STOP PRESS: Miners Scam Lawyers Jim Beresford and Doug Smith Struck Off

Well, thank goodness for that! I felt dirty all of the time these obnoxious people could say that they were a member of the same profession as me. I have only just received the good news and refer you to The Times report for further information. Here is Jim Beresford:

What a nice smile!

Baby P and the Witches of Salem

I have refrained from posting about Baby P until now.

Of course, Haringey Social Services are crap. Almost all of our social services departments in England are crap. I hold no brief for the inadequate provision we make for children or their protection in this country. See previous posts.

BUT the media hysteria and their love of finding people not only to blame but to demonise is now beyond a joke. Well, there is an exception.

Sharon Shoesmith (Haringey's Head of Children's Services) hardly covered herself in glory by spending £19k on media training presumably designed to pad her bottom from the impending storm. She is also, but this is simply my impression, not particularly children friendly in appearance:

Politicians in Haringey have resigned. That was honourable. That the operational head of children's services should fall on her sword was immediately obvious to the whole population of the planet except, perhaps, just one. She seemed to think that the marketing guys could save her.

Perhaps, we should require potential heads of department at local authorities to sit a basic intelligence test. Possibly also, they could be asked to take an "emotional intelligence" test (whatever that it is). Almost certainly, a basic humanity test should be mandatory.

Local Authorities are very good at setting tests or performance targets or whatever so this should not be difficult. However, these are tests that would apply to them and not others. Oh, it might take a little longer then!

I forgot to mention: they would be required to pass the tests! Oh, and they should not be allowed to set the pass mark.

The caveat I started out to put forward is that we should not conduct a witch hunt of the troops on the ground. In my experience (as a lawyer in care cases - a period of my life that is, thankfully, over) social services personnel begin as idealists but quickly become corrupted into judgmental harridans - or the male equivalent - I incapable of not absorbing the departmental assumption of infallibility.

Don't worry about the Pope. He is an intelligent man and I doubt very much whether he really believes that he is infallible. He is probably too intelligent to believe in a divine being (whether called God, Allah or the Spaghetti Monster). Social Services (is it genuinely a coincidence that they managed to choose a description that abbreviates to SS?) really do believe that they are infallible.

I have now entirely forgotten why these people do not deserve to be persecuted (sorry, I might have meant prosecuted).

Oh, it is lack of money. We get the Social Services we deserve and are prepared to pay for.

Corby Magistrates' Court: What Are They Playing At?

I monitor lots of decisions of the courts. This a decision of the Administrative Court and does not have much in the way of global implications. It does illustrate, however, that the little man (woman, in this case) does have access to justice under the England & Wales legal system and will, generally, be treated fairly.

Also, it illustrates both the value and the eccentricity of applications for judicial review. In theory, the Queen intervenes on your behalf against the executive or inferior courts. In this case, Corby Magistrates' Court.

Lindis Elizabeth Percy says that she was assaulted by US military and UK bobbies failed to intervene when they should have done. Here is her case as summarised by Lord Justice Moses:

"The claimant alleges that on Sunday 19 February 2006 she was at RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire. There she was accosted by several American military personnel. Airman First Class Frank Macdonald took the lead and controlled the incident. She was hand-cuffed and detained face-down on the ground. She repeatedly said to the American personnel that the Ministry of Defence Police Agency based at RAF Croughton should be called to deal with the incident pursuant to Third Air Force Instructions 31-209 of 15 February 2004. Following that request two Ministry of Defence Agency officers arrived, PC Athawse and PC Woodhouse. They instructed the American airmen to remove the handcuffs and said that they would now deal with the situation. However, it is alleged that Airman First Class Macdonald would not allow this and pushed one of the officers away. Neither of the Ministry of Defence Police Agency officers insisted that they should assume control. They allowed the American military personnel to continue the search of the claimant. During the course of that search she alleges that she sustained pressure to the carotid nerve of her neck as a result of the activities of Airman First Class Macdonald, which caused facial palsy from which she suffered for a period of six weeks. She suffered bruising, a cut to her right hand and abrasions from the tight fixing of the handcuffs.

Whilst this serious assault is alleged to have taken place, PC Athawse and PC Woodhouse stood by. Neither of them intervened to stop the assault. The claimant was then issued with a section 69 notice for aggravated trespass, contrary to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, by one of the Ministry of Defence Police Agency officers."

