Radio Free Stan's Dog

I'm Stan's dog and unlike Stan I have lots of opinions.

* Jessie J really can't sing
* Bolton Wanderers still lack a proven goalscorer  and look woeful at the back
* The new series of "Vexed" is better than the critics suggest

Airing these opinions does not make me a bad dog and I don't believe it would make me a bad Magistrate either (assuming they ever allow dogs on the couch bench)

If I could steal (bad dog ! bad !) a phrase from "The West Wing"

"Do (people) want to be governed by people who are animated, or animatronic?"

The big idea behind the Magistracy is that it is a representative sample of a community which metes out justice to those who have offended against that community.

It's the "representative" part of the deal that the current guidance on Magistrate blogging is in conflict with. From now on, to be a Magistrate means that you either need to keep quiet about being a Magistrate (as per the Masons) or to have no opinions (like Stan) or to be so unworldly that you don't do social media at all. Doesn't sound terribly representative of my community.

But hey, I'm a dog - what do I know ?

Woof.

Some of Stan's Friends could be Magistrates

There's a persistent rumour that Magistrates are to be banned from saying that they are Magistrates while blogging, tweeting or commenting on videos of cute kittens on Facebook.

Furthermore, the rumour is that they will be instructed to remove any past material that doesn't comply with the new diktat on blogs that they "maintain".

Rather than writing it every time, could you please note that Stan does not necessarily have any opinions at all and anything you might have read on this blog to suggest otherwise could have been dictated to him by any number of people, cartoon animals and voices in his head, some of whom may have been serving magistrates.

As to who "maintains" this blog - who says that person is a Magistrate ?

One of the Stan contributors (who may or may not be a Magistrate) tells me that he finds the new guidance to be a heavy-handed infringement of a fairly basic human right and puzzling in the light of the focus put on "transparency" in the current White Paper.

The contributor (also called "Stan" - very confusing) states that he can't think of anything more guaranteed to reduce transparency than legislating against the likes of Bystander's excellent blog - he believes that the guy deserves a medal for services of judicial transparency rather than being threatened with the vague and menacing prospect of "disciplinary action".

The text of the alleged guidance is reproduced below (also available on Bystander's blog - enjoy it while you can)

I still hold out hope that it's a prank - I've asked my bench chairman to verify whether it's authentic - until then I'm not going anywhere.

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Introduction
This guidance is issued on behalf of the Senior Presiding Judge and the Senior President of Tribunals. It applies to all courts and tribunal judicial office holders in England and Wales, and is effective immediately.

Definitions
A “blog” (derived from the term “web log”) is a personal journal published on the internet. “Blogging” describes the maintaining of, or adding content to, a blog. Blogs tend to be interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments. They may also contain links to other blogs and websites. For the purpose of this guidance blogging includes publishing material on micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.

Guidance
Judicial office holders should be acutely aware of the need to conduct themselves, both in and out of court, in such a way as to maintain public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.

Blogging by members of the judiciary is not prohibited. However, officer holders who blog (or who post comments on other people’s blogs) must not identify themselves as members of the judiciary. They must also avoid expressing opinions which, were it to become known that they hold judicial office, could damage public confidence in their own impartiality or in the judiciary in general.

The above guidance also applies to blogs which purport to be anonymous. This is because it is impossible for somebody who blogs anonymously to guarantee that his or her identity cannot be discovered.

Judicial office holders who maintain blogs must adhere to this guidance and should remove any existing content which conflicts with it forthwith. Failure to do so could ultimately result in disciplinary action. It is also recommended that all judicial office holders familiarise themselves with the new IT and Information Security Guidance which will be available shortly.

Suspended Suspended

I've described before that it took a while to wrap my head around the idea of a suspended prison sentence - I really did not understand why someone who deserves prison shouldn't go to prison.
I learned though that it's in Society's best interest sometimes that people are punished in the community while they get cured of addiction or take care of their dependents.

So what happens when someone on a suspended sentence messes up again - straight forward, no ? They go to prison, right ?

Well actually, it's not totally inevitable. They may be doing well on the substance treatment program and their families may still not be able to survive without them. There is the option to simply add on some extra punishment and give them a last-last chance to sort themselves out.

I'm definitely not convinced about this one. I'm all for giving people a chance but when you've given someone a last chance and they don't take advantage of it then I think that prison is all you've got left. Otherwise what are the chances of anyone taking a suspended sentence seriously?

I had a chance to test this opinion recently - young man with a baby with his partner who also acts as father to her toddler. Was lucky to get a suspended sentence last time for multiple burglaries, now in front of us for trying the doors of parked cars at 3 a.m miles from his house.

