Rush to judgment

I'm always a bit sceptical of court case verdicts. They're generally treated as hard fact, although in reality they're merely the considered opinion of a judge or jury.

The media in particular treat all verdicts as gospel, and deliver screaming headlines on the basis of judgments that may or may not be the ultimate truth.

Many many people who have been found guilty by a court turn out to be innocent years later, often after they've been in prison for lengthy periods.

I'm thinking right now of Lucy Letby, the nurse who was convicted of the murder of seven infants and the attempted murder of seven others. She was sentenced to life imprisonment, but many commentators have questioned the verdict and want a retrial on the basis of evidence that wasn't produced at the court. So was she guilty or has this been a miscarriage of justice? The arguments continue.

It seems to me that at the end of the day the soundness of the verdict isn't a question of  whether it was reached by a judge or a jury. The crucial factor is surely the strength of the evidence presented by each side. If the prosecution evidence is strongest, they win. Ditto the defence evidence.

I've been on a jury twice, and it seemed very clear to me that it's the strength of the evidence that counts. My first case was a black guy accused of assaulting a police officer. We started off thinking he was innocent but after a long deliberation decided he was guilty. Of course I've no idea if he was actually guilty or not. Only he knows the answer to that.

The fact is that supposedly solid "final" verdicts are regularly overturned as "unsafe".

Name change

It's very strange that French courts can order parents to change their child's name if they think it could cause social embarr-assment - or as the law puts it "mockery or disobliging remarks".

Surely it's up to parents (or the child) to decide if a name might be a liability and drop it in favour of something less open to teasing. Why do the courts need to be involved in what's really just a matter of common sense?

French courts recently rejected the name Nutella, foreseeing silly references to the chocolate spread of the same name. They also rejected the name Fraise (Strawberry) as there are rude expressions that use the word - like "ramène ta fraise", meaning "get over here" or "butt in".

It seems that although the courts are able to ban a name, they only get involved if someone asks them to. Apparently the registrar who recorded Nutella's birth alerted the local prosecutor who called in a family court judge.

If the courts made a habit of judging people's names, they'd be at it all day every day. I'm not familiar with dodgy French names, but I can think of plenty of English names that could in theory be problems (though oddly enough in reality they may be no problem at all). And last names can be just as awkward as first names.

But names aren't set in stone. If a child gets ribbed over an unfortunate name, then all they need do is change it. If their parents won't let them, they can at least change it when they're older. My father's first name was Edward, but he hated it and always used his second name, Colin.

Who are the courts to decide what name is acceptable and what isn't? You and I might think that the names given to Bob Geldof's kids - Peaches, Pixie and Fifi Trixibelle - would invite endless ridicule, but as far I know they never tried to change them.

Likewise all the Smellies and Ramsbottoms of the world who don't feel the need to be something more prosaic but soldier on regardless.

I'm sure those judges have better things to do than to ban names that reflect popular sandwich fillings. Like dealing with criminals.

Rape dilemma

A new government report says a lot of rape victims are still treated shoddily and unsympath-etically by the police and the law and this must change to encourage more women to act on sexual violence.

Lady Stern's report says rape victims may still find they aren't taken seriously and not enough is done to catch the rapist. Often the case doesn't go to court because it's thought the evidence isn't strong enough. And if a quick conviction is unlikely, the police may lose interest altogether.

The report says many people still think a woman is partly responsible if for example she's drunk or wears risqué clothing. Or if she's already in a relationship with the man, then it doesn't count as rape.

So far so good, but it seems to me that one of the big problems in convicting rapists is that there may be no obvious signs of struggle or refusal.

Quite understandably, a woman may decide to submit rather than struggling because she's afraid of provoking something worse, of being beaten or killed. But if a jury has any reasonable doubt about whether consent has been given, they can't convict.

The other problem is that the court case may cause further trauma and distress as the woman is forced to relive what happened, and the rapist's lawyer challenges her version of events or even claims she was leading him on. Not surprisingly, some women refuse to go to court and face such added anguish.

It's hard to see how these difficulties can be overcome. Taking rape claims more seriously and ensuring the police are sympathetic are laudable aims but it's what happens in court that can still prevent justice being done.
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A tragic but nowadays very predictable hospital disaster. Ena Dickinson, a former NHS volunteer, died two months after a botched hip operation. The surgeon removed too much bone and severed a major artery. She was only saved from bleeding to death on the operating table by a hospital consultant.

Mistrial by jury

Hugely-expensive court cases are collapsing in Britain because jurors are doing their own private research - including trawling the internet for information on the person accused. This is despite the judges warning them not to.

The person on trial, who has gone through months of anxiety and nail-biting waiting for the case to start, has to wait all over again after the judge is forced to end the case and order a retrial at a later date.

The case against an 18 year old man charged with murdering a 71 year old cabbie had to be abandoned at Newcastle. And in London the trial of a celebrity's nanny accused of child cruelty was also abruptly dropped.

