1142 A near Tragedy

I have watched the agony and despair of farmers in the North East when the last outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease swept the countryside and the news that one farm in Surrey had been identified with the disease, and that the infection appeared to have come from a neighbouring government laboratory, however tragic for the farmer involved, did not sound an alarm call. Then as the day progressed and the publication of an interim government report was delayed, fuelling media speculation. I became more interested. News report have confirmed the research laboratory, established to help prevent the spread of the diseases is now considered the most likely cause and that that the disease could have been caused by human movement, accidental or deliberate. It would be extraordinary if this is accidental given the security measures at the site and that the movement involved somehow taking the disease to a couple of different farms within the area. I know I have seen too many films about blackmail conspiracies and terrorist threats .

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Yesterday I was concerned at the extent of fire engine, police, coast security activity at Marsden Coast as I made the journey from a good walk to visit my mother, especially as two more fire engines and an ambulance passed me shortly afterwards. Fortunately although a local news report confirmed that the incident was not a training exercise there was no loss of life or physical injury. At 4.15 at Velvet Rocks appropriate authorities were called by the family of a 31 year old in a distressed condition who had climbed over the safety barrier and was standing at the edge. The Sunderland RNLI sent an in shore boat to stand by having been requested by the command centre at the Humber Coastguard. Shortly after I had seen the vehicles, police negotiators persuaded the man to step and he was taken to the local hospital for assessment. However after his release he returned, advising the police that he had done so.

This year alone five people have died and two miraculously survived falls from the cliffs that I have been walking over recent weeks.. Also last night a one year old Bull terrier fell over the cliff but landed on a ledge . The local paper reported that the owner made desperate attempts to rescue the animal before contacting the emergency services. A fire crew with an extended ladder. The animal was rescued and is reported to have jumped into the owners arms before continuing his energetic exercise along the Leas as if nothing had gone amiss.

According to Five Live, the BBC radio mid morning magazine type programme a juror listened to a music player during evidence and is being reported for contempt of court, and this led to a discussion about the role and suitability of the general public to make judgements. It as said that in Japan where there is a panel of judges assisting, the judicial officer conducting contested hearings, there is a 99 percent conviction rate which suggests a bias against the accused. In general there was not as much support as anticipated for the British Jury system with one proposal to go back to having a property qualification, another for jury training, and another a professional jury panel chairperson.

There was several anecdotes about individual jurors having prejudices against defendants based on their physical appearance and what they wore, with some accepting evidence because it was given by the police and others not accepting because it was the police. There appeared to uncertainty about judicial directions and misunderstanding that the role of the judge in relation to the jurors was to direct on matters of law. I listened to the programme in growing frustration and irritation because it seemed to me that the fundamental point about the jury system, as it is about a democratic political system is being lost.

No one with any knowledge of the realities of courts or the democratic process expects a jury to be able to judge evidence in the same way as the police, the prosecution service, as a judge or as the lawyers, that is not what a jury is for, just as no one should expect democratically elected people to public office, however local or national to make decisions on the same basis as the professional in a subject will do, a General, a Planner, a Head Teacher, and Medical Doctor. This is not the role of jurors or democratically elected officials. They are elected or selected to represent the public interests and the values of the society in question.

A society therefore gets the juries and the politicians it deserves and needs. Wrong decisions will be made and there will be injustice from time to time. I suspect there is also evidence that if you put professionals in charge of situations without democratic oversight and accountability the quality of decision taking will not be that different as every professional is also a human being with prejudices and predetermined viewpoints. The best example of this is the number of deaths and injuries from friendly fire, or civilian casualties during armed conflict. It is right we should expect high standards and inquiries undertaken when the system is shown to fail, but because it is not and can never be perfect he baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater.

From the serious to the trivial as I became upset tonight on learning that the three newcomers to Big Brother had been selected by the housemates for eviction this week together with the two for one twins. I assumed that the eight existing housemates voted to evict the newcomers and the newcomers would have voted for the existing housemates, but this was not so, although only one of the eight received nominations. Everyone is saying that the two for one twins are safe, but my instinct is that this is a false assumption, particularly if there is to be a double eviction.

I decided to watch TV while I eat the midday salad and found a 1940's film I have no recollection of seeing before. A Gainsborough Production Madonna of the Seven Moons )1944) with Stewart Granger, Phyllis Calvert and Patricia Roc, who I adored as a child. The film is a serious psychological drama in which a woman disappears for six month, and then for a year during her marriage to a wealthy and cultured man who has a home in Florence as well as somewhere in Southern England. Patricia Roc aided by her boyfriend set out to find her mother when she disappears for the third time and that during the more recent absence she has been living as the wild bedmate of a Florentine petty gang leader, running the Seven Moons with his Gypsy mother in the slums of Florence. It emerges that the mother has been leading a double life acting out her split personality caused by some

traumatic experience in her childhood/youth and where she blanks out one life from the other.
Unfortunately, despite making allowances for the era in which the film was made, it is set, and scripted in such a way as to make it a comic in the sense of being risible. The English participants all talk and behave like a Noel Coward play, while the Italians in general are portrayed as yokel peasants and the crime boss as a spiv and his men as thick Eastenders. The films had serious pretensions and themes with good triumphant over evil (at a price), the church bringing forgiveness and redemption with one Hail Mary and act of contrition and that the more repressed some people are, the worst some become when they break out.

I return to the Big Brother House and the situation is even more depressing than before as it appears that either they have been shown the nominating process, or they have been able to say what they did and why, or both. They have failed the time travelling tests and will have a basic housekeeping budget for the coming week and no alcohol has been delivered after several nights in succession.