found the law syllabus “enormously dull” and “spent as little time at it as possible”. But to actually sue your law school is entirely another matter. In 1965, a student brought a claim against the University of London alleging negligence against the law examiners, but was unable to persuade the Court of Appeal that he deserved better marks. The student represented himself but got the law wrong in arguing his case.

Justice By Coin Toss

Judicial coin flipping, though, isn’t unprecedented in America. “Is your client a gambling man?” Judge Alan Friess asked the lawyer of Jeffrey Jones at Manhattan Criminal Court in 1982. Jones had pleaded guilty to theft but had objected to a proposed 30-day jail sentence, saying 20 days would be fairer. The judge then asked a District Attorney for a 25 cent coin and ordered the defendant to flip it and call. Jones called tails, won, and got his 20 days.

20 Weird Cases In Brief

The Blurb:

"A meticulous collector of amusing and curious anecdotes from the world of law, Professor Gary Slapper's Case Notes column has long been a staple of The Times' Law section. His collection of legal oddities is on display in a new column, Weird Cases. As a taster, we asked him to select 20 of his favourite bizarre disputes, prosecutions and lawsuits from the archive."

Samples:

2. In 2005, a Brazilian woman sued her partner for failing to give her orgasms. The 31-year old woman from Jundiai asserted in her case that her 38-year old partner routinely ended sexual intercourse after he reached an orgasm. After a promising start the action ended in something of an anticlimax for the claimant when her case was rejected.

6. In 2005, Marina Bai, a Russian astrologer, sued NASA for £165 million for “disrupting the balance of the universe”. She claimed that the space agency’s Deep Impact space probe, which was due to hit a comet later that year to harvest material from the explosion, was a “terrorist act”. A Moscow court accepted Russian jurisdiction to hear the claim but it was eventually rejected.

8. In 2006, a young man from Jiaxing, near Shanghai, found himself in legal trouble after failing to take advice before putting his soul up for sale on an online auction site. The posting was eventually removed by the auctioneer and the seller was told that the advert would be reinstated only if he could produce written permission to sell his soul from “a higher authority”.

You will note that I did not get below 8 before I ran out of my self-imposed denying ordinance that I would only disclose 3 of 20. I also excluded no. 1 so you really must visit the above link.

Bush Finally Demonstrates Beyond Doubt That He Is Clinically Insane

Bush said tonight on BBC television that waterboarding is not torture. This is not a view that any sane person can hold. End of story.

Secret Son of Princess Margaret Gains Chance to Read His Alleged Mother's Will

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers CJ has given Robert Andrew Brown the chance to read Princess Margaret's will.

He indicated his reluctance in the following way:

"It is unfortunate that the important issues to which we have drawn attention should be raised by an application made by a person motivated by a belief that is both irrational and scandalous. We have, however, concluded that the appellant was and is entitled to have a substantive hearing of his claim to inspect the wills."

This was, in my opinion, the right decision whatever Mr Brown's mental state.

QUIZ QUESTIONS:

Why should royal wills be immune from inspection when yours and mine are not?

Why should royals be exempt from the general law in any sense in a free and democratic society?

Why are their rights to privacy greater than yours?

Are Our Parliamentary Drafstsmen Up To It?

In its anxiety to empty our prisons the government has enacted two incompatible regimes for early release and developed an unlawful non-statutory policy in a botched attempt to reconcile them. That seems to be the gist of Mr Justice Mitting's judgment of 31st January, 2008 and uploaded today on BAILII in the grandly entited case of:

THE QUEEN ON THE APPLICATION OF REBECCA NOONE
Claimant
v
(1) GOVERNOR OF HMP DRAKE HALL
(2) SECRETARY OF STATE FOR JUSTICE
Defendants

I will not tire you with further details mainly because that might prove difficult or "impossible" in anything under the length of Mr Justice Mitting's full judgment. As he said:

"Section 174(1)(b)(i) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 requires a court passing sentence to explain to an offender in ordinary language the effect of the sentence. This requirement has been in place since 1991. These proceedings show that, in relation to perfectly ordinary consecutive sentences imposed since the coming into force of much of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, that task is impossible. Indeed, so impossible is it that it has taken from 12 noon until 12 minutes to 5, with a slightly lengthier short adjournment than usual for reading purposes, to explain the relevant statutory provisions to me, a professional judge."

