The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer repsonsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed some a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
A very good point, which is why a decision to send some but not all would be massive. However, if you look at the CRC's remit, as well as the remit of the CA, it is about looking at the safety of convictions individually from a legalistic perspective. It is perfectly possible that there are good legal grounds for the CCRC to refer cases X, Y and Z but not A, B and C.
This, it is fair to say, would cause a legal row of major proportions and would be challenged.
I am highly sceptical of the Pro LL case as put so far, for reasons often discussed in PB. It is of course perfectly possible that LL is guilty of most but not all of the charges of which she has been convicted. It is also possible that she is in fact guilty of all but on some the evidence is insufficient - once the new grounds are considred. The CCRC and CA don't really consider 'guilt' or 'innocence' as such, they consider whether the convictions are safe. Which is actually subtly different.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
It's a station for all those over a certain age.
I'm going to start calling it a train stop. Like a bus stop, somewhere the train stops.
Trains, especially when I am on them, stop at all sorts of places that are not stations. So it doesn't help. It's a station.
Maybe we should ask the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers. Surely they know what a station is.
StationEry refers to writing materials like paper, pens, and envelopes StationAry means not moving or fixed in place.
E in the middle for Envelope. The other one is ... the other one.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
...and you catch AEROPLANES at an AEROPLANE station. Oh wait: you don't.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
...and you catch AEROPLANES at an AEROPLANE station. Oh wait: you don't.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
My parents moved from a little village (one shop, two pubs) to a nearby town when they got to 70, because they realised that they wouldn’t be able to drive for ever, and a couple of busses a day through the village wasn’t going to cut it.
The fact that they released a couple of hundred grand in housing equity helped too.
The village shop owners recently retired and couldn’t find a buyer, so now there’s no shop either.
My folks did the same, though at mid seventies ages. It also meant a smaller house and garden to keep in order. My mum still drives at 88, and sees fine. Her problem is getting into or out of the car due to arthritis.
Until we get autonomous driving vehicles, not requiring a sober or fit driver, older folk getting housebound will be an issue.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
...and you catch AEROPLANES at an AEROPLANE station. Oh wait: you don't.
How much of the GB rail network have you done, @viewcode?
Next you'll be saying the OO gauge trains are accurate scale models!
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
I am back off to Asia again shortly, and this time will be visiting China for the first time. I will be going to Shenzhen, but open to visiting other places. Probably be there for 2-3 weeks. Advice...go...
The wilds of Yunnan. Magnificent
Also you can get into Tibet there, without a special Tibetan visa because a corner of Yunnan is culturally Tibet - in every way except politically
Also Beijing and Shanghai OBVS. They are obvious but they are essential
Might be a bit far as it isn't a holiday, I have work engagements in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Shanghai looks doable though.
Got to also give myself plenty of time to get a good fake Rolex ;-)
Shanghai is a great city. All that's best about modern urban China while avoiding much of the worst
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
...and you catch AEROPLANES at an AEROPLANE station. Oh wait: you don't.
How much of the GB rail network have you done, @viewcode?
Next you'll be saying the OO gauge trains are accurate scale models!
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
Well see also planes shot down in the Battle of Britain (both sides) and the number of cricket fans at Headingly in 1981 and 2019.
It is of course possible that she killed some and others have ended up on the rap sheet that died for other reasons. I even paused as I typed. I do think though that the argument for innocence is based on all the cases being mischaracterised as murder, so if you are to accept even one as murder you have a huge problem - either she killed that one, or someone else did.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
Hope he rinses that driver (or their insurance) in court for that one. Driver ignored 8 road closed signs, ends up on wrong side of the road, leaves the scene of a collision. Happily it's his bike rather than some oblivious pedestrian further down the road.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
Hope he rinses that driver (or their insurance) in court for that one. Driver ignored 8 road closed signs, ends up on wrong side of the road, leaves the scene of a collision. Happily it's his bike rather than some oblivious pedestrian further down the road.
Both looked to be in the wrong to some extent, surely? I don't teach my son that he can assume drivers are obeying the law, he needs to assume that they might not be.
It's a good read. Coffey has followed the case for a long time, but manages to remain somewhat agnostic as to Letby's guilt. He lays out evidence and counter-argument without favour.
There is a key passage in Coffey's piece:
But it is difficult to tell because Letby's defence team have not shared the scientific evidence.
This is true in three senses. Firstly, the new Letby team have not released full reports. Secondly we do not know, and they have no duty to disclose, any other reports adverse to Letby they have received.
The third is the most interesting. In the two trials the defence offered no expert evidence in rebuttal of the prosecution. This can only mean (unless some fanciful rerason is true) that despite attempts all the expert evidence they had to hand didn't help or made things worse.
Only Letby herself can give permission for the unused defence reports to be disclosed. Her former counsel, Ben Myers KC can't do this. It is privileged to Letby herself.
I don't accept any of the new arguments until we know much more about why Letby would not call expert defence witnesses in either trial.
I'd have thought that was bleeding obvious. Letby's defence lawyers were just as bad as the prosecution lawyers at understanding the technical evidence.