Defence solicitor told us in some detail that his partner had a broken leg and she couldn't look after the children properly without him. The children may have to go into the care system for the duration of the father's sentence.

Sounds pretty grim, but its the defence's job to  make it easy for us to keep their clients out of prison and they often lay it on thick. In reality a broken leg wouldn't stop me looking after my children and there are such things as grandparents and aunts and uncles.

So we sent him away - the family and friends didn't believe it at first and then were extremely cross. One of them even gave us a Nazi salute which I suppose we should have done something about.

This brought us to lunchtime - I walked the chairman out to his car in case they were waiting for us out the back and then went for to the sandwich shop.

I returned to find my fellow winger in tears "What have we done to those children !"

First time I've had to comfort a magistrate, but I managed it. Basically I pointed out that we've done nothing to these children - what kind of a father was he at 3 a.m in the town-centre knowing that he was risking jail? Our job is to enforce the law and the children will, one way or another, be taken care of.

That night I slept fine, by the way. It's not pleasant but someone has to make these hard decisions or else thieves will continue to thieve. And if that means some kids have to lose their criminal daddy for a few months then I'm afraid that's the way it has to be. 

Asleep

This week a Magistrate was alleged to have fallen asleep during a trial. Worse, it seems he was caught bang-to-rights by the defence solicitor. Poor guy - suddenly his years of service count for nought and this is what he'll likely be remembered for.

Leaving aside the innocent-until-proven-guilty assumption that seems to have been suspended here, it's a tragedy that a momentary lack of concentration should end up with a good man being pilloried across the Mail, the Telegraph and all his local papers.

I've never come close to falling asleep in court. Sure, my mind has wandered a little. We're only human : we have no special abilities or training which allows us to keep a Zen-like focus for hours on end in an airless courthouse, no matter how enthralling the solicitors might be. And boy, some of those solicitor are far from enthralling.

You hear quite often in reports of football games that a player or a team "lost concentration" during a game. For example Jose Mourinho recently said that "(Real Madrid) ... lost a bit of concentration in the second-half ". If one of the best teams in the world can drift off collectively in the heat of battle then it's something that can happen to anyone.

So to summarise : we Magistrates take on a difficult job for no money or thanks and if we mess up even slightly then we can expect public ridicule. Put like that, you wonder why anyone would want to become a Magistrate. Or a football referee. 
 
My top tip : when my focus drifts, I start taking detailed notes. It's impossible as far as I know to fall asleep while writing. Not sure what football referees do,

Fabrice Muamba

In case you went to Neptune for the weekend and missed this story, Bolton Wanderers' midfielder Fabrice Muamba is currently unconscious in hospital after a sudden cardiac arrest on the pitch during a cup game against Spurs.

You don't have to be a Bolton Wanderers fan to feel for him, but my goodness it helps. 

Only Bolton fans have seen how much he has developed since he arrived three seasons ago and will have speculated how good he'll be in another three seasons. Only Bolton fans will have regularly seen just how much work he puts even into games that everyone else seems to have abandoned.

Only Bolton fans will be aware of just how fit the guy was. In better teams, the defensive midfielders are often spectators - Yaya Toure at Manchester City could get his iphone out and check his email during some of their one-sided games, so little are his skills needed. It's a different matter when you're in a relegation dogfight and your job is to stop the likes of David Silva from doing what he does well. For a full 90 minutes. Running over 7 miles in the process. In other words, Fabrice was properly fit.

Much has written about his role as a defensive rock, but my favourite Fabrice moments are when he goes on the attack.

You see, the opposing players recognise him as a big defensive midfield "enforcer" and he runs like a big man in a hurry -  so they don't expect him to rush forward. When he takes advantage of the element of surprise and barrels past them, I love to see the look of panic on their faces and maybe the thought going through their heads : "Oh. Er. Is he actually allowed to do that ??" There have been quite a few poor Bolton performance rendered watchable by Fabrice-moments such as these.

But you don't need to be a Bolton fan to be stunned close to tears by what has happened to him. Just think that he's 23 -  talented, literate, funny and professional in a sense that isn't common in "professional" footballers. Think that he's a new father with an enormous amount to give to the world and his young family.

I'm not a believer in jinxes, but I couldn't bear to write any of this piece in the past tense. Here's hoping that I'll have a lot more to write about him in the present and future tenses real soon.

Meanwhile, I hope that he and the people close to him realise just how many people who have been touched by his work are now cheering him on.