Britain's Legal Barrage.

On January 11th Britain released such a flood of surprise legal verdicts you would think they were trying to cover something up. The following list is nowhere near exhaustive but I think it seems to cover the main points;

Wikileaks. The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange appeared at Woolwich Crown Court for a procedural hearing as part of his fight against extradition to Sweden. The purpose of the hearing was to allow the Judge to establish that the accused would surrender to bail and hear skeleton arguments from both the prosecution and defence in order to decide if there was still a case to answer. The Judge decided that there was still a case to answer and set the date of the next hearing for February 7th. As this is only an extradition hearing rather then a trial and because the Swedish authorities only want to question Mr Assange rather then prosecute him this case should be thrown out. However as the Swedes really want to use Mr Assange as a bargaining chip with the Americans the extradition will probably go through with little regard for the law.

N10 Rioter. On November 10th 2010 British students rioted outside the Conservative party HQ in Millbank Tower. One of the most sensational moments of the day was a fire extinguisher being dropped from the roof of the building. After an appeal by the police an 18 year old student, Edward Woollard quickly handed himself in and admitted the offence. With it being obvious what he did wrong no defence evidence was presented at the trial and it was just up to the Judge to impose a 32 month prison sentence for the offence of violent disorder. The police are keen for this to be seen as a deterrent by claiming that Mr Woollard ruined his life in a moment of madness. Unfortunately they've failed to notice that Mr Woollard is both ginger and a bit ugly so without the opportunity of a university education his life was ruined long before the riots.

MP's Expenses. Also at Southwark Crown Court Labour MP, Eric Illsley, changed his plea and pleaded guilty to a charge of theft by way of fraud and false accounting relating to his expenses claims. He has been freed on bail for the Judge to consider pre-sentencing reports. Apart from enforcing the public's perception that Labour MP's are all criminals who can't be trusted the idea is to enforce the idea that I'm a thief and a fraudster.

Rapey Policeman. Stephan Mitchell was sentenced to an indeterminate prison sentence for abusing his position as a police officer to rape and sexually abuse a series of vulnerable young women. Apart from being an attempt to take the sting out of any future protests by showing that the state is prepared to prosecute police officers for wrong doing this was intended to enforce the message that apart for being a thief and a fraudster I'm also a rapist, a paedophile and a sexual predator. Of course if any of that was true the Brits would have no problem bringing criminal charges against me. But if any of it was true they wouldn't bother because it would mean that we actually have something in common.

BBC Ageism. When the BBC moved the show "Countryfile" to a prime time slot they replaced one of the female presenters with a younger model . The presenter, Miriam O'Reilly, then sued the BBC for unfair dismissal by way of age discrimination and yesterday she won. It is always difficult for the media to report on itself and this case was even more distracting because it had a lot of people in the media checking the terms of their employment and their faces for signs of wrinkles.

Godstone Farm. Back in 2009 there was an outbreak of E-coli at a petting farm near where I live which left 76 children seriously ill. The parents of those children went on to sue the owners of the farm for damages. Yesterday the farm owners backed down by admitting the liability and opening negotiations over the level of compensation payments. This was intended to give the impression that the Brits had suddenly realised the error of their ways and were negotiating with me over compensation payments. Sadly this is not true because I've not had any contact with them. So if a story like this emerges in the future the first question to ask the Brits is why I've not confirmed it on this blog.