Author: Matthew

My client Stephen Gough, an ex Royal Marine better known as the Naked Rambler, has now been in prison, largely in a segregation unit, for the best part of 9 years. Once the remission rules are taken into account, that is the equivalent of a sentence of nearly 18 years. It is about what you would expect to get if you committed a rape of an eight year old child. By my very rough calculations the cost of imprisoning him (ignoring altogether legal and police costs) for those 9 years has been about £330,000.

His offence has been that he won’t wear clothes in public.

Who is being the most ridiculous here: Mr Gough or the Crown Prosecution Service? Continue reading “Who is more ridiculous: the Naked Rambler or the CPS?”

Daniel Hannan is one of the most persuasive advocates of repealing the Human Rights Act. In this week’s Spectator he was at his most eloquent and self-confident best, urging Michael Gove to see off the “powerful, wealthy & articulate” lawyers that prefer the rule of Strasbourg to that of the English common law, and warning of the “vicious” response to be expected from lawyers who, he asserts, might say – and even believe – that they are “defending the independence of the judiciary,” but are in fact motivated by the need to pay their mortgages and school fees, which are currently funded by a “multi-million pound industry … around human rights law.”

That last bit about money is rather a cheap shot. The notion that the Human Rights Act has spawned a “multi-million pound industry” is pretty far fetched. Very few cases are brought because of the Human Rights Act, and in the field of criminal law, where I practise, virtually none at all. Although the Act occasionally crops up during a criminal trial, its abolition would make no difference whatsoever to the volume of my work, or to my income and nor would it make any difference to that of the vast majority of my colleagues, very few of whom, incidentally, could begin to afford school fees out of their earnings at the bar, which have shrunk steadily since the Human Rights Act was passed. Continue reading “If Michael Gove listens to Daniel Hannan’s honeyed polemic on Human Rights he really will get into a muddle”

Ed Miliband announced today that he has commissioned a giant 8′ 6” limestone slab bearing Labour’s “six election pledges” that is to be installed in the Downing Street Rose Garden if he becomes prime minister. He has promised, or perhaps one should say “pledged,” that the stone will be visible from offices inside Number 10 to remind him to keep his electoral promises.

It seems the height of hubris to have commissioned the massive monument before he has won the election.

When the pledges were first announced in March there were only five, as shown on his pledge card:

To these, Mr Miliband has now added as something of an afterthought: “Homes to buy and action on rent.”

Be that as it may – and arithmetic has never been Mr Miliband’s favourite subject – there are a large number of legal problems which suggest that installation of the Miliband Menhir will never happen. Continue reading “If Miliband erects his pillar in the Rose Garden he may be sent to prison”

Chris Grayling, the Justice Minister has not let the dissolution of Parliament or the appalled objections of lawyers stand in the way of ever more absurd ruses to squeeze money out of Court users.

Last week he announced plans to charge defendants a flat rate, non-negotiable charge merely for being convicted, irrespective of the seriousness of the charge or their ability to pay. This will be as high as £1200.00 for any Crown Court trial.

Last night, in a bold attempt to take the war to critics who have attacked his plans, Mr Grayling announced the introduction of what he describes as “further much needed efficiency savings” in the criminal justice system.

Top of the list is a new “Catering Charge” which, Mr Grayling said, was a natural development arising out of the closure of all court catering contracts which took place in January. Continue reading “Mr Grayling’s Court Catering Charge Will Prove Hard to Swallow”

You might think that the most important part of a judge’s job is to sit on the bench and listen to the evidence, and that the least important part is sitting in chambers waiting to be called into court. The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, on the other hand, appears to think that how a judge behaves in the privacy of his chambers is more important than how he does his job in court.

Three judges have been sacked for watching pornography. District Judge Timothy Bowles, Immigration Judge Warren Grant and, Deputy District Judge and Recorder Peter Bullock. In the great scheme of things there have been greater injustices, but I think they have been treated rather harshly. Bullock has perhaps got off the lightest of the three as he was not a full-time judge. No doubt he can return to private practice without too many problems. Bowles and Grant were full-time judges and they have lost their livelihoods. Possibly they will be able to return to practice as lawyers but failed and disgraced ex-judges don’t command a high premium in the competitive world of legal recruitment. Continue reading “Were the three porn viewing judges rightly sacked?”

Has Jimmy Savile driven The Guardian mad? The tabloids, unsurprisingly, seek out the most sensational stories about the now disgraced disc jockey, as though to atone for their devotion to the man when he was alive. One would like to have thought that more serious newspapers would adopt a more sober tone.

The Guardian sometimes prints drivel. One expects nothing else from some of its star columnists, such as Seamus Milne who likes to write approvingly of Vladimir Putin and wistfully of the Soviet Union.

Its editorial columns are usually rather more sensible.

Last Thursday was an exception. Under the headline “Oblivion’s Too Good For Him,” the newspaper that remains required reading for the British left published an editorial that was so hysterical and so bizarre that it suggested the writer (who is sadly unnamed) might require a few weeks leave to calm himself down.

Its subject was Jimmy Savile. Bemoaning the fact that no Hell exists in which Mr Savile could be condemned to “eternal torment,” the editorial went on to make an extraordinary comparison:

“If there is one thing to make the most benign agnostics wish that there were a God to punish sinners with eternal torment, it is the contemplation of history’s monsters. Oblivion is too good for the likes of Pol Pot, and for Jimmy Savile, too.”

Continue reading “Has the Guardian gone mad about Jimmy Savile?”