When a Speeding Ticket is More Important than Child Abduction
The UK's most high-profile female judge is fighting allegations she perverted the course of justice in connection with a speeding ticket case that went to trial:
In my case, amongst a number of serious departures from due process, lawyers submitted a sworn affidavit (which the law firm produced) to the High Court knowing it contained an inaccurate key statement and didn't inform the court of that at two hearings.
If a judge is being accused of perverting the course of justice for allegedly providing the police with inaccurate statements, why not those lawyers for doing essentially the same during court proceedings? Are we to believe "the course of justice" does not include the actual court proceedings! How can it be in the public interest to prosecute over a speeding ticket but not for what amounts to child abduction?
But then again, my family's fate was compromised by judicial and Ministry of Justice (Government) mistakes from the outset. The entire affair is surely a candidate for the UK legal profession's worst nightmare.
The 56-year-old is accused of two counts of perverting the course of justice. The first alleges that, between May 2011 and last October, she provided police with two statements that were inaccurate. The second alleges that on 6 October she produced a copy of her witness statement that had been altered, yet said that it was the correct version.
CPS [Crown Prosecution Service (public prosecutors in UK)] senior lawyer Deborah Walsh said: "We have determined that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and that these charges are in the public interest."
In my case, amongst a number of serious departures from due process, lawyers submitted a sworn affidavit (which the law firm produced) to the High Court knowing it contained an inaccurate key statement and didn't inform the court of that at two hearings.
If a judge is being accused of perverting the course of justice for allegedly providing the police with inaccurate statements, why not those lawyers for doing essentially the same during court proceedings? Are we to believe "the course of justice" does not include the actual court proceedings! How can it be in the public interest to prosecute over a speeding ticket but not for what amounts to child abduction?
But then again, my family's fate was compromised by judicial and Ministry of Justice (Government) mistakes from the outset. The entire affair is surely a candidate for the UK legal profession's worst nightmare.
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