My first ever rant

The one that started it all. I can't even remember why I wrote it.




Dear Lord! As a former trainee solicitor, I spent years waiting for the judiciary to do something right (apart from booting me out I suppose...) and the bastards come up with 3 good decisions in a day! Now why didn't they do it when I was losing all of my faith in the law?!?! Inconsiderate shits.....

Sorry, you won't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about. 3 high profile cases came to a conclusion (of one sort or another) and in each case the correct decision was made. Well, in my opinion it was anyway. Allow me to elaborate (as frankly, I want to rant at someone about this!)

Firstly, we have the least well known of the cases; The Sunderland trader who sold his fruit in pounds and ounces instead of kilos and grams. This saw the EC baiting and hating camp being pitted against the might of European Law!! Or at least, that's what The Sun would have you believe.
What happened was as follows; Sunderland City Council, for reasons best known to themselves, raided the premises of a grocer after he'd sold a Council employee some fruit by the pound (now there's something you never see on Police!Camera!Action!, "Freeze! Weights and Measures!! Sir, would you step away from the scales please! STEP AWAY!!" but I digress...)
They charged him with breaking the law (recent legislation to bring us in line with Europe states that food must be sold in Kilos and nought else) and he was found guilty but given a 6 month conditional discharge (the legal equivalent of being told that you're a very naughty boy, now don't do it again!).

This in itself is, of course, not very interesting.

What *is* interesting is the confirmation of my deepest held fear that I live on an island of jingoistic, tub thumping, little Englander xenophobes. Good God, some of the headlines and quotes from the great and good were scary. The hate filled shit that people were venting about "Brussels forcing their laws on us against our will!!" and "Good old British Pounds and Ounces" was obscene! That little foetus Hague used it (along with that old favourite scapegoat of immigrants) to try and stir up anti-foreigner feeling and made dark references to England becoming "A foreign land". One of the outgoing Tory M.P.'s also referred to the case when he made his retirement speech (now *that* was special; according to him, the tide of immigrants and European legislation has "diluted and destroyed our homogenous Anglo-Saxon race". The fact that we haven't had one of those since 1066 seems to have entirely passed the doddery old fucker by).

But the main reason I liked the judgement is that it wholeheartedly confirmed English constitutional law does (despite all appearances to the contrary) work. The defence for the case was the old Weights and Measures act which said that it's a matter of choice what measures you use to sell stuff. Fair enough, but then we have a huge long list of legislation (all of which was passed by the Tory party. Funny how they keep that quiet isn't it?) to utterly shaft that argument. Firstly, the EC Law Act gave European Law supremacy in UK courts. That was in 1984 (when Maggie's power was at it's zenith, and if she'd wanted to block that, she most assuredly could have done). That law also survived numerous legal challenges to its validity so it was pretty solid as our laws go.
Then we had the more recent Weights and Measures act which gave kilos as the standard. This was *not* a European law (although it stemmed from an EC directive which, as I've said, takes precedence over our law) but a government piece of legislation. English law in other words. The Constitution (such one as we have) states that parliament cannot bind itself. That means that if they choose to pass a law that supersedes an earlier one (*any* one) then they can do so. This also means (and the tubthumpers kept this quiet as well) that we can pass legislation to supersede the EC Law act. In other words, any government who wants out of the EC has but to pass a law stating that, and it shall be done. So that pretty much pisses on the chips of the anti euro brigade from all angles.



Okay, then we have the case of the Leeds footballers who are accused of thuggery in the first degree. The reason I liked this one is that is essentially no different to cases that I dealt with when I worked in the legal field.
Basically a couple of Leeds footballers (Jon Woodgate and Lee Bowyer) plus a bunch of mates got pissed in a nightclub, got into an argument with a bunch of students, and then beat seven shades of shit out of one of them (allegedly).
There then followed all sorts of shenanigans whereby a team mate (Michael Duberry) concocted an alibi for them which he later retracted, the accuseds clothes were spattered with the victim's blood, and one of the footballers in question carried on playing for Leeds (and playing remarkably well).

Anyway, again this in itself is not very interesting.

