Sabotaging £180,000 worth of equipment and similar crimes are now quite legal. All you have to do when caught is plead that it was all in a good cause.
Oddly enough the two legal precedents that have set this new standard concern two of the BBC’s favourite causes. Warmism and vilifying Israel.
Melanie Phillips, Robin Shepherd and Jonathan Hoffman have written about this staggering development which was brought about by last week’s judgement at Hove Crown Court, where the jury decided to exonerate all the perpetrators of a demonstrably criminal act merely because the judge’s summing-up directed them that that the end justified the means.
Judge George Bathusrt-Norman acquitted all the accused who had used the defence that “direct action was the only option left”. Never mind the law; now it seems anything goes, with the proviso that the crime involves destroying stuff believed to be aiding and abetting Israel, or causing man-made global warming.
Melanie Phillips reminds us that:
“In September 2008, a jury decided that it was ok to break the law and cause more than £35,000 criminal damage to a coal-fired power station because of the threat of man-made global warming.”
So, by coincidence, two of the BBC ‘s furious campaigns have affected our rational thinking so much that the rule of law can be thrown to the wind. Whole juries and judges have become inflamed with righteousness and indignation till they feel morally obliged to hit out, circumvent the law and chuck the democratic process over the side.
This verdict sanctions any activism as long as it’s in accord with the Judge’s fancy; it opens the floodgates for demos and violent protests.
Why wait for votes on BDS. Just traipse into your local supermarket and stamp on anything you think comes from Israel. Go ahead. The judge will probably think your heart is in the right place.
Notorious “Israel basher and ignoramus” Tony Greenstein was delighted at the verdict, but even he was worried that “Judge George Bathurst-Norman’s summing up was so favourable that some supporters were worried that the jury might react to what they perceived as an attempt to bounce them into a not guilty verdict.”
He continues: “We need not have worried!” adding a revealing comment that hands the judge’s critics a small gift: “Perhaps the fact that His Honour was born in the Arab town of Jaffa opposite Tel Aviv might have something to do with it!”
Another mystery surrounds this judge:
“Judge George Bathurst-Norman was brought out of retirement to hear the case.”
“Why?” one might ask, and “By whom?”
The BBC, obviously sympathetic to the cause, gives a platform to the activists.
Many people think several decades of delegitimisation and biased reporting is responsible for bringing this situation about. If you think this accusation is unjustified consider the alacrity with which the jury complied with the judge’s summing up. If the judge has a Palestinian connection that’s one thing, but how do you think he was able to get away with what he said to the jury?
“In his summing up, Judge George Bathurst-Norman suggested to the jury that ‘you may well think that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered in that time’. “
You may well think that; or you may well think that the BBC leaves its fingerprints everywhere.
The world has gone mad today,
And good’s bad today,
And black’s white today
And day’s night today…………
Now heaven knows.
Anything Goes.
So. by that logic, if I choose to burn down a mosque, I should also be acquitted, no?
I do not think we have heard the last of this.
Brought out of retirement? The judges place of birth? The obvious attempt to influence the jury via an incredibly biased and one sided sumnation by this “judge”?
The fact that Sussex police are seething about the result?
It stinks to high heaven.
Is this emotion-over-law ruling for real? Civil society is screwed if that’s any kind of legal precedent. Could the BBC find no one to speak in defense of law and civic behavior?
I suspect they didnt look at all. It probably never even registered on the beeboid ethical radar.
Oh I forgot. That was disabled by operator decades ago.
John in Cheshire, If you did that you’d have to bring the right judge out of retirement and get extremely lucky with the jury. First there’d have to be a seismic shock to the BBC’s output.
Piggy, The police have to go to extraordinary lengths to get a case past the CPS these days. Any doubts and they won’t let it go to court. No wonder the police are seething.
There are some interesting comments on the websites I linked to, some of them from people who know about the legal technicalities. One can make a complaint to the Office for Judicial Complaints. But the most they can do, I think, is censure the judge. If he’s gone back into retirement that seems a bit ineffective.
This verdict is beyond reason. I assume the accused admitted the criminal damage and therefore must by definition be found guilty whatever their plea. The company involved is entitled to the full protection of the law and if that company has broken any law then the Crown , and the Crown alone, has the right to take action.
The BBC seems unaware of the basic requireme.nts of a civil society.
