SIR – The conviction of Stephen Lawrence’s murderers seems to have made everybody feel good. But maybe we should dig deeper? The legal system is again being allowed to escape close scrutiny.
The so-called ‘double jeopardy rule’ used to prevent anyone being retried after being acquitted, as these two had been. The rule was scrapped on the basis that it was claimed people were getting off on technicalities, through intimidation of witnesses, and because fresh evidence sometimes does not come to light until too late.
It now appears that the legal system in the Lawrence case was a complete mess throughout. What the law change has done is to give a perverse incentive to the legal system to be even worse.
The Lawrence murderers deserve what they get. But why do the rest of us have to suffer? In future, any one of us can be prosecuted by the state over and over again, and the only rule that matters is that they only have to win once and you have to win every single time.
So another of our liberties goes in the bin just to save the blushes of the legal system.
Still feel good?
John Wilson, Wilsons Solicitors, New Road Side, Horsforth
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