In Newcastle the juror had actually gone to the death scene, taken photos and done research into his own theories about what happened on the night in question. And then discussed his ideas with other jurors.

I can understand a juror's temptation to make their own inquiries into things they're not clear about. I did jury service twice in London and there were often things that were puzzling or confusing, or even totally unbelievable.

But the whole point of a court case is that the jury makes a decision based on what they've been told in court - which hopefully is rigorously tested for bias or lies. If jurors start doing their own digging, they'll come across all sorts of dubious rumours and anecdotes which can seriously slant their decision.

If I was accused of something and I thought the jurors were busy sniffing around on their own I'd be horrified.

Unfortunately the internet makes it all too easy to find information about people at the click of a mouse. And nobody even knows you're doing it unless you're careless enough to tell someone.

In the end, you can only trust people to take the job of deciding a person's guilt or innocence seriously and not deliberately put a spanner in the works. Happily from my own experience, most jurors seem extremely conscientious about holding someone else's fate in their hands.

Rape on the rise

The big rise in the number of reported rapes and attempted rapes in Northern Ireland suggests men increasingly think that rape is perfectly acceptable and that it's women's duty to satisfy their sexual impulses.

Either that or women are confident or angry enough to report rapes more frequently and try to bring the rapist to justice.

The number of reported attacks in 2006/7 was 457, a rise of almost 60% in five years. And no doubt this is only the tip of the iceberg, with many more sexual assaults never reported for fear of the shame or the repercussions.

North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds said the figures were "disturbing" and welcomed planned legal changes that would give the victims more faith in the police force and the courts.

The conviction rate of around 3% is still scandalously low and needs to be radically improved. Women are reluctant to press charges if the chance of a conviction is so low.

I have suggested before that one problem is the lack of convincing evidence that the victim resisted her attacker - often because the woman fears resistance will only make the situation worse.

Many women are still reluctant to report rapes in case the police are unsympathetic and gloating - or even refuse to believe the rape occurred. Unfortunately there have been a number of such false claims in the past.

But the ultimate deterrent can only be a fundamental change in male culture so men no longer believe in a god-given right to rape women in the name of casual sexual pleasure (or a show of power) and recognise that such vicious violation of a woman's body is never justified under any circumstances.

That's going to be a tough and uphill task, made harder by the fact that so few people are prepared to challenge men's entrenched sexual arrogance.

Yes, you've seen this photo before. And it still says it all. Resist!

Vigilantes

What exactly are those baying mobs outside courtrooms trying to achieve? Do they think screaming abuse at offenders adds something useful to the situation?

I look at all those shrieking voices and maddened faces and raised fists and I wonder how they think all that hatred and raging emotion is helping anyone.

Especially if the person concerned hasn't even been found guilty of anything but is still awaiting a court hearing. Or even if they insist on their innocence and say it's all a big mistake.

I suspect that quite often it's also an embarrassment to the victims, who just want to see the offender dealt with by the court without all the self-appointed guardians of morality spoiling for a fight.

Given the prevalence of these instant lynch mobs that pop up wherever there's some controversial figure on trial, I'm very thankful mob rule was replaced by due legal process and that nowadays (in theory at least) you get a fair hearing with a proper weighing-up of the evidence.

Otherwise I shudder to think what these headstrong vigilantes would do to people before they were restrained or ran out of steam.

We all know the horrific blunders some of them have made when left to their own devices, like singling out a blameless paediatrician in the belief she was a paedophile. Or putting the boot into harmless Muslims they imagine to be terrorists.

But as long as the sensation-hungry media keep feeding lingering close-ups of these rabid zealots to their fascinated audiences, I'm afraid we're going to see many more of them on the streets.

Getting away with rape

There's been a lot of talk in the last few days about the tiny number of rape convictions in the UK and what can be done about it.

The blame is directed widely: at the police for not taking rape victims seriously; at lawyers for not presenting stronger evidence; at judges for finding excuses for rape; and at juries for giving people the benefit of the doubt.

But to my mind they're all missing the point. I think the real problem is that the evidence given by the victims doesn't point clearly enough to rape, to lack of consent, to coercion.

Too often it seems that instead of the expected struggle and resistance and non-cooperation the victim actually gave in to the other person quite easily and with barely a murmur of protest.

Well, says the victim, that's because I didn't want to make it worse. If I had put up too much of a struggle, I'd have been attacked more viciously and ended up seriously hurt. So I played it safe and did what I had to so it'd be over quicker.

Of course that's totally understandable. Who wants to finish up stabbed or strangled or dead? Who wants the rapist to get so furious they lash out wildly and whack you to bits?

But for a jury looking for clear-cut evidence of non-consent, the cautious, non-provocative approach creates too many doubts about what happened, and they don't know who to believe. So they end up acquitting.

I honestly don't know the answer to this. If the court wants resistance but the victim rejects it, then how do we get more convictions?

PS: The other obvious reason for the dearth of rape convictions is that many women don't even report it for fear of the consequences - humiliation, disbelief and further violence. The level of unreported rape uncovered in surveys is truly shocking.