It was only after the trial was reported that statisticians and medical experts read their newspapers and realised much of the evidence was a travesty of science, mathematics and medicine, and then produced their reports. By then it was too late for Letby's lawyers to call evidence that did not exist at the time of her trial and appeal.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
Hope he rinses that driver (or their insurance) in court for that one. Driver ignored 8 road closed signs, ends up on wrong side of the road, leaves the scene of a collision. Happily it's his bike rather than some oblivious pedestrian further down the road.
Both looked to be in the wrong to some extent, surely? I don't teach my son that he can assume drivers are obeying the law, he needs to assume that they might not be.
He usually stands in front of the driver rather than crossing in front of them like that - to my mind what he did was insanely dangerous (for him). The trouble for the driver is he's acted so egregiously in the run up and aftermath any kind of court battle will not end well for him.
My advice from personal experience is under no circumstance leave the scene of something like this because the lawyers love it if you do (or don't respond to their queries).
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
...and you catch AEROPLANES at an AEROPLANE station. Oh wait: you don't.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
Hope he rinses that driver (or their insurance) in court for that one. Driver ignored 8 road closed signs, ends up on wrong side of the road, leaves the scene of a collision. Happily it's his bike rather than some oblivious pedestrian further down the road.
Not sure. Cycling Mikey seemed to push his bike in front of the car at the last moment.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
The time has come for tough but brave decisions, given the abyss that yawns before us
Yes. I’m going to paint my entire living room in Little Greene’s Hale Navy
I assume that is a shade - and not an armada of small boats in homage to the hale and hearty asylum seekers arriving in Kent?
(A colour that strong works better as a single wall, IMHO.)
I’m going for the whole room. Fuck it
It’s south facing with two enormous floor ceiling sash windows
The light will flood in by day then it will become a moody blue thinkspace at night
I’m in “late middle age”. I’m not going down without a fight. I want drama! ENTIRELY BLUE ROOMS
For goodness sake how long does it take to decorate a one bedroom flat. You could have had it done three times over by now. Got this feeling the decorators saw you coming. I hate to ask how much you are paying.
It's a good read. Coffey has followed the case for a long time, but manages to remain somewhat agnostic as to Letby's guilt. He lays out evidence and counter-argument without favour.
There is a key passage in Coffey's piece:
But it is difficult to tell because Letby's defence team have not shared the scientific evidence.
This is true in three senses. Firstly, the new Letby team have not released full reports. Secondly we do not know, and they have no duty to disclose, any other reports adverse to Letby they have received.
The third is the most interesting. In the two trials the defence offered no expert evidence in rebuttal of the prosecution. This can only mean (unless some fanciful rerason is true) that despite attempts all the expert evidence they had to hand didn't help or made things worse.
Only Letby herself can give permission for the unused defence reports to be disclosed. Her former counsel, Ben Myers KC can't do this. It is privileged to Letby herself.
I don't accept any of the new arguments until we know much more about why Letby would not call expert defence witnesses in either trial.
I'd have thought that was bleeding obvious. Letby's defence lawyers were just as bad as the prosecution lawyers at understanding the technical evidence.
It was only after the trial was reported that statisticians and medical experts read their newspapers and realised much of the evidence was a travesty of science, mathematics and medicine, and then produced their reports. By then it was too late for Letby's lawyers to call evidence that did not exist at the time of her trial and appeal.
Not sure where to start in discussing this rather insecure set of assertions, though returning to the appeal judgment in the first appeal may be a start. So perhaps wait for CCRC and what they have to say.
The time has come for tough but brave decisions, given the abyss that yawns before us
Yes. I’m going to paint my entire living room in Little Greene’s Hale Navy
I assume that is a shade - and not an armada of small boats in homage to the hale and hearty asylum seekers arriving in Kent?
(A colour that strong works better as a single wall, IMHO.)
I’m going for the whole room. Fuck it
It’s south facing with two enormous floor ceiling sash windows
The light will flood in by day then it will become a moody blue thinkspace at night
I’m in “late middle age”. I’m not going down without a fight. I want drama! ENTIRELY BLUE ROOMS
For goodness sake how long does it take to decorate a one bedroom flat. You could have had it done three times over by now. Got this feeling the decorators saw you coming. I hate to ask how much you are paying.
As mentioned before - cheaper to box everything moveable up, put it in storage and move out for a week or 2. In a small, one bed flat, would reduce the work time to 1/3rd
For the lazy, some removal firms will box your stuff, remove it, store it and then put it all back from photos.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
Hope he rinses that driver (or their insurance) in court for that one. Driver ignored 8 road closed signs, ends up on wrong side of the road, leaves the scene of a collision. Happily it's his bike rather than some oblivious pedestrian further down the road.
Not sure. Cycling Mikey seemed to push his bike in front of the car at the last moment.
When the insurance company want's a diagram of the accident.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
You can catch buses at a train station, too.
OUTSIDE a train station!
That's asking for one inside a train station to be pointed out.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
An early form of the process state, right there.
Churchill was known to rage about being sent files, rather than action.
It is of note that when the very earliest forms of writing were decoded, they (very often ) were about bureaucracy.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
Yeah def he wheeled the bike out (without himself on it) into the car.
