The CPS and Second Guessing Jurors

I used to believe that the whole point of trial by jury was to decide whether or not a crime had taken place. They would add up the evidence and examine witnesses in an attempt to decide the issue of guilt or not based on the charges. What a shock and surprise to find out how wrong I have been.

Now the primary horror has to be the fact that the poor fellow is dead, secondarily when there where four of them you have to question the use of the the old spray and thirdly the words of the pathologist on the case who stated "asphyxia during restraint" as the cause of death...

What does that mean? Weasley words indeed I say and certainly in need of further interpretation. At one end I suppose that some would say he was he was strangled by a group of overzealous state storm troopers with too much power and too much money. On the other that if he had not resisted he wouldn't be dead and so on, I do hope there is not to many of them, callous bastards. I fall somewhere in the middle, he should not have resisted of course, that is if what they were asking him to do was reasonable and within their power to insist upon. No mention of that I see (as usual) god forbid we should get some facts in a newspaper report.

However, even taking into account that they were right all down the line , how come four trained armed officers of our majesty's finest could not get the better of one man?

This opens all sorts of avenues to discuss the level of training, type of training, and the state of mind of these four servants of justice that meant they could spray a man in the face, get him to the ground, stand on his neck and asphyxiate him without knowing they were doing it.

Apparently he "wailed like a dog" while this was going on and told them he could not breath so what was going through their minds? Had they seen red? Where they incapable of rationalising because they were so intent on controlling and subduing the man? I for one would like to know. Unfortunately, we never will, because the real shocking epilogue to this human tragedy is the quote from the Crown Prosecution Service which goes like this...

No prosecutions will be brought as the CPS decided "a jury would find that the restraint was not unlawful" as there was not sufficient evidence that the officers had breached their duty of care.

This should terrify any right minded person, the CPS, who, using the flimsiest of oral evidence and here say, will happily hurry to court any allegation of terrorism, child abuse, under-age sex, human trafficking or whatever else happens to be flavour of the month with the tabloids, have decided in their wisdom what a jury would think before they have seen the evidence.

Second guessing juries is not their job, and in a case which in the worst scenario could be a racially motivated hate murder and at best a tragic accident for all concerned the verdict (that is rightfully a juries to decide), should not be left to some pen pusher hiding behind a desk and the anonymity the CPS are afforded. It should be aired in open court where the police (whom I believe are now greatly out of favour with the British people),their tactics and procedures can be scrutinised and revealed.

A man has had his life taken by the very men who are meant to protect us and the chance of finding out why has been removed by the state that is supposed to uphold justice and liberty. My heart goes out to his friends and family and I imagine echoes of Jean Charles De Menezes will be stirring in many readers.

In the words of V... "There is something terribly wrong with this country
How did this happen? Who is to blame?
If your looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror"

Shame on us all.