Can those of us who strongly object to the anti Israel stance of the BBC now take direct action against the perpetrators. Of course not. it would be absurd. As absurd as this verdict
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I believe there is something more sinister at foot here. These protestors have been targetting this factory for some time.
See for example;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-539229/Anti-war-protesters-superglue-weapons-factory-mark-Iraq-wars-fifth-anniversary.html
Obviously believing that to claim that they were trying to destroy the factory to prevent arms being sent to British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan would not be approved by an English Jury it would appear that they therefore cooked up a story that they were trying to get arms stopped to Israel. I would be interested to know if their previous attempts to target the EDO factory before Caste Lead were brought to the jury’s attention in the case.
Their actions would have had no effect on Israel’s justifiable and legal efforts by force of arms to prevent the terrorist entity in Gaza from firing rockets into Israeli cities. As such they have succeeded in carrying out criminal damage to EDO which has been their aim all along without fear of punishment and in the process have used Israel as a scapegoat.
Questions have to be asked. Who was responsible for appointing a judge who obviously should have recused himself given the prejudicial nature of the terms his direction to the jury? What connection does that person have with the defendants and/or with pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel organisations? What we have here is a classic anti-Semitic plot.
As someone commented on CIFwatch, this is an anti -semitic plot.
Condoned and indeed abetted by elements of the establishment.
Just when you think Ukistan has bottomed out in depravity..
With regard to the Kingsnorth case.
I was actually a member of the above-vilified jury, believe it or not.
I haven’t ever posted anything about it, since I’m not sure at which point such details represent a breach of the law (perhaps a helpful mod will delete this if it’s felt that it does so breach, please), but suffice is to say that the jury didn’t post a majority (not unanimous) verdict because we’d been convinced of/were sympathetic to the AGW propaganda laid on with a shovel in what remains the longest week of my life thus far. One or two were, one in particular to the extent that I suspected membership of Greenpeace and thus perjury, but the rest not.
Lord knows I wished I’d declared myself president of the “I Love Kingsnorth Power Station Fanclub” and landed myself with a cheerier case involving ram-raiding or GBH or, well, anything really.
I don’t think I can put down any more than this without revealing how a majority verdict was arrived at (which obviously would be a breach of the law), but would once again emphasise that it had nothing to do with sympathy for the defendants or their cause (and if it had been possible to re-try them after seeing their triumphalist celebrations outside the court all but the aforementioned one or two would have sent them down for the full term, so disgusted were we by them).
So as not to narrow the field of suspects, I haven’t revealed how I voted, and my name (surprisingly) isn’t Buggy, but I’d like a few people at least to know something of the truth behind this. It gets very depressing to be vilified for something in ignorance of the full facts, non-ignorance of which is obviously restricted to the twelve of us who passed the verdict along. I’m not sure what the rationale is for non-disclosure of jury deliberations, but unless it’s a pretty compelling one I personally wish it could be amended in all but matters of national security etc, to save other people going through this.
I personally no longer have much trust in the legal processes of this country having seen how things actually work, I’m afraid.
As mentioned earlier, if it’s felt that any of this might be in breach of the law, could it please be erased as I’ve no desire to stake my future on the vagaries of this country’s courts.
Buggy, thanks for the insight, but were the jury swayed by the idea that this was the only way to prevent evil Israeli war crimes? Was there some point of law on which you agreed to acquit? Recommended by the judge, perhaps?
Hi David. I wasn’t actually on the Sodom-On-Sea jury, rather the Kingsnorth jury of Sept 2008.
Certainly the judge’s “directions” as to how the verdict should be arrived at in our case played the major part in what that verdict became,as it’s almost certain that the opposite outcome would have pertained without them: this is one of the things that now makes me very uneasy about the legal process and the potential for abuse via judicial non-impartiality.
That being said, ‘our’ directions were nothing like as explicit as the ones in this case. I really can’t see how Judge Bathurst-Norman isn’t in an enormous amount of hot water for these sorts of remarks. It’s truly frightening that a large section of the judiciary have taken it upon themselves to not just interpret the law as passed down by the elected legislature, but to decide which laws must be respected and which can be given a crafty shiv in the ribs when it suits.
Thanks, Buggy.
Buggy,
thanks for your interesting comment. I don’t think the juries are being vilified exactly. It’s more the case that judges can be foolish, the media and the political climate have turned the world on its head, and the law’s an ass.
From a friend who was on the jury of a harrowing incest abuse case: “my heart said guilty but my head said not proven beyond reasonable doubt”
The difficulties facing juries are understandable.
