Lawyers and Media: Viilfying the Good, Defending the Bad.

UPDATED. (See at bottom)

Standing behind the bar listening to all the nasty and miserable news that customers bring in, a chap can get quite disheartened.  Sick to the stomach sometimes. Fortunately I have fine Ale to sort out ailments of the gut and Grace as a salve to the daily wounds to our social spirit.

But these seem not enough for diseases of the limbs, and the media and legal system are two vital arms that society need in good working order. In Hilary's Village (you know - the one needed to raise a child instead of a mum and dad doing it) the essential work of reporting events and dealing with transgressors is carried out by arms rotting with gangrene.

Two such representative arms in the UK are in need of the knife. The BBC and the Legal Aid Fraternity.

So many discussions in the UK room, the US room, the Oz room and the P&B are tainted by the Family Court, for instance, or its equivalent pseudo-institutions around the Anglosphere.  Or the various 'Tribunals' that impose Political Correctness penalties on wallet for the individual (usually a chap) and the bank vault of a company, over minor bad manners on someone's part. Or even an accusation taken at face value even though patently false and opportunistic.

We used to have a system of 'Trial' where evidence was presented and a person accused was 'Innocent until Proven Guilty'. The 'Golden Thread' known to Rumpole of the Bailey but very few other lawyers and courts. 

We even advocated and paid for Lawyers to represent the most blatently guilty.  The criminal must have a defence. Often a team of defence lawyers. Taxpayers fund Millions into Legal Aid. Much goes to defend the feckless and criminal, and into the Inns.

Now the Media takes sides and has a person hanged, drawn and quartered before he even sees the inside of a Court. Usually some innocent sap against whom evidence is simply an accusation from 50 years ago by a lunatic, attention seeking woman after a fast, unearned buck. Previous good repute is no protection.

And as we have seen most recently with the 'Rolling Stone' case, the media will print total fiction on the basis of bizarre accusation by a lunatic, attention seeking woman who can change her story a dozen times. And crowds bay for the bloody dismemberment of otherwise innocent people.

Like soldiers.

This is what took up the conversation today.

Al Sweady inquiry: 

The Al-Sweady probe was named for Hamid A-Sweady  one of the Iraqi men who died.  He was an insurgent killed during a ferocious firefight with an ambushed patrol of the  the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.  A total of 28 insurgents were killed and nine militants were taken to the Camp Abu Naji military base where they were questioned. 

The detainees claimed they were subjected to torture and witnessed executions and the mutilation of bodies.

Of course they 'claimed'. As Mandy Rice Davis said: "They would say that, wouldn't they"

 They were shown how to by the the same sort of bleeding heart groups like the left-wing 'Amnesty International', an organisation started by the Communists and funded by the Communists and intent on ruining western democracy. They have spawned dozens of 'advocacy' groups all busily operating on Guvmunt funding, ie the Taxpayer, that bottomless pit of someone elses money.

The British Army deserves a full apology from the BBC

Looking back, it is amazing just how many people were prepared to believe the accusations that the British Army routinely tortured detainees.

Of course it was the BBC and its fellow travellers on the Left who made the most of accusations that British soldiers had committed what amounted to war crimes following a three-hour battle with Iranian-backed insurgents in Iraq in May 2004. 

Rather than praising the British soldiers for their undoubted heroism in tackling the Shia-dominated Mehdi Army in a fierce battle that could have gone either way, the BBC preferred to concentrate its considerable resources on Iraqi claims that some of the captured insurgents had been killed in cold blood, while others had been subjected to torture

Coming in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, where American service personnel certainly were guilty of mistreating their Iraqi captives, it was easy for some to believe that British forces had engaged in similar acts of mistreatment, even though the evidence was murky, to say the least.

But rather than conducting a proper journalistic investigation into the incident, the BBC’s flagship Panorama programme, in its edition broadcast in February 2008 entitled “On Whose Orders”, instead preferred to rely on the testimony of former Iraqi combatants and their Legal Aid-funded lawyers to make unsubstantiated allegations against the integrity and professionalism of the British Army.

Yes, our BBC, yesterdays 'Aunty'. Trusted, competent and so English. It's reputation sold for a song.  Who can ever trust it now. As with her sister the ABC in Oz. Toadies of the Left and PC to its shins.

