As is the way, the brewing twatterstorm is getting round to the grisly business of apportioning blame for the situation Paul Chambers finds himself in. The invisible finger seems to be alighting up on Kier Starmer, Director of Public Prosecutions, head of the Crown Prosecution service.
There are so many points at which discretion and common sense could have prevailed. The police. The CPS. The judge.
It didn’t prevail.
Clearly, then, the police, the CPS and the judge are all implicated. But if you dig down and ask why they behaved in the way they did, I’m pretty sure you’ll find government targets and directives at the bottom of it all.
The police, the CPS and the courts were strongly encouraged to pursue this matter, and can only, at the end of the day, be accused of acting in their own understandable self-interest, in applying the law as it is written.
So we come down to two points:
- Bad law, drafted and passed into law by the Labour government.
- Target driven pursuit of prosecutions, under whatever laws may apply, bad or not.
So, if you support Paul Chambers and share my horror and disgust at his plight, but you voted Labour last week, you really need to stand back and re-evaluate what it was you voted for.
AJ
Al Jahom's Final Word 