I simply supply a link to this judgment and some choice extracts:

"The position at which I have arrived and which I will explain in detail in a moment is one of which I despair. It is simply unacceptable in a society governed by the rule of law for it to be well nigh impossible to discern from statutory provisions what a sentence means in practice. That is the effect here."

AND:

"Mr Patel advanced the submissions which he canvassed before Dobbs J in R(Steven Highton) v The Governor of HMYOI Lancaster Farms and the Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] EWHC 1085 Admin. Mr Weatherby, who appears for the claimant, drafted grounds of appeal in that case. Both are therefore thoroughly familiar with the complexities of the legislation and the difficulties to which it gives rise. Both have made helpful and, insofar as it is possible with legislation of this obscurity, clear, submissions about its effect."

AND:

"Unattractive though the answer which she [Dobbs J] gave is, and hard though I have struggled to avoid it, in my respectful view her reasoning and conclusion were right. I need not set out the blind allies into which I have driven myself in an effort to escape the unattractive conclusion to which she and I feel driven."

AND:

"The effect of the policy adopted by the Home Office and now the Ministry of Justice therefore depends upon the order in which the court pronounces its sentence. Unless the court applies its mind to the differential effects of sentencing in any particular order, the outcome in relation to any individual prisoner is likely to be arbitrary. As the example given by Ms Seddon demonstrates, the prisoner who serves the short sentence first is eligible for release on Home Detention Curfew before the prisoner who serves the long sentence first."

AND:

"The contention of the Secretary of State produces an outcome which any legislator would have found surprising if he had had his attention drawn to it, namely that a prisoner sentenced entirely under the 1991 regime or entirely under the 2003 regime would be dealt with in one way, but for no reason that anybody could explain sensibly, a prisoner who fell to be dealt with under both regimes would be dealt with in a way which objectively is less advantageous to him.

CONCLUSION:

This is a serious legislative cock-up caused by an interaction between the multiple incompetencies of various stupid people. The Defendants to be indicted are:

1. Parliament (which includes a number of members who could not make a profit from running a whelks stall on Blackpool beach but have considerable expertise in claiming for expences incurred as MPs) for passing legislation in a state of panic and without proper consideration; and


2. The Parliamentary Draftsmen/Draftswomen (who never have run a whelks stall, or, indeed, anything else) for not reading beyond their immediate brief; and


3. The Ministry of Justice (whose employees do not know what a whelk is) for its belief that it can do what it likes regardless of, or more accurately, in complete disregard of, the law by applying "unlawful" policies.

These people (and I mean all of them) present a clear and present danger to your and my human rights.

QUIZ QUESTION:

In less than 250 words summarise the law relating to sentencing for criminal offences in England and Wales.

The Judge Who Judged But Had No Judgment

Judge Lincoln Crawford

Family lawyers will be familiar with the kinds of behaviour exhibited by Judge Crawford in the course of his divorce.

He became obsessed. He therefore harrassed his wife. He spied on her. He resented her new partner. He resented any contact between his children and his wife's new partner. He abused them both. He took photographs. He was upset and hurt and therefore human. He felt his wife's abandonment of him justified any retaliation he inflicted on either of them.

He reacted as a human being and not as a Judge. His distinguished career may now be in danger. This helps no-one, least of all the children.

I feel great sympathy for Judge Crawford. I have been through the process (although many years ago and I got what would now be called a residence order in respect of my two children).

The tabloids will no doubt misreport it. I recommend you to read the court judgment instead. Just click the title to this post. You will find that the wife and her new partner were far from paragons of virtue. One Judge concluded that they were not entirely truthful (translation: they lied to a court) and it should be noted that the wife (Ms Bronwen Jenkins) is Head of Employment Law at Irwin Mitchell's London office.

Quiz Questions:

1) Why is the title to this post ambiguous?

2) Is a Judge necessarily disqualified from judging others because he fails to exercise good judgment in his personal life?

3) If the answer to 2 above is "yes", how many Judges would we have left?

4) How do you spell "judgment"?

The January 2008 Archive is Screwed

The January 2008 Archive is corrupt. It is probably to do with the google changes. Ah, well.

