We already have abortion on demand and it’s time the law made that clear

On Monday the Northern Ireland High Court yesterday ruled that the Province’s exceptionally strict abortion laws breached human rights law.

On Tuesday an attempt to tighten the liberal abortion laws in England and Wales was dismissed by the Administrative Court. The case arose out of a 2012 Telegraph investigation which had revealed that two doctors were apparently willing to arrange for an 8 week old foetus to be aborted simply because it was female. One of them, Dr S, was recorded saying “I don’t ask questions, if you want a termination, you want a termination.”

The evidence in the case was considered by the Director of Public Prosecutions (at that time Sir Keir Starmer QC) who decided that although there was just about a realistic prospect of conviction for “attempting to procure a miscarriage,” it was not in the public interest to prosecute either doctor.

A young campaigner, Aisling Hubert, tried to bring a private prosecution but the CPS stepped in, took the case over, and then stopped it. Continue reading “We already have abortion on demand and it’s time the law made that clear”

Death By Dangerous by Olly Jarvis

No other way to put this: Olly Jarvis, a Manchester barrister, has written a tour de force.

When John Anderson, a successful prosecution barrister and the son of a still ambitious circuit judge, apparently falls asleep at the wheel and kills two people, everyone advises him to plead guilty at the first opportunity. Continue reading “Death By Dangerous by Olly Jarvis”

A visit to York Prison in November 1888

Readers – especially those with an interest in the history of prisons – might be interested to read this account of a visit to York in 1888 by my Great Aunt, Mabel Scott.

She kept a diary between 1887 and – though eventually rather fitfully – well into the Great War. After her death it was given to her brother Norman, a Norfolk clergyman, and on his death in 1955 it was found by his nephew, my own father Martin Scott who died in 2002.

I realise that reading other people’s family history can be about as exciting as clearing out their garden sheds in the rain, but bear with me. The extract below is fascinating.

If you actually are interested in knowing more about Mabel and her family – then my father wrote a short introduction to the diaries which I have reproduced below.

For the moment all you need to know is that in the autumn of 1888 Mabel – then a seventeen year old girl – and her family decided to stay in York for a fortnight. Her descriptions of the nineteenth century city are interesting enough if you know York (as I do), but they come alive with her visit to York Prison. Continue reading “A visit to York Prison in November 1888”

Should we always prosecute people who make false allegations?

What should happen to people who make false allegations?

The issue has been put into stark focus by the publicity given this week to the case of Geoff Long.

Mr Long had a daughter called Tina from an unsuccessful first marriage. In 2010 she went to Brighton police and claimed that he had systematically abused her over thirty years earlier when she was aged between 8 and 16.

There was apparently no corroboration to her allegation, but it led to Mr Long’s prosecution. The jury believed Tina, and he was convicted. He received a sentence of 5 years imprisonment.

To rub salt into his wounds Tina then gave her story to a magazine, which published it under the headline “34 years on I finally made him face up to his hideous crimes.” Continue reading “Should we always prosecute people who make false allegations?”

Free the Naked Rambler

It is rare for anything in Fly Fishing and Fly Tying to make much of a splash. Articles such as “How to tie a Hairy Hotchkiss” or “Agostino Roncallo demonstrates how to tie an extended body dry fly purely from cul de canard feathers” emerge (if at all, because the latter is sadly paywalled) onto the surface of the general public’s consciousness with all the fanfare of a mayfly hatching on a misty morning in a quiet meander of the Itchen.

But fishermen are patient, so it is not surprising that having cast his damsel onto the limpid waters of the letters pages of Fly Fishing and Fly Tying last November, eventually the wider press took an interest in Nigel Bond’s complaint about skinny dippers in the River Dart. According to Mr Bond, there is a growing “scourge” of swimmers disturbing the peace of Devon rivers:

“On a recent visit to Black Pool upstream of Buckfastleigh, I found the peace of the river shattered by several very aged, lily white and scrawny humans cavorting stark naked in what is one of the best pools on the lower river.”

