Justice for All

Today, I read, with disgust, about the PC dismissed for raping a woman in police locker room. Unfortunately, though sadly not surprisingly, the CPS are not pressing charges. The British Judicial System seems to be, at the moment, behaving less like an organisation seeking to fight for justice and more like some kind of SPECTRE-lite.

Let's take a look at some recent cases:

The prosecution of Paul Chambers: This is probably the most famous recent case. Paul Chambers, upset that Robin Hood airport was closed, vented his frustration on Twitter with the tweet:

Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!

. Despite the fact, as laid out in Jack of Kent's excellent blogpost, that neither the airport nor the Police considered his tweet to pose any credible threat, he was charged by the CPS, and prosecuted.

The imprisonment of a rape victim: A woman was jailed for falsely retracting a statement she had made, in which she claimed she had been raped by her husband. To put it a bit more clearly, she was jailed because she had been raped, and then "emotionally blackmailed" by her husband into retracting the statement, wasting the CPS's valuable time and money that could be spent prosecuting people on Twitter. Remarkably, the judge who handed this sentence down has offered less severe sentences to people who download child pornography or beat their wives.

The CPS trying to sue someone for kidnap with no grounds whatsoever: Only one source for this one, but if it is true then it is yet another brilliant use of resources by the CPS, which are, of course, finite, meaning that they can't always prosecute over insignificant little events like...

The Death of Ian Tomlinson: How there can be no case here? There is video footage of a policeman pushing a man to the ground, a man who was walking away with his hands in his pockets. Whether or not this caused Mr Tomlinson's death, there should be enough to show that wrongdoing is in place. The anger I felt at the CPS's decision here cannot be overstated. I was immediately reminded of this case after the CPS's most recent decision, and it troubles me that serious crimes are potentially going ignored, whilst trivial events and victims are being attacked.

I am, of course, aware of the fact that many guilty people are sentenced correctly, and many innocent people let off. I am aware that there are far worse legal systems out there, and that my increasing interest in politics over the last few years has increased my exposure to these instances of injustice. But the illiberal judgements and questionable prosecutions, or lack thereof, are overpowering any faith I once had in the police, the CPS and the organisations that are supposed to be there to protect me, and society.

Why, Stephen Fry, WHY?

I consider myself a normal person (pretty much). And like every other normal person I love Stephen Fry. His wordiness, his wit and his intellect have often left me amazed. In fact, in my last blog post I asked whether it was "possible to describe anything Stephen Fry has done as anything other than wonderful?". Sadly, it seems that this might almost have been a challenge.

In case you are unaware, Fry was interviewed for Attitude magazine, and made a series of comments suggesting women did not enjoy sex, but "that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want." When these comments were picked up by The Guardian on Sunday, there was naturally a huge commotion on Twitter, amongst other places.

Fry claims to have been misquoted by the Guardian, saying

"So some fucking paper misquotes a humorous interview I gave, which itself misquoted me and now I'm the Antichrist. I give up."

Since then, he has tweeted once more -- "Bye, bye" -- and so, worryingly, looks like he may be about to leave Twitter, which would be a terrible shame for one of the most popular tweeters out there.

I have found the whole situation to be incredibly confusing and disheartening. Fry has not earned the "National Treasure" badge by accident, but by being one of the most likable and warm public figures in the country. These comments seem so out of character, so naturally I would hope that he has been misquoted, as I'm sure would so many people.

But Fry doesn't seem to be using Twitter as he said he could. One of the benefits of the social networking site is that it enables you to clarify your position without having to be filtered through the journalists who can twist your words to suit their own agendas. When the Mail accused him of leading an "Atheist Hate Campaign", he neatly demonstrated this to be false in his blog, and was able to put across what he actually believed.

Slightly more problematic in this regard is that Fry himself tweeted a link to a website with extracts from the interview himself (I believe it was this one), but has since deleted that tweet. Certainly, this article contains contentious quotes, so it seems less likely that The Guardian has entirely misrepresented his case, leaving one to wonder why he would initially tweet the link, then remove it after he claims to have been misquoted? (For what it's worth, I had this on my Tumblr the day before The Guardian ran with the story, and it's contents are such I don't feel I need to argue Fry's point again here.) He also seems to have made similar comments in a previous interview, which can be found on YouTube here.

The curious thing I have found is that some defenders of Stephen Fry are so ready to criticise The Guardian for misquoting the interview without looking into any other sources to see what the interview said. Of course, it's still possible that his intentions have been misread, and I would dearly love this to be the case, but to blindly assume that someone is right just because they're Stephen Fry is wrong.

I have focused on this more than most stories of this nature. Had it been almost any other figure, I probably would have made some remark and passed over it, but Fry is different. His charm has won so many people over, including me, and his intellect is so great that it's often easy to forget that he is fallible, and so devastating when proved so. But I hope that Fry rejoins Twitter, takes the time to clarify his statements, point out where he's been misquoted, and that this issue can be left behind very soon.