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
OMG, that is a real blast from the past for me as I used to drink a snakebite or two at the start of a night out as a student and I was not or have ever been a cider or a beer drinker but it was an absolute tradition and a very potent start to a good night out drinking. Was this a purely Scottish thing?
It was around at my university, though I thought it was cider and lager *. And I'd never drink anything (even then) with Gas-o-Lager in it.
(* "beer" is not lager)
I have just remembered, it was cider with either beer or lager but we girls used to ask for it with a dash of blackcurrent juice as well!
Snakebite and black
Yes, that is what we used to have at the start of a night out, but I would always end up being the only person in my age group drinking a gin and tonic by the end of the night. I just could not get into all the usual spirits with coke or lemonade mixers and almost gave up trying to find a drink mix I liked when someone suggested I try a gin and tonic. I was regarded as a complete oddity for drinking it back then and now gin has exploded in popularity with a crazy amount of various brands.
I always used to find G&T too sweet (and warm, served as my parents did), but modern premium tonic and modern botanical-forward gin, with lots of ice, has transformed the experience.
Whatever happened to gin and bitter lemon?
That was my mam's drink of choice. I never saw anyone else drinking it.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
Which is mad - most pedestrians don't look both ways when on a pedestrian island. It's a dangerous fault on a driving test.
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
OMG, that is a real blast from the past for me as I used to drink a snakebite or two at the start of a night out as a student and I was not or have ever been a cider or a beer drinker but it was an absolute tradition and a very potent start to a good night out drinking. Was this a purely Scottish thing?
It was around at my university, though I thought it was cider and lager *. And I'd never drink anything (even then) with Gas-o-Lager in it.
(* "beer" is not lager)
I have just remembered, it was cider with either beer or lager but we girls used to ask for it with a dash of blackcurrent juice as well!
Snakebite and black
Yes, that is what we used to have at the start of a night out, but I would always end up being the only person in my age group drinking a gin and tonic by the end of the night. I just could not get into all the usual spirits with coke or lemonade mixers and almost gave up trying to find a drink mix I liked when someone suggested I try a gin and tonic. I was regarded as a complete oddity for drinking it back then and now gin has exploded in popularity with a crazy amount of various brands.
I always used to find G&T too sweet (and warm, served as my parents did), but modern premium tonic and modern botanical-forward gin, with lots of ice, has transformed the experience.
Whatever happened to gin and bitter lemon?
That was my mam's drink of choice. I never saw anyone else drinking it.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
Given the basket on the back, there's no way he stepped off the back and managed to stay upright.
In other news of people talking the law into their own hands,
Vigilante commuters who leapt into action when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage with children present could be arrested for taking the law into their own hands.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
Which is mad - most pedestrians don't look both ways when on a pedestrian island. It's a dangerous fault on a driving test.
It's also not just "ignoring keep left sign". It's ignoring a keep left sign, ignoring 2 no entry signs, being told not to, then trying again and recklessly hitting a bicycle. Surely more than enough to prosecute.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
Given the basket on the back, there's no way he stepped off the back and managed to stay upright.
It's a good read. Coffey has followed the case for a long time, but manages to remain somewhat agnostic as to Letby's guilt. He lays out evidence and counter-argument without favour.
There is a key passage in Coffey's piece:
But it is difficult to tell because Letby's defence team have not shared the scientific evidence.
This is true in three senses. Firstly, the new Letby team have not released full reports. Secondly we do not know, and they have no duty to disclose, any other reports adverse to Letby they have received.
The third is the most interesting. In the two trials the defence offered no expert evidence in rebuttal of the prosecution. This can only mean (unless some fanciful rerason is true) that despite attempts all the expert evidence they had to hand didn't help or made things worse.
Only Letby herself can give permission for the unused defence reports to be disclosed. Her former counsel, Ben Myers KC can't do this. It is privileged to Letby herself.
I don't accept any of the new arguments until we know much more about why Letby would not call expert defence witnesses in either trial.
I'd have thought that was bleeding obvious. Letby's defence lawyers were just as bad as the prosecution lawyers at understanding the technical evidence.
It was only after the trial was reported that statisticians and medical experts read their newspapers and realised much of the evidence was a travesty of science, mathematics and medicine, and then produced their reports. By then it was too late for Letby's lawyers to call evidence that did not exist at the time of her trial and appeal.
The trial went on for 10 months and was widely reported on. There was plenty of time for statisticians and medical experts reading their newspapers to highlight issues.
Also, as I have repeatedly said, there is zero inferential statistics in the prosecution case. There's no complex stats to have been misunderstood.
In other news of people talking the law into their own hands,
Vigilante commuters who leapt into action when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage with children present could be arrested for taking the law into their own hands.
I was on an Overground service from Olympia to CLJ when exactly the same thing happened. It was a packed commuter service, and I think the guy was with a carer who tried to rectify the situation, but it was quite shocking.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
An early form of the process state, right there.
The UK brought back some Argentine aircraft after the Falklands War, as spoils of war, but didn't have any paperwork on them, so couldn't fly them!
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
Given the basket on the back, there's no way he stepped off the back and managed to stay upright.
He wasn't riding the bike.
