Last week, this column highlighted threats from abusive behaviour, triggered by a policeman found guilty of the most awful crimes.
We all need to be vigilant against even small scale abusive behaviour. The law is there to protect us from criminals, and even from the police! Many years ago, a judge subpoenaed the Attorney General and lectured him "be you ever so high, the law is above you", quoting an ancient ruling after the government tried to block a citizen bringing a criminal case. No-one is above the law!
The Post Office inquiry reveals that a glob of managers and lawyers made false accusations, or covered up information that the software did not perform as it should. Advanced technology not working right is no big surprise! The more serious failure was the clique of lawyers and managers who quite deliberately pursued wrongful claims. Some may have been errors of omission, keeping quiet while knowing that things were going wrong. Every small child knows how to avoid owning up, many are caught, some are punished, windows are mended!
Ancient laws underpin that judges have the authority of "The Crown", the euphemism we use today to represent His Majesty, King Charles as Head of State, on our behalf! Many centuries ago this was really the case, and our ancestors sensibly retained the Tower of London with its own military guard, albeit in traditional uniforms to benefit today's tourism.
Penny Morduant, President of the Council, carried the traditional broadsword at the Coronation with great assuredness. Maybe the King in Council should cut through the politics and blurring of the inquiry, round up a few of the obvious suspects and offer alternatives of "truth and reconciliation", as has happened elsewhere. Reconciliation rooms could be arranged in the Tower of London for any falling short on truth!
The Post Office scandal is a very serious miscarriage of justice, an affront to the ethical standards of our society, and it is wrong for this column to become lighthearted. The inquiry into this legal scandal is being conducted by a regiment of highly paid lawyers when our trust in politicians and the police is already damaged; lawyers are also now suspects. The word "compensation" for the miscarriage is finally being replaced with "redress", underpinning that there is money rightfully due to be returned, maybe compensation as well.
The real scandal is that lawyers themselves are implicated and may escape prosecution for their part in fraudulently bringing accusations. Enough has been revealed at the inquiry to show that false statements were knowingly made. In the drama Midsomer Murders, Barnaby regularly challenges miscreants with a charge of "perverting the course of justice". In Medieval times, multiple stocks would have been erected on Tower Hill, so that these lawyers and managers could be seen and reviled before being locked inside.
Trust and integrity are on trial. Any manager who sees the same problem being repeated hundreds of times sets out to find the underlying cause. This leaves top management very little room for excuses. All political parties are at fault; the Labour party was in power when all this kicked off, a Liberal Democrat was responsible in the Coalition Government and recently there are Conservatives.
Cider makers know that most apples are good, but clearly "we, the people" need to weed out the bad apples amongst lawyers as well as politicians, the police, and everywhere else!
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