The Lunacy of Unaccountable Power

By Stanley Collymore

Amidst the totally disproportionate sentences being handed out by magistrates and judges to those either deliberately or who otherwise found themselves unintentionally caught up in the August 2011 disturbances across England we have a new phenomenon judges on a whim giving sentences to those they detest merely for having the audacity and temerity to courageously and publicly say what many Britons particularly those on the receiving end of their actions already know and feel that the British police, judiciary system, its judges and several of our magistrates are essentially elitist, corrupt, rightwing agents of the state that are cavalierly in cahoots with each other as they gratuitously suck up to their equally venal and despicably corrupt political bosses to dispense at a whim anything but natural justice to those they’re completely out of touch with and condescendingly look down on, and their notion of justice when it’s handed out, whether it’s merited or not, goes almost exclusively to those they socially, financially and educationally identify with.

A classic example of criminal, judicial vengeance is the case of Norman Scarth who was given a six months jail sentence by a judge for recording the proceeding at a court case he had attended but wasn’t involved in. In any other society that deems itself to be civilized this would quite literally be laughed out of court but in Britain this is no laughing matter, since it’s unlawful to in anyway record proceedings in a court of law, something which is quite commonplace in other democratic countries. So while we’re currently bombing the living daylights out of Afghanistan, did the same in Iraq killing over a million people, are energetically involved in doing the same in Libya and fomenting regime change in Syria and Iran and all of this supposedly in the name of freedom of expression and democracy while hawking ourselves into considerable debt as our dishonest political leaders bail out corrupt banks whose grasping bosses continue to award themselves massive bonuses and go on to add gross insult to the injury already caused to Britain by collectively spending billions of Pounds Sterling we just can’t afford in our smash and grab wars on other states that pose no threat to us but whose natural resources these acquisitively leaders and their ilk feel they have an automatic right to, want to get their hands on and will do anything to bring this about, there’s equally a conscious agenda afoot to deliberately neglect essential public services the UK and on the pretext that they’re too costly to run privatise them in a concerted bid to make even more money for the corporate privateers and tax evaders that determine the polices of our political leaders.

In our inner city areas there’s a 34% unemployment rate among young people and to foist their foul, fascist agendas on to the country as whole sections of our communities that are wilfully marginalized, socially excluded and of whom no one in power gives a damn then wickedly find themselves additionally faced with the overtly elitist, fear-induced factor of divide and rule that is cynically used against them to brand and demonize those that are forced onto the margins of society or who speak up for them, even if they’re not from this social stratum themselves, and bravely challenge this iniquitous and fascist system which masquerades as democracy. In reality, it’s nothing other than an even more reprehensible reproduction of Animal Farm with the judiciary and judges enthusiastically taking on the function of and acting as the ferocious, brutal dogs to David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s hierarchal pigs with the similar maxim that some animals are more equal than others.

But more telling is the sewer depths to which these so-called but risible pillars of society have sunk to. Judge for yourself; no pun intended. Hard hearing and 85 years old Norman Scarth as I stated earlier got landed with a six month prison sentence for recording what was taking place in an English court, this in a country that routinely spies on its subjects, for that’s how the British establishment regards us as not citizens, and therefore has more CCTV cameras installed countrywide to observe our every movement than the rest of the world put together. Every Briton is photographed and monitored a minimum of five times daily and in our city centres, shopping malls and marginalized communities that figure is even higher. But if this were China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Zimbabwe or any other state drawn randomly that the British government doesn’t like these hypocrites would be up on their high horse pontificating about all sorts of the violations of the citizens of these states human rights, the identical human rights that David Cameron and his ilk have no genuine regard or see any real purpose for in Britain but nevertheless don’t mind liberally using as a handy stick to beat others with that for totally perverse, racist or imperialist motives they either don’t like or even despise.

Norman Scarth says he’s hard of hearing and that’s the explanation he gave for recording this particular court hearing. It’s neither an illogical nor a far-fetched explanation bearing in mind that he’s an 85 year old gentleman and there are countless Briton much younger than he is who have hearing problems. The judge in question, who clearly has his hearing problems but of a different kind refused to accept Mr Scarth’s explanation and summarily and what can only be considered as a rather idiotic whim of his sentenced this gentleman to six months, jail time far exceeding that which many of the judge’s sect get for far more serious and dare I say offensive crimes, like porno judge David Selwood who was given a one year community sentence he then bold as brass said he couldn’t do as he wasn’t well enough to do it; no problem though in hanging on to his £33,000 a year pension, and even more reprehensible was the collusion that occurred between the CPS, prosecution, police and Selwood’s defence team that jointly concurred he didn’t need a jail sentence as it was too harsh, his crime was for his own pleasure (which is like saying Dracula’s blood bank was for his own personal utilization) and therefore fell into the category of minor. Or the case of Deputy High Court Judge, James Allen, who was served with nothing more than a 12 month supervision order after he beat up his wife in an argument about an uncooked dinner in a country which purports with self-righteous horror to consider such conduct as totally beyond the pale. The judge, Daphne Wickham that handed down this sentence had no reservations though when she jailed the Rupert Murdoch pie thrower, a decision which though marginally reduced was none the less upheld by the appeal court.

Drawing a contrast between the two cases mentioned above and that of Norman Scarth, just the tip of this disturbingly sinister, judiciary iceberg that I could have recounted, it is clear to anyone with a functioning brain cell in his or her head that the judge in Norman Scarth’s unfortunate case has at best evidently either gone over the top or else has lost his marbles completely, assuming of course there were any there to start with. And if this is a measure of the objectivity or justice we can expect from our judges in the future then as a country we Britons are in a much more parlous state than even the most prescient-minded of us suspected; for what we’ve witnessed is just plain barmy!

