What IS the matter with so many of our Parliamentarians? To his undying credit Lord Blunkett has shown himself to be that rarest of rare human species: a politician issuing a heartfelt “mea culpa” time after time. I need to add that I often viewed him as wrongheaded in many of his interventions when Home Secretary but all the same enough of all the nodding heads, the tutting and the shrugging of the shoulders from those in positions actually TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
When a criminal defence solicitor advocate, one of the most miserable, perplexing and sometimes dispiriting details was when striving to inject some sort of broad justice into the sentencing of a relatively minor offender facing these “blunt instrument” and “Catch22” provisions . I recall especially vividly a case where a very experienced barrister Recorder got his initial sentencing exercise desperately wrong and then put things off until the afternoon as I have no doubt (and rightly) to seek guidance from his more senior judicial colleagues. In all honesty I KNEW that he had got his initial stab at it wrong but it took a better lawyer than me - a trainee solicitor at the practice- to explain to me (fairly patiently) quite how to put it right- which the Recorder did after that lunch break. The outcome then had been unassailable but the very reverse of my idea of “just”.
Apart from the Bar my own professional body the Law Society has often and vigorously spoken out on this issue and called for the stain- at least- to be prevented from spreading yet further.
Let us all hope that these shrewd interventions now presented to Parliament can be seized upon as meaningful inroads into an outrage which ought to have been righted many, many years ago. To miss this further opportunity would amount to nothing less than a dereliction of duty.
And all of this on the day we learn of the sad death of Erwin James at only sixty six where he did so much more than almost any other writer and campaigner to describe and speak out against the debilitating and rehabilitation- lite nature of prison. He, after all, had been in the best position to know.
What IS the matter with so many of our Parliamentarians? To his undying credit Lord Blunkett has shown himself to be that rarest of rare human species: a politician issuing a heartfelt “mea culpa” time after time. I need to add that I often viewed him as wrongheaded in many of his interventions when Home Secretary but all the same enough of all the nodding heads, the tutting and the shrugging of the shoulders from those in positions actually TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
When a criminal defence solicitor advocate, one of the most miserable, perplexing and sometimes dispiriting details was when striving to inject some sort of broad justice into the sentencing of a relatively minor offender facing these “blunt instrument” and “Catch22” provisions . I recall especially vividly a case where a very experienced barrister Recorder got his initial sentencing exercise desperately wrong and then put things off until the afternoon as I have no doubt (and rightly) to seek guidance from his more senior judicial colleagues. In all honesty I KNEW that he had got his initial stab at it wrong but it took a better lawyer than me - a trainee solicitor at the practice- to explain to me (fairly patiently) quite how to put it right- which the Recorder did after that lunch break. The outcome then had been unassailable but the very reverse of my idea of “just”.
Apart from the Bar my own professional body the Law Society has often and vigorously spoken out on this issue and called for the stain- at least- to be prevented from spreading yet further.
Let us all hope that these shrewd interventions now presented to Parliament can be seized upon as meaningful inroads into an outrage which ought to have been righted many, many years ago. To miss this further opportunity would amount to nothing less than a dereliction of duty.
And all of this on the day we learn of the sad death of Erwin James at only sixty six where he did so much more than almost any other writer and campaigner to describe and speak out against the debilitating and rehabilitation- lite nature of prison. He, after all, had been in the best position to know.