It was not the effect on the fish that he objected to, but the effect on his own peace and quiet:

“I don’t think that the fish would have been too disturbed – the passage of an otter would have disturbed them more – but to an angler, having paid good money to enjoy a little tranquillity by the river, the sight was altogether too much.” Continue reading “Free the Naked Rambler”

Rugby World Cup: a festival for lawyers too

The laws of Rugby are notoriously incomprehensible to most spectators, many players and top referee Craig Joubert.

But if you thought the rules about behaviour in the scrum were murky, spare a thought for the maul of rugby loving lawyers who administer an equally complex set of disciplinary rules. Continue reading “Rugby World Cup: a festival for lawyers too”

Exaro has created nothing but misery and confusion. It’s time for it to shut up.

I had not really wanted to blog yet again about Exaro. There are many other subjects about which I would prefer to write. The subject matter is unpleasant, to express any opinion invites a torrent of abuse, and I would, frankly, like this blog to move away from the rather sterile trench warfare that has now developed between Exaro and its voluble supporters and those, like myself, who think that its influence has been malign.

And yet … Continue reading “Exaro has created nothing but misery and confusion. It’s time for it to shut up.”

Where now for Exaro?

Is Exaro News on its last legs? The online news company faces a number of difficulties.

The fundamental difficulty may be financial.

Exaro has been largely funded by the entrepreneur and hedge-fund manager Jerome Booth. In 2013 Dr Booth was named the 425th richest person in Britain in the Sunday Times rich list (at £189M his wealth was slightly greater than Rolling Stone Keith Richards). Sadly (according to the rich list), he has been losing money recently – £73M last year – reducing his wealth to a mere £112M, and relegating him to a disappointing 847th= in the 2015 list (in the same period, for what it is worth, Richards has increased his wealth to £210M). As we shall see, Dr Booth’s involvement with Exaro does not seem to have eased his cash flow problems.

It all started in 2011 when he was approached by the journalist Mark Watts, and PR man Tim Pendry. Their objective was to set up a news gathering organisation that would, as Exaro’s mission statement now puts it, “hold power to account.” Continue reading “Where now for Exaro?”

Charlotte Proudman has over-reacted to her sexist suitor

The top solicitor Alexander Carter-Silk has been made to look a bit of a plonker by human rights barrister Charlotte Proudman.

Charlotte Proudman
Proudman: Delicate porcelain beauty

Ms Proudman is an accomplished barrister, an academic and a successful, albeit amateur, politician (she is an active member of the Fabian Society). She is also a beautiful woman.

He sent her a private Linked-In message complimenting her on her profile picture.

Charlotte, delighted to connect, I appreciate that this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but that is a stunning picture !!!

You definitely win the prize for the best Linked In picture I have ever seen

Always interest to understand people’s skills and how we might work together

Alex

It was indeed horrendously politically incorrect. Continue reading “Charlotte Proudman has over-reacted to her sexist suitor”

Harvey Proctor, Exaro and the pursuit of justice

Harvey Proctor’s news conference on Tuesday was either a chilling display of hypocrisy, or the moment a brave man finally took on the combined might of a misguided Metropolitan Police and a small but nasty and highly influential section of the press and internet. By so publicly denying the appalling allegations that have been levelled at him, Mr Proctor has ensured that his accuser’s claims – that he and other boys were raped and tortured, and in three cases murdered by a paedophile ring that also included Leon Brittan, Ted Heath, various Generals and the heads of MI5 and MI6 – can no longer be ignored.

The allegations come from a man with the pseudonym “Nick.” Amongst many other appalling sexual crimes Nick says that Mr Proctor threatened to castrate him with a pen-knife and was stopped from doing so only by the intervention of the former Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath. And worse even than this, Nick accuses Mr Proctor of murdering two boys, and implicates him in the murder of a third. No bodies have been found and the identity of the boys allegedly murdered – though the subject of considerable online speculation – is unknown. Continue reading “Harvey Proctor, Exaro and the pursuit of justice”