The fun began after the trial proper was done. The jury had spent 3 days deliberating their verdicts on the £8 million trial. Friday drew to a close and still no verdict so off the jury went, 12 good men/women and true, for a relaxing weekend. Sunday came around, and at least one of the Jurors strolled along to his local newsagents. With a cry of "Ho shopkeep! Please be so good as to furnish me with that mighty news organ "The Sunday Mirror". Thank you my good man, and here is a pound for your troubles!" he bought his paper.

The shit then hit the fan.

The paper had interviewed the victims Dad and ran a centre page spread on him (no, not of him naked; chide yourself for even thinking that!) In it, he went on at length about the attack on his son, speculating on all manner of motivations, from racism to possession by the devil (well, maybe not the latter but you get the idea). Funnily enough, this prejudiced the good juror (who was actually the foreman) somewhat.

So, the following day saw the Judge discharging the jury on the grounds of them having been irrevocably prejudiced by the story, thus pissing away £8 million of public funds and necessitating a re-trial which will have to take place in October. So everybody loses in this particular case.

This one is fun for the simple reason that it looks like the paper are going to have criminal charges for contempt of court brought against them. The Editor, with his ultimate say over what goes in the paper, is looking at a 6 month stretch and an astronomical fine! I shall be interested to see whether his resignation will provide him with sufficient protection. Huzzah!! God bless the English Judge and his sound grasp of what will please everyone after an unsatisfactory conclusion; a witch hunt against tabloid sensationalism. I'm looking forward to that case....

Finally, we have the third case in the unholy trinity (and the only one that has actually been reported internationally); that of the internet babies. Judith and Alan Kilshaw, a British couple, purchased twins from an American woman over the internet. They did this through a broker (how does one become a baby broker? Is it the same as dealing in Junk Bonds or something?) whom they paid handsomely. It then emerged that this broker had actually already sold said twins to an American couple. In effect, the Americans were gazumped. Added to this rich mix of jollity were the twins' natural parents. The mother was now claiming that she wished she'd never sold them, and the father was demanding custody. All matters were complicated by the fact that the Kilshaws had fled back to Wales with the twins and were harping on about how the kids were legally theirs (in much the same way as one would proudly go on TV to say that one had been shown to be the legal owner of a nice house).

Social services intervened and took the twins away from the Kilshaws whilst the courts in both the UK and US decided what to do. The US court ruled in favour of the natural father and declared the original adoption by the Kilshaws to be invalid. The UK courts ruled that the adoption was invalid and the fate of the twins should be decided in the US. Alls well that ends well.

And once again, this in itself is not hugely interesting.

What *was* interesting was the increasingly erratic behaviour of Judith Kilshaw. Did you see her on TV, but she looked for all the world like a saggy, drink addled, frizzy haired frumpy old witch! She was frequently seen in hotel bars holding court with various journalists until the early hours (" Ahm...ahm..hic..a fuggin great mam, me...here, yer me best mate you are...") before ending the night by hurling abuse at all assembled. This woman single handedly kept me amused until some spoilsport judge felt sufficiently embarrassed on her behalf to issue a gagging order!

In the meantime, some US smear merchants in the Max Clifford vein had persuaded a couple of girls to accuse the American couple who had initially adopted the twins of child abuse. There was no need for a similar mud slinging campaign here; it was becoming increasingly obvious that the good woman Kilshaw shouldn't be allowed to look after a Guinea Pig, let alone children.

But the piece de resistance came when the UK judge delivered his aforementioned verdict. She ran out of the courtroom screaming bitter abuse at the assembled journalists. After a few minutes of the spectacle, a court usher dragged her back in. Not 30 seconds later, she ran back out again. This time she confined her venom to the court usher. The rather embarrassed looking usher (whom I could have swore was stifling a smile) once more dragged her back in. Judith did rather well at this point, managing to stay in the court for up to 5 earth minutes before once more bursting forth to deliver more pearls of wisdom to the throng who, by this point, were quivering with anticipation as to what the old boot would do next.

She delivered a diatribe against the judge, judiciary, and legal system that any Totalitarian would have been proud of. The judge was a bastard and a liar who hadn't heard the truth, and even if he had, the media bastards had so biased everyone against her that she would never have got a fair hearing. Unfortunately, it was marred by the fact that she was slurring and pretty much incoherent, but hey, its the thought that counts!


Right! That's my rant pretty much done with. Sorry if its utterly dull, but I had to get it off my chest!