A society has a right and duty to criticise itself, but to do so with health in mind, not in some fit of nasty, self-flagellation. Believing the enemy when a country is at war, is tantamount to Conspiracy to Treason, after the fact.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11299537/Al-Sweady-inquiry-The-British-Army-deserves-a-full-apology-from-the-BBC.html

It has taken nearly six years for the truth to come out, but the conclusions of the al-Sweady inquiry published today makes for some uncomfortable reading for the BBC’s current affairs production team, as well as the teams of lawyers who forced the Government to conduct an inquiry into the allegations, earning themselves handsome legal fees in the process.

For the inquiry, which cost a staggering £31 million, has ruled unequivocally that the claims that British troops murdered, mutilated and tortured Iraqi detainees were “wholly and entirely without merit or justification”, and that the baseless allegations contained in the Panorama programme were the product of “deliberate and calculated lies”.

So much for the standards of the BBC's so-called investigative journalists.

It is hard to imagine a more damning indictment of the Army’s accusers, and all those at the BBC and elsewhere who were credulous, or naive, enough to believe them. But now that the truth is out, perhaps those responsible for making this programme, and who gave an air of credibility to the claims, would now like to issue a fulsome apology to the British Armed Forces for their own grave errors of judgment.

They could even make a new programme explaining why they got the story so horribly wrong in the first place. Now, that really would be a first.

More seriously, though, Tony Hall, who as the BBC’s director-general has overall responsibility for the corporation’s current affairs output (in a previous life he was in charge of BBC news and current affairs), should undertake an urgent investigation of his own to find out how Panorama got it so badly wrong. 

He should resign or at the very least be invited to a Dining Out night at an Officer's mess of the Army's choice and direction; preferably the Argyll's. There he may experience some combat of his own. 

And he can take the Lawyers involved with him. Those slimey, theiving 'advocates' who may well have trained under some feminist 'entitlement' junkie.

 Al-Sweady lawyers 'should now face disciplinary action'

Lawyers who wasted millions of public money pursuing false claims that British troops murdered and tortured Iraqi detainees should now face disciplinary action, senior Government figures have suggested.

Ministers condemned the “shameful” conduct of solicitors who brought the claims, which were yesterday dismissed as “deliberate lies” by a £31million, five year inquiry.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11300398/Al-Sweady-lawyers-should-now-face-disciplinary-action.html

Last night the Ministry of Defence said it was looking at recouping part of the legal aid fees which were paid to the lawyers who represented the now discredited ‘victims’.

Sources close to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, said the sums paid to the lawyers were "shocking".

The defence secretary Michael Fallon said the lawyers should make an “unequivocal apology” to the soldiers whose reputations “they attempted to traduce’’.

Mr Fallon said the claims put forward by the legal teams representing the Iraqi complainants were a 

“shameful attempt to use the legal system to attack and falsely impugn our Armed Forces.”

He said delaying tactics by the solicitors - who pursued the most serious accusations of murder until the final days of the inquiry before accepting they could not be proven - had unnecessarily saddled taxpayers with extra costs.

The Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said he was concerned that “the actions of a minority of lawyers could bring the profession as a whole into disrepute” after a “very unhappy episode in the history of our legal system”.

Many in the bars spluttered into their dinks at that. Minority? Disrepute?  Far too late to be waking up to that. It is past noon and the afternoon of our society is almost over as well. The evening is almost upon us.

The Family Court, the one court system that handles over half of all 'non-criminal', 'civil' cases is so used to false accusations, lying lawyers, and claimants whose only justification  for being believed is their gender, has long abandoned Justice, evidence, even the 'no-fault' that supposedly underpins Divorce Law. It condemns at great length and spins out the misery of accused fathers for years and years, and years in excess of the piddling six of this inquiry.

Whereas Courts are supposed to hold 'all equal before the law' our main courts in almost all anglophile countries hide behind elevated children. The new Class at the top of the new heap. Children given into the care of mothers soley on the basis of genital possession. Who possesses the child is the tyrant in charge.

"In the Best Interest of the Children"

 But I digress. Back to the Lawyers and the soldiers.

The two legal firms involved, Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) and Leigh Day & Co, both denied any wrong doing. Last night spokesman for the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) said it was investigating both firms.

