Best Of

Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones

Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.

Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends

This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.

Don’t Talk to the Police.

I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.

Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.

But you *are* a lawyer, a lawyer who works in criminal law and who knows exactly what to say or what not to say in any given interaction with the police.

The rest of the population can too often either incriminate themselves or omit a key detail that means we get found guilty.

That's fair but i am telling you about the outcomes of people who are not. With DNA etc it is very rarely in doubt that sex actually happened between the complainer and the accused. The critical question is consent. And on that front you want your position clear from day 1.

Doesn't always work, of course, some people are guilty after all. But of the last half dozen acquittals I have had in rape trials I can't think of one who didn't speak up.

I think that, were I to find myself in that unfortunate position, my approach would be to write a comprehensive statement with my lawyer, and pretty much read that to the police rather than answering their questions directly.

Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx
...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.

These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...

The paradox of the migration debate.

Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52704-is-there-public-support-for-large-scale-removals-of-migrants

The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,

Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.

As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.

Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.

lol

You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"

Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.

You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.

Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.

First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.

Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)

I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.

Because the government doesn’t want to say “we only have 50,000 boat people but 500,000 new legal immigrants”, nor “the international aid budget is only £10bn and MPs only have £250k each in expenses”.

Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones

I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.

It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.

I would guess plod regularly do similar.

Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?

Didn’t that happen recently with the guy who was carrying a trowel and other garden tools home.

If people’s starting point in life is ACAB and work back based on personal experience they won’t be badly served

General rule is to never accept a police caution as it can be career-ending (teachers etc) or life-limiting (DBS check for helping out with your kid's sports team)

But if everybody did that there'd be lots more CJS resource absorbed dealing with minor offences.

Or it would be dropped because there isn't a case or it's not in the public interest, they're offering you a caution because it's an easy way of closing the paperwork with a result for them and the offence, if any, is minor.

Ok but if there's nothing between nothing and a prosecution, and we don't prosecute minor offences, aren't we then effectively saying there is no such thing as a minor offence? They cease to exist.

Examples I know of are
a) where no offence occurred (item was lost and an allegation of theft was made) Police offered a caution at random to one of the accused adults to make the accuser happy - luckily rejected as would have been career-ending.
b) acrimonious row between divorcing couple, no physical violence but police called, caution accepted, career ending, other partner had to make a large financial settlement in the divorce due to the overall loss of income. Everyone's a loser.

I'm not a solicitor / police station rep though, so my experience is very limited

Is there any evidence that a caution has a deterrent effect vs "words of advice"/several hours in a police station?

Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones

I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.

It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.

I would guess plod regularly do similar.

Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?

Didn’t that happen recently with the guy who was carrying a trowel and other garden tools home.

If people’s starting point in life is ACAB and work back based on personal experience they won’t be badly served

General rule is to never accept a police caution as it can be career-ending (teachers etc) or life-limiting (DBS check for helping out with your kid's sports team)

But if everybody did that there'd be lots more CJS resource absorbed dealing with minor offences.

The maybe the stupid twats who keep passing laws should gear up the system to accommodate their legislation.

From the BBC:

"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".

"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."

It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.

That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt.
He should withdraw that tweet.

The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.

At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.

If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.

I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.

So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess

Maybe.

But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.

I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand

She still is in prison.

Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.

The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.

No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).

LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.

The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.

Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .

I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it

There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.

An ignorant violence-inciting racist loudmouth jailed for slightly too long (if indeed she has been) is hardly the most egregious example of "The System" screwing up.

I note that yesterday this ignorant violent loudmouth was jailed.

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/pakistan-businessman-jailed-in-london-for-15-months-for-threatening-to-rape-air-hostess-9033708

Was this the System screwing up too?

The sentence in this case seems far too short. I hope it gets reviewed.

Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx
...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.

These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...

The paradox of the migration debate.

Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52704-is-there-public-support-for-large-scale-removals-of-migrants

The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,

Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.

As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.

Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.

lol

You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"