Colin Stagg: Completely Innocent

December 18, 2008

At last, Colin Stagg has received an apology from the Metropolitan Police. Sixteen years ago, the police ruined his life when they brought false charges against him for the murder of Rachell Nickell. Now, with Robert Napper having confessed to the crime, the police have magnaminously sent Stagg a letter of apology.

We don’t think the outrageousness of the police tactics, using a honeytrap to implicate Stagg, can ever be excused. Nor should what Mr Justice Ognall described as “deceptive conduct of the grossest kind” at the Old Bailey in 1994 be forgotten.

But just as much as we should be astute to similar abuses of police power, we should recall the despair of the tabloids when the case against Stagg collapsed. The media had already hung, drawn and quartered their man, and didn’t like it one bit when Ognall J. threw out the case. Trial by media is no substitute for the due process of the law.

 

One Response to “Colin Stagg: Completely Innocent”

Posted by:
James Woodward on May 16, 2011 at 12:15 pm

I know this is a late response to something that happeend over 2 years ago, but I have to say the police were a lot more gracious about this than certain other people. I speak particularly of the Daily Mail, whose attitude was “OK he’s innocent but he’s a wierdo anyway, and how dare he get compensation when people injured in Afghanistan didn’t get more than…..blah blah blah….(bunch of irrelevant comparisons).” The fact that “Lizzie James” was compensated far more than Rachel’s son ever was drew no such tabloid criticism, and I wonder why. Also, a lot of people have assumed that Stagg confessed to Rachel’s murderand that the “stupid judge” threw out the confession. This is absolute rubbish of the first order: Despite strenuous efforts “Lizzie” never got a ghost of a confession out of Stagg. If she had there may have been some merit to the prosecution, but in reality the entire case rested on the opinion of one man (Paul Britton) that Stagg’s personality matched that of the killer, and that this personality was so rare that Stagg and the killer were the same person. Happily the police admitted their fault – just a pity certain journalists could do nothing but twist the knife further.

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From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.