Politicians across the political divide rounded on the lawyers after the Al-Sweady public inquiry ruled claims that British troops murdered, mutilated and tortured Iraqi detainees in their custody were “wholly and entirely without merit or justification”.

The lawyers KNEW that. 

We are all for fair representation for the guilty in a Court. But making out LIARS and EXTORTERS, CALUMNISERS and ENEMIES of our country to be innocent  victims 'entitled' to level false and calumnous accusations against those who offer their very lives to defend our country and our friends, while holding those Honourable men as wicked is... well wicked. 

The exhaustive investigation found the serious allegations were based on “deliberate lies and reckless speculation” from witnesses and detainees who were often determined to smear the British forces.

Failure to disclose a document that showed detainees had been members of an Iraqi militia had also extended the inquiry, the Government said. Legal teams had claimed the ‘victims’ were innocent farmers despite some of the legal teams having a document showing otherwise.

A senior ministerial source said: “The SRA will now be able to look into any of the allegations of misconduct and if there has been sharp practice by lawyers then the SRA should deal with it firmly.

“I would have thought that it was important for the reputation of the legal profession that the sharp activities of some lawyers don’t discredit what otherwise is a hardworking and honourable profession that is trying to do the right thing for their clients.”

Vernon Coaker, shadow defence secretary, said: “The SRA should fully investigate these possible breaches of professional standards

“Service personnel have faced a lengthy inquiry in to their conduct, after being accused of the most awful crimes. They have been completely exonerated.

Not an actual lawyer. An actress.

“There must now be accountability for those who made these scurrilous allegations and who failed to disclose key evidence that would have shown them to be completely baseless.”

Mr Fallon said MoD officials were investigating whether they could now recoup some of the money from the earlier stages of the investigation.

The inquiry included nearly £6 million of legal fees for lawyers. PIL earned nearly £1m in fees during the inquiry on top of an estimated £2 million during a earlier judicial review.

You might ask where the rest of the 31 million went. Ask away. This post deals with the lawyers but behind them and infront are the Judges, the Court Officials, clerks, etc, all sucking on the public teat. They are an expensive luxury not enjoyed by the average Iraqui insurgent terrorist, disguised as a farmer. Which hotels do you think they were 'accomodated' in?

The Iraqi detainees, their accomplices and their lawyers must “now bear the brunt of the criticism” for the protracted nature and cost of the “unnecessary” public inquiry, he said.

No. They must bear the cost. And pay damages to the Army. A 'message' should be sent. In the 'old days' it would be sent on parchment stuffed in the mouth of a head in a bag.

Dominic Grieve, former attorney general, said: “The conclusion must raise issues as to how this case was handled by the representatives of the claimants. The background clearly raises important issues of professional conduct which need to be investigated.”

Christopher Chope, a Conservative member of the House of Commons Justice select committee, told The Telegraph: 

The reputations of the soldiers have been besmirched  

and their families and friends have been put under immense pressure.”

Lord Dannatt, a former head of the Army, said he was delighted that soldiers have been unequivocally cleared of the major charges and said they should never have been brought.. He said: “The lawyers and the professional bodies need to look very closely at the conduct of the companies involved.”

Now, I wonder if the same politicians will say exactly the same about and for Fathers who daily have their reputations besmirched. Don't hold your breath.

John Dickinson, of Public Interest Lawyers, refused to apologise and said the MoD was to blame for the delay and cost of the investigation because it had refused to hold its own transparent inquiry earlier.

He said it was not up to him to apologise to troops. He said: “I regret the anxiety caused to those soldiers by the delay in the same way I regret the anxiety caused to the families of the deceased.”

He said: “We don’t accept we did anything wrong.”  “Had there been any criticism of this firm then the inquiry would have mentioned it,” he added.

A spokesman for Leigh Day said: “We were not responsible for representing the Iraqis at the Inquiry and were not asked by the Inquiry to disclose all relevant documents in our possession until August 2013."

The Arabic document detailing the detainees association with the militia “remained in our files until it was handed to the inquiry in September 2013 following a request from the team".  “On this occasion we did not get things right. We have apologised to the Inquiry for not realising the significance of this document sooner."

The spokesman said the firm had been "working with the SRA to ensure that in all areas, especially the demanding foreign work of the firm, we have training and structures in place to prevent any similar mistakes in the future.”.

