Unfair Bank Charges Case

Today (25/11) the Supreme Court of the UK which replace the Law Lords as Britain's highest court in October 2009* has ruled on a case brought by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). The case, brought on behalf of millions of bank customers, tried to argue that the bank's practice of charging fees and interest on non-pre-arranged overdraft loans was unfair and therefore illegal meaning that the banks should repay the fees and interest payments. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the banks accepting the argument that the fees were "part of the price or remuneration for the package of services the banks provide." This is hardly a surprise because, although it's an unpopular thing to say, British bank customers actually get a very good deal. In most of the rest of the world banks charge customers these sort of fees for simply having a bank account even if they stay in the black.

The argument over bank charges has been running for a long time (at least 4 years) and affects millions of British consumers. As such I don't think there's much of a subtext to the story. If there is though it's great news for me. I've long been described as "the bank" so the Supreme Court has ruled that the bank owes nothing to customers who refuse to stay in the black. This analysis is supported by last weeks so called "Dream Killer" case. That case involved a man who suffered from a sleep disorder similar to night terrors. During the course of one of these attacks he strangled his wife thinking that she was an intruder breaking into the house to kill him. On the third day of the trial the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the prosecution accepting that the man was legitimate in thinking that he was killing an intruder.

Taken together these two cases seem to indicate that the British Crown Court system have just authorised any means necessary to bring to and end the Bristol Abuse Case and punish those who have been involved in it. Of course the Crown hasn't actually put that in writing and I've yet to see any action but it will be interesting to see if it filters down the chain of command because it means the accused can expect no protection under law. On that topic I should point out that Scotland Yard did not dispatch that Diplomatic Protection Squad (DPS) car to Croydon in order to help me. Instead they did it to warn Croydon Police to keep a lid on things. The thinking being that if they can contain the Croydon network they will be able to preserve the status quo and escape punishment. This is simply not the case. The incident is going in my scrapbook of great memories though because when I saw the DPS car it had just pulled up behind a Croydon police car at some traffic lights. The occupants of the Croydon car were doing that thing everyone does when a police car pulls up behind them of looking straight ahead and trying not to look too nervous.

*The only changes between the Law Lords and the Suprme Court are purely cosmetic in that they've got a new name and a new building.