Agreed. He made sure it was the bike that was hit rather than himself.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
OMG, that is a real blast from the past for me as I used to drink a snakebite or two at the start of a night out as a student and I was not or have ever been a cider or a beer drinker but it was an absolute tradition and a very potent start to a good night out drinking. Was this a purely Scottish thing?
It was around at my university, though I thought it was cider and lager *. And I'd never drink anything (even then) with Gas-o-Lager in it.
(* "beer" is not lager)
I have just remembered, it was cider with either beer or lager but we girls used to ask for it with a dash of blackcurrent juice as well!
Snakebite and black
Yes, that is what we used to have at the start of a night out, but I would always end up being the only person in my age group drinking a gin and tonic by the end of the night. I just could not get into all the usual spirits with coke or lemonade mixers and almost gave up trying to find a drink mix I liked when someone suggested I try a gin and tonic. I was regarded as a complete oddity for drinking it back then and now gin has exploded in popularity with a crazy amount of various brands.
I always used to find G&T too sweet (and warm, served as my parents did), but modern premium tonic and modern botanical-forward gin, with lots of ice, has transformed the experience.
Whatever happened to gin and bitter lemon?
That was my mam's drink of choice. I never saw anyone else drinking it.
In other news of people talking the law into their own hands,
Vigilante commuters who leapt into action when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage with children present could be arrested for taking the law into their own hands.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
Given the basket on the back, there's no way he stepped off the back and managed to stay upright.
He wasn't riding the bike.
Agreed. He made sure it was the bike that was hit rather than himself.
The drivers are dicks, but so is he.
He's a 'dick' because he didn't get hit himself?
He's trying to stop drivers committing offences, nothing wrong with that, and good luck to him. Not how I would choose to spend my time, but he has his reasons. I find him pretty courageous.
In other news of people talking the law into their own hands,
Vigilante commuters who leapt into action when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage with children present could be arrested for taking the law into their own hands.
In other news of people talking the law into their own hands,
Vigilante commuters who leapt into action when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage with children present could be arrested for taking the law into their own hands.
In other news of people talking the law into their own hands,
Vigilante commuters who leapt into action when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage with children present could be arrested for taking the law into their own hands.
The European Union’s post-Covid recovery funds were used to fund yachts, luxury cars and a swingers’ club, a report shows.
The programme was set up to revive hotels, restaurants and cultural venues that suffered during the pandemic.
But in Poland, where the grants totalled around £244m, the beneficiaries included some dubious recipients, including a pizzeria that added tanning beds, and a sex club in the south of the country, Politico reported.
It's a good read. Coffey has followed the case for a long time, but manages to remain somewhat agnostic as to Letby's guilt. He lays out evidence and counter-argument without favour.
There is a key passage in Coffey's piece:
But it is difficult to tell because Letby's defence team have not shared the scientific evidence.
This is true in three senses. Firstly, the new Letby team have not released full reports. Secondly we do not know, and they have no duty to disclose, any other reports adverse to Letby they have received.
The third is the most interesting. In the two trials the defence offered no expert evidence in rebuttal of the prosecution. This can only mean (unless some fanciful rerason is true) that despite attempts all the expert evidence they had to hand didn't help or made things worse.
Only Letby herself can give permission for the unused defence reports to be disclosed. Her former counsel, Ben Myers KC can't do this. It is privileged to Letby herself.
I don't accept any of the new arguments until we know much more about why Letby would not call expert defence witnesses in either trial.
I'd have thought that was bleeding obvious. Letby's defence lawyers were just as bad as the prosecution lawyers at understanding the technical evidence.
It was only after the trial was reported that statisticians and medical experts read their newspapers and realised much of the evidence was a travesty of science, mathematics and medicine, and then produced their reports. By then it was too late for Letby's lawyers to call evidence that did not exist at the time of her trial and appeal.
The trial went on for 10 months and was widely reported on. There was plenty of time for statisticians and medical experts reading their newspapers to highlight issues.
Also, as I have repeatedly said, there is zero inferential statistics in the prosecution case. There's no complex stats to have been misunderstood.
The chart of who was on duty when X baby died is the key bit of 'statistics'. Its gestation is important - which babies were included and excluded changed over time.
In other news of people talking the law into their own hands,
Vigilante commuters who leapt into action when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage with children present could be arrested for taking the law into their own hands.
Yes, but beating someone up is not the same thing. One would assume the the chap with his chap out has or has ongoing mental issues. I'm not quite sure how the best handling of the situation was meant to play out.
In other news of people talking the law into their own hands,
Vigilante commuters who leapt into action when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage with children present could be arrested for taking the law into their own hands.
Only if the offender is committing an indicatable offence and necessary to prevent them causing injury or damage to property, plus only reasonable force can be used and they should be handed over to the police asap
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
An early form of the process state, right there.
The UK brought back some Argentine aircraft after the Falklands War, as spoils of war, but didn't have any paperwork on them, so couldn't fly them!
There is quite the history in war of captured weapons being used against the previous owners. The Germans in WW1 were not really big on making their own tanks but did capture and use a substantial number of enemy ones - they called these Beutepanzer (loot tanks). In WW2 a lot of their early tanks were French and Czech.
I bet the nasty old Huns didn't let paperwork get in the way!
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
Given the basket on the back, there's no way he stepped off the back and managed to stay upright.
