Our brain dead and speech retarded Lord Chancellor is bring in pre taped Video Interviews only for trials of sex claims. A brilliant idea. So now facts about the "victims" cannot be answered when the defence reveals they worked as prostitutes specialising in being beaten up or were convicted liars with histories of mental heath problems or liars known by dozens of witnesses produced to testify to a blank wall. Oh great. DOH! She tort she taw a sex offender.

I want to say that I read this in The Times this morning with a growing sense of dismay. But to be truthful, I no longer feel dismayed by these tin-pot conviction-seeking antics from senior politicians. I simply feel an enduring sense of melancholy that the liberty the people of these islands defended for more than three centuries has been progressively flushed over the U-bend by politically correct politicians desperate to look right-on and moral.

This is not about pursuing justice, of course. PC victimologists and carceral feminists have never been interested in that. The pillars upon which our justice system rests – innocent until proven guilty, habeus corpus, due process in a court of law, etc – have, after all, been fashioned by “the patriarchy”, so they’re bad and need to be torn down.

I think the good ship liberty is being repeatedly holed beneath the waterline from the inside, by popularity-chasing politicians too stupid and narcissistic to tell PC lobbyists to fuck right off with their obscene punitive agenda. I see little prospect of this changing, because lock’em-all-up PC victimology has infiltrated and corrupted all mainstream political parties.

Those of us who find these illiberal measures desperately dangerous have little choice but to go down with the ship. Still, I don’t see why we can’t sip the occasional glass of champagne as the icy waters of a PC police state rise ineluctably over our ankles.

How did this idiot ever get to such a position of influence?

Strong rumour that Tweetie Truss is trying to get her official title changed to the Crush Justice Secretary. I do hope she succeeds. She tort she taw a puddy cat.

Of course, I agree with you wholeheartedly, Pete, except for...



Those of us who find these illiberal measures desperately dangerous have little choice but to go down with the ship.



You don't have to live there.

How did she ever get the job? I suspect the May woman wanted more women in her Cabinet and so gave the jobs she regards as unimportant (i.e. the ones she did) to assorted token birds.

To be deadly serious, although Pete's total despair is fair and understandable, I actually think this might be a step too far. The straw that broke the camel's back.

We are inches away from conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Thank God, for the moment, we need to obey the European Court of Human Rights. Bringing in a law to allow criminals to avoid direct examination is very close to illegal. If somebody is intent on perverting the course of justice (say, for compensation or media cash or sympathy or attention or revenge or any other reason) and sets off on that course like, say, a Danny Day (can't say he's guilty; he is, after all, innocent until) and police, CPS and Parliament conspire to assist that crime - they all need prosecuting.

What exactly is being proposed?

All victims - oops claimants - pre recorded and edited beforehand ("could you cry a bit more?") instead of being live in court. Not proposed. Made law tomorrow.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/19/rape...rded-video-evidence/

Allison Pearson has penned an excellent piece of this topic, expanding on the concerns JK raised with such perspicuity:

Alarm bells start clanging when I hear Ms Truss say that this will allow judges to cut out any inappropriate cross-examination of rape victims referring to their sexual history before it can be seen by a jury. Who decides what is inappropriate? Justice must be seen to be done, not doctored in some editing suite.

Ms Truss thinks all this is a jolly good idea because, in pilot schemes, it has led to more early guilty pleas, which relieve pressure on a system stretched to breaking point by a huge influx of sex cases. It will also “reduce the level of trauma for the victim” who was previously confronted in court by her attacker.

The Justice Secretary has no business referring to the accuser in a rape case as the “victim”. Women can lie. A man accused of rape might be telling the truth, although he will not have the protection of anonymity enjoyed by his accuser. An acquaintance of mine, wrongfully accused of rape by a woman he met on Tinder, was left alone in purgatory for 12 months while his malicious accuser had counselling and sympathy. Before a word of evidence was heard, the guilty woman was “believed” and the innocent man condemned.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/19/rape...ery-slope-injustice/

It seems that some of the more thoughtful and ethical journos are seeing through this half-wits sisterhood sycophancy for what it is: a means to cut time and costs and make convictions easier, at the expense of that trifling matter, justice.