white lives matter

RED BOX | EDWARD HENRY

Think twice before criticising the Colston verdict

Edward Henry Friday January 07 2022, 12.01am, The Times

Juries have the power to put justice before the law, a power they have exercised for hundreds of years. Authoritarian governments have always hated them for this, and the acquittals of the Colston four have, predictably, precipitated an avalanche of adverse comment.

Much of the parliamentary blasting of the verdict involves dire predictions from Conservative MPs that our heritage, far and wide, has been put at risk by this dangerous precedent. From the tenor of outrage directed at the jurors’ decision one might even imagine that resurrecting the star chamber is a distinct possibility, in preference to that awkward squad of twelve credulous individuals, the jury.

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The Leader of The House, Jacob Rees-Mogg, not known for his modernity, must have delighted his legions of friends

OF COURSE THIS CASE SHOULD BE NOW REFERRED TO AN UNBIASED COURT OF LAW

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10377203/Colston-statue-trial-judge-worried-pressure-jury.html

At Bristol Crown Court today, while waiting for a barrister in my million-pound ‘trading in machine guns’ South Wales Police conspiracy case, I unfortunately found myself entangled with a bunch of vandals who had just been acquitted for the criminal damage to the Edward Colston’s statue.

The monument, in the city centre, had been pulled down by ropes and huge cheers from a mob and successfully dragged to the edge of the jetty only to be unceremoniously tipped into the harbour.

Their followers, some fifty-odd accompanied by photographers from the national press, had blocked the street outside the Bristol court which put an immediate shiver down my spine. The realisation of things to come in England if our government did not take a firm hand and restore some semblance of sanity then our future was grim. I decided to linger and listen in to their banter.

Instead of leaving, before I was going to vomit, I attempted to reason with one or two of whose using temperate language bordering on comprehension, ie some with an honest opinion. ‘Freedom of speech was fine by myself but I failed, miserably, to persuade any one of them to ‘see reason’ that this was already an admitted criminal damage incident and therefore a criminal offence.

So, I was subjected to fifteen minutes or so of utter ignorance shouted out, in turn, by the urchins clearly signifying their complete misunderstanding of either the ‘rule of law’ or respect for other people’s property, however contentious the subject. No one I spoke to was in a frame of mind of tendering some rational explanation in rebuttal as they had already been given the ‘green light’.

The ‘green light’, today, was the beacon this protest continued to follow lit by the Bristol authorities at the time of the toppling of the Edward Colston statue months earlier. I understand the police had simply stood by on that occasion and done nothing as the fear for the widespread damage potential, with the then fired up mob hell bent on smashing shop windows and burn out cars, far outweighed an incident so short lived as the statue into the Bristol docks.

But, as I soon found out, the ‘green light’ still burned as the traffic jammed outside the court, including the prison van that the vandals had narrowly escaped from, remained stationary. My remonstrations to two police personnel to clear the street, standing idly by, achieved nothing.

A further warning to me, originally given by that school boy hero of mine, of WW1 Military Cross fame while also known for his accurate predictions as an MP decades ahead of his time.