Huhne

[Mr Pee]

why on earth would you want to roll a tennis ball across a dual carriage way?

Edit, and thinking about it, it could be very distracting and dangerous. No wonder he was an EX traffic officer.

Oh dear.:erm:

Obivously he wasn't suggesting we all actually go out and start throwing tennis balls around. You know what he meant.

[amateur51]

Oh dear.:erm:

Obivously he wasn't suggesting we all actually go out and start throwing tennis balls around. You know what he meant.

Obivously! :winkeye:

[Dave2002]

Isn't posting links to such stories for us to gawp at even sadder?

(I gawped. Thanks.)

Yes!

Turns out the cognoscenti twitterati whatever are well ahead of us here. I mentioned it to someone the other day "Oh it was all in the Times - knew all about that!"

I have mentioned it sells newspapers. I think journalists and reporters are not by any means blameless here. My view is that it - Huhne's misdemeanour - should have been dealt with at the time, or allowed to sink into obscurity, but seemingly some think otherwise - for what purpose?

[Richard Tarleton]

I'm uncomfortable about - don't quite understand - the role of the Sunday Times political editor Isobel Oakeshott in all this. She seems to have been Vicky Pryce's friend, egged her on to bring down Huhne, and then broken the story about the points. It sounds as if neither Oakeshott nor Pryce quite grasped the potential consequences for the latter?

[jean]

It sounds as if neither Oakeshott nor Pryce quite grasped the potential consequences for the latter?

Pryce must have known there was a danger...but did she think it was a risk worth taking?

[eighthobstruction]

My goodness, jury couldn't make their mind up....now going to retrail.....<taxpayer£££££>

[jean]

I think the judge was unnecessarily rude to the jury when they asked for clarification.

He told them that of course they could not speculate about VP's mental state. But given the nebulous quality of marital coercion, what else could anyone do?

[ahinton]

Pryce must have known there was a danger...but did she think it was a risk worth taking?

Indeed; as I posted in another place:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21516473

Clearly, that great repository of factual information known to some over here as ISIHAC has let us down here, for whatever "points" mean in reality, it can't be "prizes".

The taxpayer will presumably now have to contribute towards the cost of a retrial, which will doubtless not come at a small Pryce.

[Sir Velo]

I think the judge was unnecessarily rude to the jury when they asked for clarification.

He told them that of course they could not speculate about VP's mental state. But given the nebulous quality of marital coercion, what else could anyone do?

A jury cannot speculate. They can draw inferences from the evidence presented, and on that basis reach their "reasoned" conclusions. This jury seems to be providing the most damning indictment of the jury system imaginable. Dare one say that the dumbing down, sorry "accessibilising", of today's educational standards is finally reaping its inevitable grim harvest in the inability of the average man or woman to understand plain English?

[mangerton]

Dare one say that the dumbing down, sorry "accessibilising", of today's educational standards is finally reaping its inevitable grim harvest in the inability of the average man or woman to understand plain English?

Oh, I think so. That is what the judge was saying. Plain to anyone with an IQ in double figures, which plainly some at least of the jury did not have.

[Flosshilde]

Dare one say that the dumbing down, sorry "accessibilising", of today's educational standards is finally reaping its inevitable grim harvest in the inability of the average man or woman to understand plain English?

'One' can, but I don't think 'one' would be right. We can't know (because the law relating to juries doesn't allow us to) just how many of the jury were unable to grasp their role, or what they were and weren't allowed to do. I haven't heard the evidence both sides gave, but I'm not sure that I could determine whether she was guilty or not. My view is that she clearly was guilty of perverting the cause of justice as she did 'claim' the points that Huhne should have had, but I would find it difficult to say if she was so overwhelmed by her husband that she couldn't refuse, & if she was would that make her less guilty, not guilty, or what?

(perhaps England needs the Scottish verdict of 'Not proven')

[Sir Velo]

'One' can, but I don't think 'one' would be right. We can't know (because the law relating to juries doesn't allow us to) just how many of the jury were unable to grasp their role, or what they were and weren't allowed to do.

Have a butchers at this and then tell me if you still think that. :winkeye:

[eighthobstruction]

While they are questions that need not be asked one would think....the questions and the vocab are in fact very well worded and rounded....seems strange whoever wrote them could not understand the process in the first place....smacks of a neurotic 'jobs worth ' unable to take responsbility....

[ahinton]

'One' can, but I don't think 'one' would be right. We can't know (because the law relating to juries doesn't allow us to) just how many of the jury were unable to grasp their role, or what they were and weren't allowed to do. I haven't heard the evidence both sides gave, but I'm not sure that I could determine whether she was guilty or not. My view is that she clearly was guilty of perverting the cause of justice as she did 'claim' the points that Huhne should have had, but I would find it difficult to say if she was so overwhelmed by her husband that she couldn't refuse, & if she was would that make her less guilty, not guilty, or what?

(perhaps England needs the Scottish verdict of 'Not proven')

Or indeed "In't Huhne", as they say on Radio Three...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Dare one say that the dumbing down, sorry "accessibilising", of today's educational standards is finally reaping its inevitable grim harvest in the inability of the average man or woman to understand plain English?

"One" might so "dare"; the rest of us would need evidence that the jury received their education from a variety of different establishments but all at the same time. Do we know, for example, that this Jury were all recepients of "today's" educational standards?