It seems that it will continue to affect the current page until January posts no longer appear. That is a guess. It may be worse.

Whatever the cause (and it might be my fault) all the right hand links appear at the bottom; but not if you go to the February 2008 archive page which also contains this post and the one below.

Whether "affect" should be "effect" in the first sentence of the previous but one paragraph is the subject of my monthly quiz question - now instituted. They may not be monthly and they may not be questions. They may occur more or less than once a month and they may simply invite an opinion rather than an answer.

This Blog is Unsafe!

Blogger is preventing me posting securely.

The new link up with Google requires a google account to access your blogger account and make posts. Fine.

But you have to set your security settings very low.

The Q&As lead you to believe that this is not the case. You would think that you could get away with high-medium or medium settings in IE7 but I simply cannot. I have followed Blogger's detailed instructions several times to no avail.

To get this post up I have had to remove all security and I will not do that long term.

Something must be done!

Please treat the above as if it was handwritten in green ink and was signed off "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells."

J K Rowling: Hypocrite or Superstar?

I have just watched a documentary covering a year in the life of J K Rowling. Since she or her publishers are very litigious, I will add that my son is a big fan and has been routinely indulged with first day editions. I even read one or most of one of the Harry Potter books. I remember a mesmerising performance by Robbie Coltrane so I guess I must have also seen at least one of the films.

She is therefore an abolutely wonderful person and the title link should in no way be regarded as detracting from that.

The question for debate is simply whether exposing your life in a television documentary is consistent with suing a lowly photographer or his newspaper for taking a photograph of your child.

My opinion is that only a megaritch client could be advised to chance their arm. Only the lawyers win. They did. She lost.

So who advised her to pursue an unwinnable case? I do not know and, even if I did, I could not possibly say!

Comrade Durova's Response

Durova has responded to my postings. I do not know why she would bother since this a basic test site with little in the way of hits. I do intend to use my ISP's submissions utilities once it and the website are both up and running but I have not done so yet (deliberately - I'm not posting regularly enough and my website is currently way out of date due to updating to new authoring tools).

I am also very busy because I have a real day job as a lawyer. Now, some would say that is not a real day job but I am ignoring sarcastic comments that have not yet been made (but only for today).

I will respond fully to you, Durova, in a private email tomorrow. I only received your email today because you sent it to my office address (easily discoverable - but I would prefer users in future to post comments or use the website email address at host@stevencarrigan.com.).

I was run off my feet today because two other lawyers had taken advantage of the fact that court deadlines take no account of the Christmas period. It counts; but we closed the office on 22nd December and did not reopen until today.

One of my staff commented on serving documents just before Christmas in order to miimise a time limit: "That's just what you would do."

I deny this but I am not prepared to make a aworn statement that I would never do it.

So, you take it and live with it. Litigators (trial lawyers, for any American readers) know that your opponent will fuck you if he or she can get away with it.

So, Durova, this is why I have not had time to respond today. Your email was at my office. I meant to bring it home. I fogot to do so. The reason was that I was preoccupied with urgent client business.

I am interested in debating with you and my cursory glance at your email this morning suggests that the following issues are matters of contention between us:

(a) Whether I was guilty of substandard research before commenting. I suggest not and your contention that I based my views on a tabloid newspaper report alone is contradicted by the links on the blog itself.

(b) Whether or not you were engaging in censorship. I still think you were. You think you were engaged in a quest for accuracy.

(c) Whether or not your methods were inquisatorial and excessive. I still think they were. You disagree.

I will respond by private email if that is what you prefer. However, I regard freedom of speech as a public issue and my personal preference is that you post your views. Then, others can comment.

I do not censor comments unless the law requires me to do so, and even then I would clearly declare my disapproval of any such law. That is what this site and blog is about. In case you have not appreciated it:

THIS SITE IS ABOUT TOTAL FREEDOM TO EXPRESS ANY VIEW, HOWEVER HIDEOUS.

Non-believers in freedom of expression may believe that the above is wrong! Well, here is the place to say so.

If you think there should be restraints then, you can say so too.

Anyone can say anyrhing! That is Magna Carta.

Kind regards,

Steven Carrigan.