Tabloid stuff, I know: but accounts of the Marten/Gordon trial make extraordinary reading. There was a way of handling such people in days of yore: they would be declared Outlaws, and lose the usual privileges afforded to run-of-the-mill wrong'uns by the justice system. 'Scofflaw' is another evocative term, though generally applied to much lesser nonsenses than this one.
Although the judge in the M/G case seems to be an experienced one, it's hard not to feel the court wasn't sufficiently brisk when first confronted with their outrageous behaviour. The consequence was many more months of the same: (and will there be an Appeal to come?) I'm no criminal justice expert, but I believe that wholly uncooperative defendants can be tried in absentia - correct me if I'm wrong. Unsurprisingly, this is only a last recourse. But if justice requires a degree of accommodation to chaotic behaviour on the party of unhinged or even malicious defendants, well, there has surely to be a limit.
And Contempt of Court is definitely a Thing. A couple of years ago I was on the jury for a prolonged murder trial at the Old Bailey (in essence, gang warfare). One of the defendants in particular was fairly uncooperative (on nothing like the scale of M/G, but he was still clearly taking this piss, and caused some gratuitous delays in proceedings. One of the (several) QCs involved - there were three defendants - called him an "annoying little bugger", which the judge chose not to hear. But overall the judge was having none of it and kept fairly good order (until the 'guilty' verdicts were read out, which was followed by a couple of minutes of rather scary mayhem).
By way of example of what a judge can do: in the case in question, a family member of one of the victims (who were, *ahem*, no angels themselves, though nobody deserves to be knifed to death in the street) was caught filming the proceedings in court! This, as everyone entering court is told, is strictly a "go straight to gaol" matter, which is exactly what happened: matey was gaoled on the spot.
Contempt of Court is a Thing - and so is Summary Justice.
ND
5 comments:
Few judges are going to want to come down hard on an uncooperative black defendant, nor a female one, unless they absolutely have to these days. Not going to look good on the old CV in todays woke judiciary.
And there's always the "riot in the streets" possibility to concentrate the judicial mind if the defendants can "mobilise the community". Not necessarily a racial thing, I recall a Nottinghamshire estate which seemed to be run by the local hard men.
Indeed. A family member was mugged in a town where a certain ethnic grouping predominates. The whole thing was caught on camera (took pace in a notorious and well-CCTV'd subway) and the perps brought to court. My relative was smuggled in through a back door, because a "community mobilisation" was taking place outside.
However, on being told the victim was in court and ready to testify, the perps changed their pleas to guilty, and everyone dispersed.
Takes a bit of balls, though
They're a better folie a deux then the Joker sequel...
She's obviously a seriously damaged individual, her parents dumping her, first at a boarding school, then at that rapey Nigerian church. The icing of zero trust of institutions, topping the cake of the quirkiness and entitlement that riddles the upper classes, and a psycho partner as the cherry on top.
I get a little sympathy towards her, I imagine the Judge knows a few families whose kids he looks at at thinks "by the grace of God..."
Don't know about Gordon. He's obviously not firing on all cylinders, maybe the two of them just "fit", each person's broken aspects matching the others like jigsaw pieces, the resultant whole best off sectioned and stopped from procreating for the sake of the resulting offspring.
At least she didn't end up like Gale Benson:
"Gale Ann Mildred Benson (née Plugge; 4 November 1944 – 2 January 1972), later known as Hale Kimga, was a British model, socialite and daughter of Conservative politician Leonard Plugge. She was a supporter of the black power movement through her relationship with the activist Hakim Jamal. Benson was stabbed and buried alive by associates of Michael X while she attended his compound in Trinidad and Tobago."
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