He wasn't riding the bike.
Agreed. He made sure it was the bike that was hit rather than himself.
The drivers are dicks, but so is he.
He's a 'dick' because he didn't get hit himself?
He's trying to stop drivers committing offences, nothing wrong with that, and good luck to him. Not how I would choose to spend my time, but he has his reasons. I find him pretty courageous.
No one jumps for joy internally more than me when plod stops a cyclist going through a red light. But this guy is just weird. And he as plain as day shoved his bike out in front of the car. That is a step too far and trying to take enforcement, rather than reporting action over traffic violations.
In other news of people talking the law into their own hands,
Vigilante commuters who leapt into action when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage with children present could be arrested for taking the law into their own hands.
It does but they were giving him a good smacking whereas distasteful as his actions were, he is obviously in need of psychiatric help rather than getting beaten up.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
An early form of the process state, right there.
The UK brought back some Argentine aircraft after the Falklands War, as spoils of war, but didn't have any paperwork on them, so couldn't fly them!
There is quite the history in war of captured weapons being used against the previous owners. The Germans in WW1 were not really big on making their own tanks but did capture and use a substantial number of enemy ones - they called these Beutepanzer (loot tanks). In WW2 a lot of their early tanks were French and Czech.
I bet the nasty old Huns didn't let paperwork get in the way!
Czech tanks were, allegedly, one of the reasons Hitler wanted the Sudentenland.
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
Snakebite and black with a top of blackcurrant cordial, snakebite and death with a shot in the top or a chaser Diamond white and special brew was the snakebite of choice for hard-core alcys
All of which were consumed as a student a couple of decades ago.
Along with “lager top special” which was a pint of Stella with a double vodka in it, and “power shandy” which was half a lager and a Smirnoff Ice”, very drinkable but lethal.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
An early form of the process state, right there.
The UK brought back some Argentine aircraft after the Falklands War, as spoils of war, but didn't have any paperwork on them, so couldn't fly them!
There is quite the history in war of captured weapons being used against the previous owners. The Germans in WW1 were not really big on making their own tanks but did capture and use a substantial number of enemy ones - they called these Beutepanzer (loot tanks). In WW2 a lot of their early tanks were French and Czech.
I bet the nasty old Huns didn't let paperwork get in the way!
Czech tanks were, allegedly, one of the reasons Hitler wanted the Sudentenland.
Yes and add in the border defences being subsumed into the Reich, such that the inevitable full take-over had little chance of resistance.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
An early form of the process state, right there.
The UK brought back some Argentine aircraft after the Falklands War, as spoils of war, but didn't have any paperwork on them, so couldn't fly them!
There is quite the history in war of captured weapons being used against the previous owners. The Germans in WW1 were not really big on making their own tanks but did capture and use a substantial number of enemy ones - they called these Beutepanzer (loot tanks). In WW2 a lot of their early tanks were French and Czech.
I bet the nasty old Huns didn't let paperwork get in the way!
The European Union’s post-Covid recovery funds were used to fund yachts, luxury cars and a swingers’ club, a report shows.
The programme was set up to revive hotels, restaurants and cultural venues that suffered during the pandemic.
But in Poland, where the grants totalled around £244m, the beneficiaries included some dubious recipients, including a pizzeria that added tanning beds, and a sex club in the south of the country, Politico reported.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
Given the basket on the back, there's no way he stepped off the back and managed to stay upright.
He wasn't riding the bike.
Agreed. He made sure it was the bike that was hit rather than himself.
The drivers are dicks, but so is he.
He's a 'dick' because he didn't get hit himself?
He's trying to stop drivers committing offences, nothing wrong with that, and good luck to him. Not how I would choose to spend my time, but he has his reasons. I find him pretty courageous.
Apparently the country is going to the dogs because of an epidemic of petty lawbreaking, but when someone, like Cycling Mikey, is courageous enough to try to do something about it, they are labelled a dick. Some people need to take a very close look at themselves.
It's a good read. Coffey has followed the case for a long time, but manages to remain somewhat agnostic as to Letby's guilt. He lays out evidence and counter-argument without favour.
There is a key passage in Coffey's piece:
But it is difficult to tell because Letby's defence team have not shared the scientific evidence.
This is true in three senses. Firstly, the new Letby team have not released full reports. Secondly we do not know, and they have no duty to disclose, any other reports adverse to Letby they have received.
The third is the most interesting. In the two trials the defence offered no expert evidence in rebuttal of the prosecution. This can only mean (unless some fanciful rerason is true) that despite attempts all the expert evidence they had to hand didn't help or made things worse.
Only Letby herself can give permission for the unused defence reports to be disclosed. Her former counsel, Ben Myers KC can't do this. It is privileged to Letby herself.
I don't accept any of the new arguments until we know much more about why Letby would not call expert defence witnesses in either trial.
I'd have thought that was bleeding obvious. Letby's defence lawyers were just as bad as the prosecution lawyers at understanding the technical evidence.
It was only after the trial was reported that statisticians and medical experts read their newspapers and realised much of the evidence was a travesty of science, mathematics and medicine, and then produced their reports. By then it was too late for Letby's lawyers to call evidence that did not exist at the time of her trial and appeal.
