No Chance for the ‘Far Right’ in Starmer’s Left-Wing Justice System

THE Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson gave an interview to the Sunday Times which was a very interesting read indeed. 

It started with his desire to get more rapists convicted. These alleged rapists were playing the system by pleading not guilty, and how very dare they do that. I thought we had a presumption of innocence here in the UK, but that is causing problems for the DPP. According to the article, ‘Suspected rapists are seeking to evade justice by deliberately pleading not guilty and waiting for victims to drop out of long-delayed trials, the country’s top prosecutor has warned. Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), said defendants were “taking advantage” of delays in the criminal justice system and “hoping that something will come up” to cause a case to collapse.’

The article continues: ‘Ten per cent of victims of rape and other serious sexual offences withdraw their support after charges have been brought, he said. Many more do so while police investigate their complaints. Typically, it can take two years to investigate a rape case and another two years to bring it to trial, Parkinson said. “I think that’s outrageous. We see too many victims — usually women — withdrawing their co-operation because of the delay and also because they don’t feel sufficiently supported”.’

A few things on this. First, and most obviously, everyone including those accused of rape has a right to plead not guilty and exercise the right to a trial by jury. I think it is bad form for the DPP to be out there implying that defendants who enter a not guilty plea and maintain that plea until trial are somehow trying to ‘evade justice’. Surely, it is justice, a trial by jury, that they seek and are entitled to. The DPP is disgracefully casting aspersions on defendants who have entered not guilty pleas to the very serious charge of rape and are awaiting trial as is their legal right.

It is hardly the defendant’s fault that the criminal justice system has been so trashed, starting with New Labour and continuing with successive Tory administrations, that trials take so long to come to court. Some of these defendants will be remanded in custody until trial, so they suffer as much as the complainant. It is not their responsibility that ‘a record backlog of 71,000 cases are awaiting trial in the nation’s crown courts, up from 38,000 before the coronavirus pandemic’. Justice denied is another legacy of the ruinous lockdown.

Secondly, and this should not need to be said to the DPP, perhaps the reason why complainants withdraw their evidence is because they are lying and they made a false allegation. It is for the jury to determine the truth – not the DPP who feels under pressure to raise the conviction rate for rape.

With various improvements to the system, the DPP ‘hopes the moves will encourage suspects to plead guilty at their first court hearing, making them eligible for a reduced sentence’. In reality, even for those defendants who are guilty, what person would plead guilty to such a serious offence at the first opportunity even with a reduced sentence? If defendants are ‘taking advantage’ it is because successive governments have given them the advantage, due to treating barristers like trash, outrageous court delays and systemic underfunding.

Such is the DPP’s dodgy view on rape trials. I tell you what group of people did plead guilty at the first opportunity, the Far-Right Thugs (herein after referred to as FRT). Stephen Parkinson was asked about this too.

The Sunday Times said: ‘The biggest challenge faced by Parkinson in the past year has been the riots that engulfed Britain after the killing of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport in July.’

Parkinson denied that the response from the CPS, which led to more than 740 people being charged, was ‘draconian’. This was in some ways a national crisis. It was important to show people that if they committed criminal conduct, they would be dealt with swiftly and effectively, he said, adding that the majority of those who were charged pleaded guilty.

How true this was. The majority of those who were charged pleaded guilty at the first opportunity in the magistrates’ court. And I have been asking myself just why this was the case. The grandfather Peter Lynch who committed suicide in prison should not have pleaded guilty to violent disorder, in my honest and former defence lawyer opinion.

Having read what I could in the reports and accepting I was not in court at the time, I am left wondering just why did he plead to violent disorder, a serious offence, when his part was minimal? His offence really was abusing a police officer, but as it was part of an overall incident of violent disorder, by pleading guilty Mr Lynch was on the hook for the entire incident which turned very serious. Despite having pleaded guilty Mr Lynch was denied a suspended sentence when any reasonable judge could see that he was vulnerable. But Mr Lynch is too dead to object now. They wanted to teach him a lesson, and I’ll say they did so.

There are other cases out there where the sentence at least looks disproportionate. But what has troubled me in the last few weeks is just what happened on those first appearances in the magistrates’ court. Of course, it didn’t help that the Prime Minister himself was dragging out the old lectern saying justice would be done, and done swiftly, which intensified an already febrile atmosphere. That was surely the point. And the FRT were given legal advice and ultimately how they plead is entirely their own decision. But all the time people admit offences of which they are not necessarily guilty.

Further, even if on the facts the FRT were guilty of the offence I am left thinking that if this was a left-wing cause, many would have entered not guilty pleas. This is because left-wing lawyers are well-organised and the word goes out – don’t rush into anything. Wait until we have given you advice and you have considered all your options. This is all perfectly ethical, and indeed effective. It is downright admirable. My only regret is that this is not what happened with the FRT.

Things can change in trial by jury, the light that shows that freedom lives. These FRT, having taken advice and decided to plead not guilty are perfectly entitled to tell the jury how they honestly felt on the day, how it came to be that they were suddenly far-right thugs.

‘Yes, I was angry. Sure I shouldn’t have done what I did but I was furious. I thought of those three girls being stabbed to death and my anger got the better of me. I’m just angry that we have been ignored about immigration for years and years. That my country, my home town, has been changed beyond recognition and no one seems to care. The politicians ignore us time and again – I tried to vote for change but change never comes. So, I got angry. Etc etc.’

This goes before the jury. To convict in a jury trial you need ten of the 12 jurors to say yes, he was guilty. They can return a not guilty verdict even if the defendant admits the offence in court. It happens all the time and is called jury nullification or jury equity depending on your view. Ten from twelve. I’ll take those odds and any decent defence lawyer should have been willing to take those odds.

Now it may be the case that the FRT are getting some decent legal advice now. But the reason they all pleaded guilty is that there are simply not enough right-wing lawyers out there who are as organised and as motivated as their left-wing colleagues. This is the problem with right-wing people – they are in the City, doing commercial stuff with commercial people or whatever the heck it is they do all day.

Where they are not is in the law. But plenty of talented left-wing people are, and they look after their own and play for keeps. The right-wingers are not in the arts, crafting well-told and beautiful stories of the human condition from a conservative point of view. But the lefties are influencing the culture day in and day out. Heck, even in the media there are not enough true conservatives, otherwise this piece would have appeared in the Daily Mail or the Telegraph. They would have been asking, what really happened to the FRT in court? So here I am.

There we have it. The suspected rapists know how to play the system and will plead not guilty, and hope the trial never happens. Far-right ‘thugs’ on violent disorder charges, or tweeting while angry charges, were just falling over themselves to plead guilty, and receive obviously disproportionate sentences. I am not blaming their lawyers who were there at the time at all. But it might be worth asking just why this happened.

This article (No chance for the ‘far right’ in Starmer’s left-wing justice system) was created and published by The Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Laura Perrins