Provincial Hack

Criminal barrister plying his filthy trade in the dark Northlands

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

Opinions can not be taken to be my own unless all of the following are proved not to apply:
(1) I have misread or misunderstood something,
(2) I am quoting an obviously ludicrous opinion for comic effect,
(3) I have had a tough week, and I want a fight, or
(4) I am drunk.

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

@TheDavidWood @JRLevinsLaw From Mags Court to Crown Court, can be a matter of days, especially if the defendant is in custody.

[DR PC_Angry PHD KC 🇬🇧🇮🇪🇺🇦 @PC_Angry]

I wonder what Keith Blakelock had been assigned to do the noght he was murdered. Short memories it seems….

[Daniel Sugarman @Daniel_Sugarman]

Hmmm

[Gavin Hales @gmhales]

Your periodic reminder that armed police officers almost never fire their weapons on duty. Last year (2023/24) there were 17,589 firearms operations in England and Wales, in only 2 of which were shots fired at people. https://t.co/E5TWSKOUNd

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

@PC_Angry I have been told that there's no residential training any more, and that new PCs can go straight from training into CID. It's as if nobody values ordinary coppering.

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

@BarristerSecret The intractable problem is that there is no longer a sufficiently large pool of experienced barristers. When some CPS areas are talking about putting Grade 2 counsel on the RASSO list, we are in a very bad place.

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

Clarkson or Starmer?

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

Yup.

[Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ]

What you are witnessing in Britain today is the direct result of failed policies that have been imposed on the country for much of the last 30 years.

Mass, uncontrolled immigration. The refusal to do what needs to be done to regain control of our borders.

The failure to integrate newcomers.

The refusal to counter radical Islamism and even recognise the very obvious failings of multiculturalism.

The continued promises to lower mass immigration only to then lie to the British people by doing the opposite.

And the growing tendency among the radicalising "liberal" left -as we see again this weekend- to try and silence and stigmatise all those who have been pointing to these very obvious causes as "racists", "xenophobes", and "grifters".

My view is this.

If you are idiotic enough to break the law then you should be arrested. And if you are stupid enough to use violence against police officers and emergency workers then you should face the full force of the law.

Much like those antisemitic, pro-Hamas, Black Lives Matter protestors and Islamist sympathisers should have faced consequences when they too broke the law.

But what is also crystal clear is that these protests are just the tip of the iceberg.

What lies beneath are millions of decent, hardworking, patriotic British people who have simply had enough of these disastrous policies, of being told they are "racist" or "far right" for wanting to change course, and who are routinely shut out of the national conversation.

They are sick of an elite class that after watching British children be blown apart at pop concerts, murdered at dance classes, and sexually assaulted by Muslim gangs on an industrial scale continues to gaslight them by saying what this is really about is "social media", "misinformation", "disinformation", and "right-wing grifters coordinating riots from their holidays".

As I say below --and no, I won't delete it--a serious response to these events begins with acknowledging that the status-quo is completely broken.

No community in history has pursued this level of mass immigration and demographic change while having no integration strategy and come out on the other side as a healthy, vibrant, strong, high-trust, prosperous society.

So what do we need to do?

We need to end the policy of mass immigration.

We need a freeze on all non-essential migration so that we at least stand a chance of absorbing and managing the record migration of the last quarter-century.

We need to leave the ECHR, reform the Human Rights Act, and do whatever we can to regain control of our own borders. A country that cannot even control who is coming in and out is not a serious country.

We need a new debate and policy on immigration in this country which, in my view, has now become far too dependent on people from outside Europe, who neither share our values nor way of life.

We need to protect and promote free speech, free expression and free assembly so that people feel they have a voice, not rush to shut it down because the ruling class no longer understands what is happening.

And we need, in short, to be doing the very opposite of what the current Labour government is doing, and what the previous Conservative governments accelerated.

And we need to start doing it now.
https://t.co/xawYBQaQAZ

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

Section 41 of what?

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

@JaneUptonow @BarristerSecret Two prongs, I think:
1. Reduce the number of cases being prosecuted by being more realistic about whether there is a reasonable prospect of conviction.
2. Acquiring more courtrooms and judges, and encouraging more barristers to go on the RASSO Panel by improving remuneration.

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

I am a Grade 4 RASSO prosecutor, meaning that I prosecute the most serious sexual offences, including rape and child abuse in all its hideous variety. My diary is now full with back-to-back trials for the next 12 months. This is unsustainable. @BarristerSecret

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

@Counsel2Council @BarristerSecret I'm about to ask my clerks to block out 1 week in six from 2026 so I can start the gentle glide into retirement.

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

@CraftJudge @BarristerSecret Not to mention the meetings with complainants ...
One problem is that being on the Panel is no longer as career-enhancing as it is used to be, so many juniors don't want to apply.

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

I am finding that I am now increasingly opposing defence counsel who just don't have the experience to do this difficult work. 5 years at the Bar is nowhere near enough to defend in a rape trial.

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

@TenaciousCEEE @_MrMustard @PolicemansLot Yup. That exactly.

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

@_MrMustard @PolicemansLot I think issuing a PCN for this is a bit rough: there was nothing the driver could really do to avoid the situation. In his shoes, I'd probably have cleared the box by pulling alongside the small black car (and got an earful from that driver).

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

I am seriously wondering what could possibly be criticised in this cross-examination: putting the Crown's case and giving the defendant the opportunity to respond.

[just matt @questionableway]

oh MY GOD??? how was this allowed? in what totally insane crazy psychodrama is this line of questioning admissible in a real court of law?

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

@acatfromgreece So she won't be giving him a bail address ...

[Provincial Hack @ProvincialHack]

@acatfromgreece If they weren't stupid, we'd never meet them.