The trial went on for 10 months and was widely reported on. There was plenty of time for statisticians and medical experts reading their newspapers to highlight issues.
Also, as I have repeatedly said, there is zero inferential statistics in the prosecution case. There's no complex stats to have been misunderstood.
The chart of who was on duty when X baby died is the key bit of 'statistics'. Its gestation is important - which babies were included and excluded changed over time.
Which babies were included or excluded was a clinical decision: unexpected deaths were included, expected deaths were not. Those choices can be challenged, but that's medical evidence. It's not a complicated piece of statistics that needs a statistician to explain. No-one was offering any probabilities, as had happened in the Sally Clark case. There are arguments over several pieces of medical evidence, but there's clearly no "travesty of [...] mathematics".
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
An early form of the process state, right there.
The UK brought back some Argentine aircraft after the Falklands War, as spoils of war, but didn't have any paperwork on them, so couldn't fly them!
There is quite the history in war of captured weapons being used against the previous owners. The Germans in WW1 were not really big on making their own tanks but did capture and use a substantial number of enemy ones - they called these Beutepanzer (loot tanks). In WW2 a lot of their early tanks were French and Czech.
I bet the nasty old Huns didn't let paperwork get in the way!
With aircraft, in the modern era, people take the repair and maintenance histories of aircraft fairly seriously. This is written in blood. So an aircraft without its history is a bit of problem.
IIRC at least one ground attack aircraft and a Chinook helicopter were taken back to the UK and eventually flown. Several other helicopters were used, upon capture, in the Falklands themselves.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
An early form of the process state, right there.
The UK brought back some Argentine aircraft after the Falklands War, as spoils of war, but didn't have any paperwork on them, so couldn't fly them!
There is quite the history in war of captured weapons being used against the previous owners. The Germans in WW1 were not really big on making their own tanks but did capture and use a substantial number of enemy ones - they called these Beutepanzer (loot tanks). In WW2 a lot of their early tanks were French and Czech.
I bet the nasty old Huns didn't let paperwork get in the way!
Czech tanks were, allegedly, one of the reasons Hitler wanted the Sudentenland.
The Skoda armament works were one of the best in Europe - way more than just a few tanks.
The European Union’s post-Covid recovery funds were used to fund yachts, luxury cars and a swingers’ club, a report shows.
The programme was set up to revive hotels, restaurants and cultural venues that suffered during the pandemic.
But in Poland, where the grants totalled around £244m, the beneficiaries included some dubious recipients, including a pizzeria that added tanning beds, and a sex club in the south of the country, Politico reported.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
An early form of the process state, right there.
The UK brought back some Argentine aircraft after the Falklands War, as spoils of war, but didn't have any paperwork on them, so couldn't fly them!
There is quite the history in war of captured weapons being used against the previous owners. The Germans in WW1 were not really big on making their own tanks but did capture and use a substantial number of enemy ones - they called these Beutepanzer (loot tanks). In WW2 a lot of their early tanks were French and Czech.
I bet the nasty old Huns didn't let paperwork get in the way!
With aircraft, in the modern era, people take the repair and maintenance histories of aircraft fairly seriously. This is written in blood. So an aircraft without its history is a bit of problem.
IIRC at least one ground attack aircraft and a Chinook helicopter were taken back to the UK and eventually flown. Several other helicopters were used, upon capture, in the Falklands themselves.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
Given the basket on the back, there's no way he stepped off the back and managed to stay upright.
He wasn't riding the bike.
Agreed. He made sure it was the bike that was hit rather than himself.
The drivers are dicks, but so is he.
He's a 'dick' because he didn't get hit himself?
He's trying to stop drivers committing offences, nothing wrong with that, and good luck to him. Not how I would choose to spend my time, but he has his reasons. I find him pretty courageous.
Apparently the country is going to the dogs because of an epidemic of petty lawbreaking, but when someone, like Cycling Mikey, is courageous enough to try to do something about it, they are labelled a dick. Some people need to take a very close look at themselves.
By all means take photos, send them to plod. It's a bit shop your neighbour (which we know the UK took to over COVID) but fine.
Ramming your bike into an oncoming car is none of those things.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
Given the basket on the back, there's no way he stepped off the back and managed to stay upright.
He wasn't riding the bike.
Agreed. He made sure it was the bike that was hit rather than himself.
The drivers are dicks, but so is he.
He's a 'dick' because he didn't get hit himself?
He's trying to stop drivers committing offences, nothing wrong with that, and good luck to him. Not how I would choose to spend my time, but he has his reasons. I find him pretty courageous.
Apparently the country is going to the dogs because of an epidemic of petty lawbreaking, but when someone, like Cycling Mikey, is courageous enough to try to do something about it, they are labelled a dick. Some people need to take a very close look at themselves.
By all means take photos, send them to plod. It's a bit shop your neighbour (which we know the UK took to over COVID) but fine.
Ramming your bike into an oncoming car is none of those things.
He didn't ram his bike into the car. He pushed his bike in front of the car in an effort to prevent the driver from breaking the law, and the driver, rather than stopping, drove into his bike and continued driving.
The article on the BBC is quite balanced. Whatever anyone believes about the case its probably not the best thing to have so much uncertainty about the conviction. One way or another she deserves another day in court.