And even if Norman Scarth did intentionally break the rules what actual harm I ask you did he do to anyone? At the top of our Animal Farm hierarchal system we have those that lord it over us consistently breaking the rules and the major difference between what they are doing and what Mr Scarth did is that their multitudinous actions, premeditatedly done with malice aforethought, cause grievous psychological and financial harm to millions of our people as well as utter devastation to many millions more abroad, and the sad thing is that judges like the one in the Norman Scarth case turn a blind eye to this and allow them to get away with it. Would any of these judges for example have the guts to exercise their so-called judicial independence and call for the prosecution of the likes of Tony Blair that dishonestly took us into an illegal war and with George W. Bush and others were they the leaders of developing nations would have been hauled before the courts on a multitude of war crimes and crimes against humanity? Or are you simply a part of the problem; part of the same old boys, public school, Bullingdon club stinking network that live in your own gilded world and couldn’t give a damn about anyone other than yourselves and your own clique of social parasites, more interested in accumulating baubles representing an empire that no longer exists rather than honestly dispensing justice equally without fear or favour to everyone, not just the rich, powerful and influential.

Norman Scarth was well aware of all this just as he was of the manifold inadequacies of the police, judiciary system, magistrates and judges and vitally wasn’t afraid to stick his neck above the parapet and loudly criticize what he saw and knew to be wrong, so he had to be made an example of; in other words he had to be silenced. Previously Mr Scarth had won an EU court ruling against secret court hearings in Britain and therefore the judiciary was out to get him for his bottle in taking such action and actually winning. My question is, if justice shouldn’t only be done but ought also to be seen to be done why are a bunch of totally unrepresentative and wholly unaccountable, no one actually knows how you get your jobs although we suspect what really goes on, and drawn exclusively from a section of our society that is light years removed from the rest of us by its mindboggling elitism, arrogance, privileged existence and in many case rank stupidity, what are you so afraid of in terms of the public transparently seeing what you get up to rather than having a coterie of obsequious, disreputable and discredited hacks telling us the versions that you and they evidently want the rest of us to obediently swallow? Besides this is 2011 the age of social networking and a surfeit of alternative communications and like Norman Scarth countless millions of us globally don’t as previous generation passively did see you as our betters, since you’re public servants and that’s what we consider you to be; that means you work for us not the other way round.

But like feral, cretinous kids recklessly playing around in wet concrete oblivious of the inherent dangers there are when the concrete sets you try to preserve an era that has long passed by and which your lot can’t come to terms with. It’s why you and so many others on the extreme rightwing detest with consummate passion the Human Rights Legislations that are now part of our legal code and do all you can to undermine it. My advice to you is go get a life.

Norman Scarth served Britain with distinction and bravery during the Second World War that was started by people having the same fascist mindset we see today across the British establishment. He ploughed through the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean to take supplies to the Soviet Union that was gallantly keeping the Third Reich at bay and finally defeated it on the Eastern Front enabling the brave members of our own and millions of our colonial forces: 2 million Indians comprising the largest voluntary force in the history of mankind; hundreds of thousands of black African and West Indian troops and many others besides to finish of the job and win the war against fascism and Nazism. And it’s a great insult to their memory and selfless sacrifices as well as to those still alive like Norman Scarth and my own father and uncles for an assortment of self-centred, effete nonentities with the so-called right social connections and that feel they have an invincible right to dispense their own brand of kangaroo justice over the rest of us; people who as we all know have never worn a British military uniform of any kind, seen a bullet fired in anger, or see any reason why they should as that they consider are tasks only for the likes of brave Norman Scarth, my dad or me while theirs is to take control of our lives, well let me tell you this, you can all go to hell in a handcart as far as I’m personally concerned, for I know who, despite my own priceless education, I would rather see inhabiting this country, running its affairs and doing so on merit not through incestuous privilege or a wholly contemptible and vengeful old boy’s network.

It’s been widely reported on the alternative media that Norman Scarth is being denied his necessary medication and is forced to live in conditions that are inhumane to say the very least, all this just because those who absurdly feel they were born to rule can’t in the 21st century see and acknowledge that the rest of us don’t accept the warped notion they have of their own inherent superiority, whether this is based on social or racial lines, and that those who unwarrantedly consider themselves to be great only appear to be so as long as the rest of us stay on our knees. And I take my hat off to Norman Scarth and all the other folk like him across our country. So how about those of us who genuinely believe in what justice and fair play is all about starting a national campaign to have this judge minus his pension swiftly kicked out of the judiciary thus prohibiting him and others like him from ever again adversely affecting the lives of decent members of our assorted communities and particularly those like Norman Scarth that he evidently considers inferior to himself.

We don’t have to be told that our Con-Dem government, it leaders and the overwhelming majority of our lawmakers are rotten to the core or that preceding ones also were, but one gets the government they deserve. That said we still have the ability to change them at the ballot box and replace them if we so wish with others of our choice; that’s as it should be even if they turn out to be worse than the previous lot. This is most certainly not the case with our judiciary who as I said before are entirely unaccountable and unrepresentative in every conceptual sense of those words, and I honestly believe that it’s high time we do a complete root and branch change of the nepotistic and corrupt system that produces them and fashion one that is more in keeping with the 21st Century and the needs of a modern not a colonial, class-ridden and archaic Britain; since I also steadfastly think that much of so-called British superiority and Britain’s civilizing mission to the world that these crazed judicial Neanderthals are steeped in rest upon nothing more than delusions of grandeur.

Free Norman Scarth!