It is not just 'high profile' cases like this that feed the Legal Aid lawyer's pockets. In Oz there is an Industry, paid for from legal Aid to Lawyers representing illegals, muslim mullahs, terrorists etc, all 'entitled' to bill the taxpayer all the way up to the Highest courts - at the behest of their lawyers, despite everyone and his dog having shown their guilt. 

They can be found guilty, after reams of evidence, and still will 'appeal' and appeal, all at taxpayer cost. Most will be on 'disability' benefits.

And the lawyers just love the freedom.

Calumny and False accusation, sins of 'False Witness',  should be punishable by severe penalty. Not a smack on the wrist; not a piddling fine; not a small sentence of 'community service', but by lengthy jail time.

UPDATE.

We now have some details of this supposed nastiness on the part of the British soldiers. 

British soldier investigated for war crimes after touching Taliban terror suspect on nose with piece of paper

A British soldier was investigated for possible war crimes for thrusting a piece of paper at a Taliban fighter, it has emerged.

He was accused of abuse for touching the terror suspect on the nose with the sheet during a routine interrogation in Afghanistan.

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2882798/British-soldier-investigated-war-crimes-touching-Taliban-terror-suspect-nose-piece-paper.html

The enemy fighter had been captured and detained as a potential ringleader in the murder and mutilation of four French soldiers in 2008.

But it was the military intelligence officer, who had an exemplary record, who was investigated for possible war crimes amid claims he had broken rules banning the touching of prisoners during interrogation.

On another occasion an interrogator was probed for shouting in a suspect’s ear in case he burst an ear drum, it was claimed. 

The investigation is said to have taken place four years after the alleged offence.

The incidents came to light after the Ministry of Defence tightened the rules governing tactical questioning in the wake of several highly-damaging allegations that UK troops abused captives in their custody.

The changes have led to considerable disquiet in the military that soldiers are being hampered in their ability to extract information from insurgents that could potentially save lives.

Last week, the Al Sweady Inquiry report into the fallout from a firefight in Iraq in 2004 which became known as the Battle of Danny Boy concluded that insurgents and their families had used ‘deliberate lies’ to smear British troops.

Sir Thayne Forbes, who led the £31million inquiry, found that claims soldiers murdered, mutilated and tortured detainees were ‘wholly and entirely without merit’.

But while blasting the Iraqis and their legal aid-funded British lawyers, the 1,250-page report also turned the spotlight on nine examples of military intelligence officers abusing Iraqi detainees during questioning, although these instances were found to be ‘relatively minor’.

One soldier was criticised for walking around a captured and blindfolded Iraqi insurgent and blowing gently on his neck, which Sir Thayne said ‘amounted to a form of ill-treatment’.

The soldier was also castigated for banging a metal tent peg on a table to startle the prisoner, shouting in the man’s ear and warning him he would never see his wife if he refused to co-operate.

Following the revelations, a former senior Army interrogator, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘There was an incident in 2008 when French soldiers were massacred and the bodies of four of them were mutilated.

‘We had two of the suspects in detention and they were brought in for questioning.  ‘One of the interrogators touched one of the suspects on the nose with an A4 piece of paper and he was investigated by the special investigation branch for abuse.

‘Just for touching a detainee on the nose. 

The fact somebody could be investigated for that is to my mind incredible. 

It was ridiculous. These French soldiers had been horribly mutilated and yet it was the interrogator who was investigated.’

Blaming MoD lawyers, the former soldier said: ‘We once had in for questioning a well-known Taliban fighter.  ‘He didn’t say a word; he wouldn’t speak to us and when he eventually did all he would say through the translator was: 

“Your detention policy is toothless”.

‘We would have these suspects in and there we are worried about what the lawyers in Britain are going to say. These are really bad people. They mutilate their victims.  ‘They murder women and children and all we can think about is did we shout in their ear and will we get investigated for that? That’s how ridiculous it got.’

Colonel Tim Collins, who made a celebrated eve-of-battle speech during the Iraq war, said he blamed ‘ambulance-chasing lawyers’ and ‘play-it-safe judges’ for the new rules on interrogation. He said: ‘We are no longer able to carry out tactical questioning. That in itself brings risks to the lives of the people we deploy.

‘These insurgents are not nice people. These are criminals. They behead people; they keep sex slaves. They are not normal people.’

Drink. Drown sorrow. Night cometh.

Pax.