The wider implications can only be recognised when individual events like these pan out to reveal a sinister bigger picture. Think Dreyfus.
@ Buggy Hi and thanks for coming on with that unique insight.
I wonder if it would have been considered “perjury” to have been a Jew on the Hove jury?
I doubt if any were there. After all the precident of discounting Jews on trials and inquiries was almost publicly established in the Iraq process last year with semi -official queries as to whether Sir Martin Gilbert and others, because of their Jewishness were FIT to be on the examining panel.
Does this set a precedent that anyone can go into the EDO premises at any time and cause any damage with impunity?
Things are bad in the United States, but not this bad. Do you not have any recourse? What is next in the UK, attacks on Jews and Jewish businesses permitted because they might have Zionist sympathies?
‘Sabotaging £180,000 worth of equipment and similar crimes are now quite legal. All you have to do when caught is plead that it was all in a good cause.’
And, taking the subsequent post on the Munich massacre coverage as clear evidence, ‘ends justify means’ even if it’s ‘murder for headlines’, as far as the national broadcaster goes.
“It sends a clear indication that sometimes direct action is the only option when all other avenues have failed.”
As Buggy’s amazing input suggests, the politco-media establishment is intertwined and spiralling to a very dark place.
Odd that they have not read their history, as such things seldom serve their officers well, being higher profile than mere mortals.
Feeding hands to tend to get bitten by rabid animals.
To repeat what I pondered in the following thread, if the obdurate brick wall that is the BBC ‘complaints’ system proves no longer ‘an avenue’ of value, overseen by an equally flawed Trust and political oversight system, with no way of opting out when even our MPs require regular voting mandates, is more ‘direct action’ therefore justified?
Just asking, I stress.
Or is this ‘different’ as our unique national media hypocrite or its apologists often get cornered into claiming.
I’m speechless. Yes, this is not far at all from the “law” exonerating attacks on Jewish businesses.
David Preiser,
Buggy was talking about the earlier AGW case.
It sends a clear indication that sometimes direct action is the only option when all other avenues have failed.”
There is another alternative for the victims of this clear case of malicious damage, of course. The O.J.Simpson type civil suit aka tort.
Criminal cases have a high innocent until proven guilty level of proof and there is a reluctance (which I share) to imprison for a political act. Civil cases have a lower what would a reasonable person believe on hearing the evidence level of proof and the penalty is financial. It may be more or less than the amount of damages. Also the double jeopardy defence doesn’t transfer from criminal court to civil court.
The chance of a victory in court is much higher.
This court case was in Brighton – and Brighton elected a Green Party MP. Juries at cases in Brighton must often be composed of all sorts of wierdos. The town probably has a much higher proportion of eco-fascists, anti-semitic ‘liberals’ and other oddballs than any place in England. I don’t think this case is representative of the English legal system.
Half makes me wish that the global warming scam was true — and that the sea level would rise 50 feet next year and wash Brighton away.
Just Brighton though. Hove can stay.
I can’t avoid seeing parallels between this case and the BBC’s glowing obituary to a terrorist:
Obituary: Mohammed Oudeh
[But] the end justified the means, he argued.
“Before Munich we were simply terrorists. After Munich at least people started asking: Who are these terrorists? What do they want?” he told the Associated Press news agency in 2005.
‘Legitimate targets’
He told journalists how he and comrades from Black September had conceived the Munich scheme while smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee at a cafe in Rome.
They had been angry that the Olympic committee had rejected an Olympic team for the Palestinians, he said.
The idea had been to take the athletes hostage and trade them for more than 200 Palestinians jailed in Israel.
The Israeli athletes, he said, were legitimate targets as many had served in the military, fighting in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Ends justifying means, even if those means are illegal?
“Legitimate targets”?
The same arguments used by the terrorist enablers in Brighton and sanctioned by the judge.
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4427.htm
Don’t know if you ever look at this website, it’s excellent. Here, an Egyptian columnist wishes that the Egyptians were so lucky as to be ‘smitten’ with a ‘siege’ as of Gaza. He quotes prices of food items and a lot are cheaper in Gaza. Very illuminating.
That lunatic senile bigoted so-called judge should read it too. Thank God my children all live outside Britain, this sort of thing is reminiscent of Germany under the Nazis. Justice indeed………what rubbish.
I would welcome this new ‘law’ as it now appears that we have a legal right to kill our politicians.
It surely can’t be long before this is tested.