Lucy Letby guilty

[Stairway 2 7]

I've seen lawyers and commentators argue both sides. I'm with most in the public they should have to attend once guilty. Its what the families want and what the poor kids parents say the missed out on, being heard. Like others have said in the thread I was surprised they didn't have to turn up. There's no easy answer but I'd sway towards the victims families wishes

[grunt]

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I've seen lawyers and commentators argue both sides. I'm with most in the public they should have to attend once guilty. Its what the families want and what the poor kids parents say the missed out on, being heard. Like others have said in the thread I was surprised they didn't have to turn up. There's no easy answer but I'd sway towards the victims families wishes

You say there's no easy answer and then you choose the easy answer.

[Stairway 2 7]

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You say there's no easy answer and then you choose the easy answer.

How's that the easy answer, just because your opinion differs others are allowed a different opinion from you. There's pros and cons to both sides, both difficult. But after listening to one of the parents talk at their families hurt at not having her their at sentencing and hearing their words, I would prefer that they were at sentencing. There obviously should be caveats and I believe there will be

[grunt]

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How's that the easy answer, just because your opinion differs others are allowed a different opinion from you. There's pros and cons to both sides, both difficult. But after listening to one of the parents talk at their families hurt at not having her there at sentencing and hearing their words, I would prefer that they were at sentencing. There obviously should be caveats and I believe there will be

Worth reposting a section from the blog by the Secret barrister:

Once again, the drawbacks of policy being drawn by people with no experience of the criminal justice system, and no interest in speaking to those who have it, are all too obvious.

Because I can tell you from extensive experience that somebody intent on disrupting court proceedings will generally find a way. Raab’s plan, far from guaranteeing an obedient and contrite defendant sitting meekly in the dock, is far more likely to encourage the hideous spectacle of a wild, bloodied and bruised prisoner shouting foul abuse at the victims’ families in court as a mechanism to have the judge send them back down to the cells.

Even on a lower level of non-compliance, the vision of a defendant sitting in the dock with his eyes closed and fingers performatively in his ears, or smirking remorselessly as the victims read out their personal statements, is stomach-churning. But, unless the policy is to involve gagging, binding and propping up eyelids with matchsticks, it is also practically impossible to eliminate. The judge’s ultimate power to ensure courtroom decorum is to exclude the unruly and the disruptive. Which is very much the outcome that the proposed policy is seeking to avoid.

The unfortunate reality is that there is little that can be done to force a person to cooperate with a court hearing. If we are set on deterrence as the answer, then a more immediate response might lie in the prison regime that governs incentives and earned privileges. But again, the type of person who derives satisfaction from the frisson of power they experience by defying the court process may well consider a forfeit of prison privileges to be a trade worth making.

And compliance, of course, is only part of the picture. What victims and families often want, in my experience, is not only to have their say, but to be heard. For the person who has wronged them to listen, to internalise and, even if they will never apologise, to leave the court process knowing what they have done. This is entirely reasonable. It is what I would want too. But it is also something which no politician can guarantee. Sincerity and insight cannot be extracted from an unrepentant defendant any more than they can from a politician.

There may not be an easy answer here. There may in fact not be an answer at all. And that is something that a public representative with integrity has a responsibility to recognise and to explain, instead of appropriating bereaved families for their tub-thumping tabloid pledges.

[Stairway 2 7]

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Worth reposting a section from the blog by the Secret barrister:

I already read the article, but am also interested in people heres opinions, theres many on the thread so far from both perspectives and all valid.

As I say there's positives and negatives for both sides. If they are bloodied and cut I'm sure they won't get sent up, they could disrupt the case at any point not just the sentencing and they will get sent out of court that won't change.

I could put up barristers and judges arguing for change. But my opinion is that its important that the criminals hear, even if they don't listen, to the impact of their crimes and the judges sentencing remarks.