Lord Justice Moses went on to hold that Ms Percy was treated with inexplicable discourtesy by the magistrates and that they were wrong in failing to issue summonses against the Ministry of Defence Police Agency and Airman First Class Frank MacDonald of the US Air Force. He ordered them to issue the summonses.

His final exchange with Ms Price is revealing:

"THE CLAIMANT: Could I just add that this could have been settled without going down this road.

LORD JUSTICE MOSES: I know. I do not know what they are playing at. We will order costs against the Corby Magistrates' Court in the sum of £412.

THE CLAIMANT: Thank you."

Why did she only get £412?

Simple; she represented herself. I applaud her. This was not a simple application.

It does show that it can be done so do not believe you always need a solicitor to achieve justice.

Lindis Percy has form, however. This is not her first appearance in court and you may wish to perform a google search.

The Judge Who Judged But Had No Judgment

Judge Lincoln Crawford

Family lawyers will be familiar with the kinds of behaviour exhibited by Judge Crawford in the course of his divorce.

He became obsessed. He therefore harrassed his wife. He spied on her. He resented her new partner. He resented any contact between his children and his wife's new partner. He abused them both. He took photographs. He was upset and hurt and therefore human. He felt his wife's abandonment of him justified any retaliation he inflicted on either of them.

He reacted as a human being and not as a Judge. His distinguished career may now be in danger. This helps no-one, least of all the children.

I feel great sympathy for Judge Crawford. I have been through the process (although many years ago and I got what would now be called a residence order in respect of my two children).

The tabloids will no doubt misreport it. I recommend you to read the court judgment instead. Just click the title to this post. You will find that the wife and her new partner were far from paragons of virtue. One Judge concluded that they were not entirely truthful (translation: they lied to a court) and it should be noted that the wife (Ms Bronwen Jenkins) is Head of Employment Law at Irwin Mitchell's London office.

Quiz Questions:

1) Why is the title to this post ambiguous?

2) Is a Judge necessarily disqualified from judging others because he fails to exercise good judgment in his personal life?

3) If the answer to 2 above is "yes", how many Judges would we have left?

4) How do you spell "judgment"?

Sally Clark is Dead: Let the Libel Begin

Our beloved professional experts now have something to trouble their consciences. Well, not really. Nothing much does seem to trouble those consciences.

When my firm could afford to do legal aid work I did a number of child care cases and the thing that really troubled me was the dispassionate approach of the so-called experts.

"Dispassionate" sounds like a word you would want applied to your "approach" as a "professional". It is different for each professional involed:

The Lawyer for the Parent

Not so for lawyers involved in this kind of work. What you need is a solicitor who is "involved" and "passionate" but also one who can stand back and be "objective".

It is a big ask and I have unbounded admiration for those of my colleagues who still do this kind of work in spite of goernmment restrictions on legal aid. (As a side note, I may hold the record for resigning from franchises with the Legal Services Commission in that I have done it twice).

The Social Workers

I can only speak from personal experience as a lawyer who used to represent parents. I am biassed.

Social Services (the "SS") tend in my view to live up to their acronym.

They intervene on a lottery basis (there may be many worse families in the same street who do not attract their attention) but once they have done so they hang on like terriers. Nothing you can say will detract from their certainty that they are right.

The Local Authority Lawyers

Poorly paid and overworked as they are they should not do as, in my experience, they do do.

They are the ciphers of their colleagues in the SS. They inherit all the bad traits and contribute nothing. They are the prime examples of lawyers acting as mere "mouthpieces".

Praise for a Solicitor! Wow!

Generally, solicitors are referred to in judgments in a manner that suggests that what the judge really thinks is that "if only you had instructed a barrister we might have listened to you." Preferably, a member of the judge's former chambers.

Wall LJ is therefore cited for the rarity of his sentiments:

"I pause at this point to note Mr F's determination to participate in the proceedings and to care for K, and to express my admiration for Mr F's solicitor, who in an extremely tight timescale managed to obtain public funding, master the documents and conduct Mr F's case. The same solicitor was equally proactive in making an application for permission to appeal and, although the application was out of time, we had no difficulty in extending Mr F's time for filing his appellant's notice."

The award goes to Tilley & Co although the individual solicitor is not named.

Whoever he or she is, I am sure that he or she would agree that a lot of his or her colleagues merit similar praise.

The case is:

In the matter of M-H