I would not want to on the jury.
I would point out that she had 10 months in court for the first trial + a second trial + multiple appeals. She's had more days in court than 95%+ of her fellow inmates. Maybe 99%+.
Her lawyers have submitted a file to the CCRC. If the CCRC decide her convictions are sound, I would hope that would be the end of it. If the CCRC decide the case needs looking at again, then that should happen.
Exactly. My guess is that the CCRC will in the end send some but not all convictions back to the CA, though they could send all of them (a decision to send some but not all could easily itself find that decision appealed to the SC, as of course if they are not all sent LL remains convicted of murder/attempted murder what ever happens).
The CA (Criminal Division) is a steep uphill climb for appellants. Though not impossible. The recent successful decision in Plummer is a classic even in that court's distinctive history. Worth a read if you want the history of how someone (arguably plainly guilty and a total scrote) got off in the end, after about 28 years. The popular press largely ignored it. I wonder why??
The issue with sending some but not all back would be this:
Either she is a serial killer responsible for killing or attempting to kill many, many babies.
OR
She is innocent of all charges and a case has been created against her.
There isn't a halfway house where she killed a few of them, but the others are natural causes/bad practice at a failing unit.
Actually, I don't find it impossible to believe that your halfway house scenario happened. The classic Noble Cause Corruption, in the police, is assigning a whole pile of crimes to someone who isn't guilty of them, but is guilty of other, similar crimes.
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
My grandfather was a quartermaster officer in the 8th Army.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
I still love the story of the RAF squadron that lost everything in the retreat from France - apart from their aircraft. Including all their documents. And including the forms to report lost stuff. So they ended up back in the U.K., stuck.
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
An early form of the process state, right there.
The UK brought back some Argentine aircraft after the Falklands War, as spoils of war, but didn't have any paperwork on them, so couldn't fly them!
There is quite the history in war of captured weapons being used against the previous owners. The Germans in WW1 were not really big on making their own tanks but did capture and use a substantial number of enemy ones - they called these Beutepanzer (loot tanks). In WW2 a lot of their early tanks were French and Czech.
I bet the nasty old Huns didn't let paperwork get in the way!
Czech tanks were, allegedly, one of the reasons Hitler wanted the Sudentenland.
The Skoda armament works were one of the best in Europe - way more than just a few tanks.
And what the Communist Govt did to the cars post-war bordered on the criminal. Cars today, although part Volkswagen now, are excellent.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A railway station is a location where the railway is stationed.
There are folk over on Rail Forums who would die in a ditch over this.
Do I understand correctly? The railway is stationed at place X because it is stationary, but the train is not stationed at place X because it is mobile. So place X is a railway station, not train station.
You catch BUSES at a BUS station. You catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station.
And you catch PLANES at and a PLANE station.
You catch FIRE at a FIRE station.
And see Babes at Babestation
...Whilst weighing whales at a whaleweigh station.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
Given the basket on the back, there's no way he stepped off the back and managed to stay upright.
He wasn't riding the bike.
Agreed. He made sure it was the bike that was hit rather than himself.
The drivers are dicks, but so is he.
He's a 'dick' because he didn't get hit himself?
He's trying to stop drivers committing offences, nothing wrong with that, and good luck to him. Not how I would choose to spend my time, but he has his reasons. I find him pretty courageous.
Apparently the country is going to the dogs because of an epidemic of petty lawbreaking, but when someone, like Cycling Mikey, is courageous enough to try to do something about it, they are labelled a dick. Some people need to take a very close look at themselves.
By all means take photos, send them to plod. It's a bit shop your neighbour (which we know the UK took to over COVID) but fine.
Ramming your bike into an oncoming car is none of those things.
If the car is oncoming - and on a one way street - then pretty much it's the car making the collision happen. FWIW, I whatsapped my wife (retired traffic police sergeant, now coroner's officer - a link to this video and conversation, and she's just sent me a message laughing her head off at everyone trying to make it the cyclist's fault. It's amazing how people will twist logic, and evidence, into pretzels to try and make their preferred target the offending party.
He looks out of control in the clip. The car clearly has gone down a road that is temporarily closed in that direction, but he literally rams his bike in front of it.
That's an edited video missing out what went before - that's the driver's 2nd attempt to go through the "closed road" against the No Entry sign against a fairly significant flow of traffic, with pauses. There is an even shorter one, which was featured in newspapers, facebook groups etc.
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
The Fiat driver was a naughty boy but it still looks like Cycling Mikey put the bike in his path.
I don't think so, look at the slomo from 4:10. It looks like he lets go of the bike and pulls himself back to avoid being hit himself, possibly then attempting to grab the bicycle seat to stop it as he realises what's happening. There's certainly no sign of him pushing the bike onto the car.
Given the basket on the back, there's no way he stepped off the back and managed to stay upright.
He wasn't riding the bike.
Agreed. He made sure it was the bike that was hit rather than himself.
The drivers are dicks, but so is he.
He's a 'dick' because he didn't get hit himself?
He's trying to stop drivers committing offences, nothing wrong with that, and good luck to him. Not how I would choose to spend my time, but he has his reasons. I find him pretty courageous.
