The British legal system has an appalling number of miscarriages of justice. Why are such mistakes allowed to continue, and how, despite an often blatant lack of evidence against them, many people have been - and still are - languishing in jail for crimes they did not commit.
Any system of justice, being man made, is prone to error. That is not, a problem per se; the problem lies in the fact that the Establishment, in its indifference, arrogance and/or incompetence, refuses to take any serious action to correct these errors and prevent them from happening in the future.
How can anybody receive a fair trial, when defence lawyers work in conjunction with the prosecution to ensure that the defendant is found guilty?
Defence lawyers in the UK, are working and being paid by the same people that are prosecuting, namely the crown. They freely pass sensitive information to the prosecution, and work in tandem with them to try to make a deal, which always results in the defendant being found guilty, quite often for crimes that they didn't commit.
Prosecuters will lie and cheat and even commit perjury to ensure that the defendant is convicted. In 99% of cases, if a defendant is charged with a crime, the moment he engages the services of a UK solicitor, his or her fate is sealed. UK Judges are well aware of what is going on, but do nothing to prevent it, indeed they play a major role in the charade.
"The courtroom, one of the supposed bastions of democracy, is essentially a tyranny. The judge is Monarch. He is in control of the evidence, the witnesses, the questions, and the interpretation of law."
Millions of people in the UK, learn about the law from school, college, what they get from the media.
The proper place to learn about the law is in a courtroom, where the proverbial shit hits the fan. It is entirely possible to read numerous legal textbooks, go into a courtroom, see what's happening and be totally stunned by the differences between what the law says, and what the law does, daily.
People observing the process of courts for the first time are, end up saying, again and again, "They can't do that!", only to recognize that they are doing it, and continue to do so.
The Crown Prosecution Service, who prosecute all criminal trials, in the court room are not concerned with finding the truth but assigning blame.
Miscarriages of Justice (MOJ) do not occur by chance.
Every MOJ when examined in hindsight will show massive defects in our so called 'justice system', from the original incident (in some cases which never happened) right through to the appeal court, where the 'justice system' descends into total farce.
You cannot break the law to uphold the law. Any abuse of due process no matter how small, should be sufficient grounds for the quashing of any conviction and compensation should be paid in every case.
Police have since their formation been in the habit of where they think someone has committed a serious crime or habitually commit crime and can't get a conviction through 'due process', resort to illegal means to get convictions.
The Criminal Justice System has become the focal point of increased criticism over recent years due to a rising Prison population, unrest within the Prison System itself, deaths in custody, racism, and miscarriages of justice.
There are in the the UK prison system many hundreds of people who should not be there. These victims of the Criminal Justice system commonly refer to themselves as 'Hostages of the State'.
This is true as there is a chronic failure within the legal system to recognise that justice:
1. Is applied by human beings who are not infallible.
2. Distortion of facts are common methods of gaining convictions.
3. Police do lie, plant/conceal evidence.
4 That the theatrics of solicitors and barristers in the court room can condemn innocent people.
5. Judges can be opinionated and biased to the detriment of the accused
6. Juries are susceptible to misdirection by judges, expert witnesses, barristers.
7. Juries can be subject to every prejudice imaginable and are generally clueless about what is happening in the court room.
8. Accused are at the mercy of expert witnesses. Both the defence and prosecution expert witnesses will have impeccable academic qualifications, proven experience in the field. And will both be diametrically opposed to one another.
9. That though the Prosecution are legally obliged to disclose details of all the evidence and provide full access to it, prior to trial. This too frequently does not happen. (An ever increasing number of complaints to the European Court of Human Rights under article 6 'non-disclosure, are being upheld.)
10. That once convicted, no matter how clear it becomes that the conviction was wrong the Criminal Justice System, will do everything in its powers to prevent that conviction being overturned.
Even where it has become unmistakably clear that someone has been imprisoned wrongly, it can take years to get that person freed from prison. Appeals are more often than not unsuccessful the first time around. Many, many years can pass before that appeal date and then you lose and you are back to square one.
Due to lack of progress 'Hostages' become the 'forgotten', their supporters have fallen away.
'Inquisitorial system' v 'Adversarial system'
Where at trial if the Expert witnesses prosecution/defence cannot agree on the facts of the evidence to be presented to the court, they should be barred from giving evidence to Juries!
Where cause of death is not determined - no murder charges should be brought!
If medical experts cannot determine the cause or mechanism of death, then how can a jury?
In the absence of strong evidence of murder a case should not be prosecuted.
Neither should evidence be allowed into court where prosecution and defence cannot agree on the value of the evidence.
There is a very strong case for using the 'inquisitorial system' used in Europe, rather than the 'adversarial system' used in the UK justice system.
'Inquisitorial system'
"the evidence/facts should be agreed before the trial proceeds; if the prosecution and defence cannot come to agreement, then the disputed evidence/facts should not be allowed into court to be presented to a jury. This is the common procedure in most other European Countries.
'Adversarial system'
In the UK 'adversarial system', juries can be susceptible to misdirection, by expert witnesses, based on expediency, distortion of facts, tunnel vision or malfeasance, and the bottom line is that no-one is ever held responsible. Tragedy is followed by cover-ups, the logic of the ostrich, and still it continues.
In the Angela Canning trial using the UK 'adversarial system', the jury were forced to rely on the expert witnesses who had given contradictory evidence".
This also happened in Nick Tucker's trial and happens all too often in other murder trials and leaves the jury in an unenviable position of having to make a judgement on something they know nothing about.
A new study that the Home Office has set up, at the behest of Ludovic Kennedy, being carried out by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, to compare our 'adversarial system' against the European 'inquisitorial system'.
In Europe they use the 'inquisitorial system' If it's a science, then the facts should be agreed before the trial proceeds; if they cannot come to agreement, then it should not be allowed in court, as the onus is on innocent until proven guilty.