Apparently the country is going to the dogs because of an epidemic of petty lawbreaking, but when someone, like Cycling Mikey, is courageous enough to try to do something about it, they are labelled a dick. Some people need to take a very close look at themselves.
Film it, send the number plate to the dvla. Job done.
Comments
This, it is fair to say, would cause a legal row of major proportions and would be challenged.
I am highly sceptical of the Pro LL case as put so far, for reasons often discussed in PB. It is of course perfectly possible that LL is guilty of most but not all of the charges of which she has been convicted. It is also possible that she is in fact guilty of all but on some the evidence is insufficient - once the new grounds are considred. The CCRC and CA don't really consider 'guilt' or 'innocence' as such, they consider whether the convictions are safe. Which is actually subtly different.
Rage, rage and have a paint that sucks all light.
Until we get autonomous driving vehicles, not requiring a sober or fit driver, older folk getting housebound will be an issue.
Next you'll be saying the OO gauge trains are accurate scale models!
EDIT: For some reason I am reminded of the following story. After Operation Source (midget sub attack on the Tirpitz, WWII), its been claimed that papers were sent up the line, alleging that vast quantities of equipment were lost along with the submarines. More tonnage of material than the subs in question displaced.
Even my "online paint advisor" is saying this. "Are you sure???"
But then it was doubtful about my Boudoir Bedroom and that's magnifique
BUT, BUT...
You DO catch TRAINS at a TRAIN station!
- Trains: railway station
- Buses: bus station or stop
- Planes: air port
- Ships: port or dock
- Boats: port or dock
- Rockets: space port
- Missiles: base
Isn't English funny?It is of course possible that she killed some and others have ended up on the rap sheet that died for other reasons. I even paused as I typed. I do think though that the argument for innocence is based on all the cases being mischaracterised as murder, so if you are to accept even one as murder you have a huge problem - either she killed that one, or someone else did.
He loved the Germans. Every time he got a demand from HQ for some equipment he didn’t want to hand back, they wrote it off for him.
To link to another point here, this included a gold Rolex watch that he had been mistakenly ordered to purchase for the Brigadier.
It was only after the trial was reported that statisticians and medical experts read their newspapers and realised much of the evidence was a travesty of science, mathematics and medicine, and then produced their reports. By then it was too late for Letby's lawyers to call evidence that did not exist at the time of her trial and appeal.
My advice from personal experience is under no circumstance leave the scene of something like this because the lawyers love it if you do (or don't respond to their queries).
So the story goes, the squadron went out and stole a large collection of spares, documents etc from a depot in a fairly blatant robbery.
Spaceport America is remarkable, mainly, in how little space stuff happens there.
For the lazy, some removal firms will box your stuff, remove it, store it and then put it all back from photos.
Full video from Mikey himself here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpMbLdj29Lk
(For me, it was a mistake for him to try and stop the vehicle the second time, as the driver was clearly quite reckless, even though the driver was committing the offence for the second time. I'm also not convinced by his decision stop him the first time.)
The Met are unlikely to enforce on this, as they have stepped back from enforcing "ignoring keep left sign" type offences. That was one reason why Mikey stopped doing Gandalf Corner, and now does mainly phone users. To do with decriminalised offences, and policing priorities aiui.
It is of note that when the very earliest forms of writing were decoded, they (very often ) were about bureaucracy.
Is why he was so calm. He knew what he had done.
Vigilante commuters who leapt into action when a Tube passenger dropped his trousers in a packed carriage with children present could be arrested for taking the law into their own hands.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/tube-naked-man-assault-5Hjd8bh_2/
Also, as I have repeatedly said, there is zero inferential statistics in the prosecution case. There's no complex stats to have been misunderstood.
The drivers are dicks, but so is he.
Discussed here recently.
He's trying to stop drivers committing offences, nothing wrong with that, and good luck to him. Not how I would choose to spend my time, but he has his reasons. I find him pretty courageous.
Given he was stark bollock naked you’d know he hasn’t got a blade.
I doubt there will be any arrests or prosecutions.
The programme was set up to revive hotels, restaurants and cultural venues that suffered during the pandemic.
But in Poland, where the grants totalled around £244m, the beneficiaries included some dubious recipients, including a pizzeria that added tanning beds, and a sex club in the south of the country, Politico reported.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/08/11/eu-covid-cash-funded-yachts-luxury-cars-and-swingers-club/
I clearly did COVID all wrong.
I bet the nasty old Huns didn't let paperwork get in the way!
Could the Lib Dem’s or Greens take South Jesmond ?
Can’t imagine its fertile Reform territory
https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1954892223096713396?s=61
Along with “lager top special” which was a pint of Stella with a double vodka in it, and “power shandy” which was half a lager and a Smirnoff Ice”, very drinkable but lethal.
A warning for Ukraine.
And our PPE payments funded what?
IIRC at least one ground attack aircraft and a Chinook helicopter were taken back to the UK and eventually flown. Several other helicopters were used, upon capture, in the Falklands themselves.
BREAKING: Judge Engelmeyer has *denied* the Trump administration’s bid to unseal Jeffrey Epstein grand jury material.
https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3lw4w3n44r22j
Ramming your bike into an oncoming car is none of those things.