Phone Hacking Trial: Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson trial begins today:UPDATE BROOKS NOT GUILTY, COULSON GUILTY

Hacking - why an apology will not be enough

David Cameron: "I am extremely sorry I employed him. It was the wrong decision and I am clear about that."





Hacking trial


Never before has the prime minister called in the cameras to make such a swift and abject apology, but that will not be enough to silence the questions David Cameron now faces.

He said it was the wrong decision to give Andy Coulson "a second chance" and to accept "his assurances" about what had happened at the News of the World.

However, that apology suggests that he was simply too trusting of the man he gave a taxpayer-funded job in Downing Street and, with it, access to confidential and sensitive information. It implies that all that went wrong was that David Cameron was too nice or too naive.
What it ignores is why Cameron hired Coulson in the first place and was so resistant to firing him even as evidence of the true scale of the phone hacking scandal emerged.

When Cameron became Tory leader he vowed to keep his distance from the Murdoch empire - to sup with a long spoon. However, long before he reached Number 10 he abandoned that strategy and decided instead to hug them close.
When Coulson was hired by the Tories in opposition in 2007 it was possible to argue that phone hacking was limited to "one rogue reporter" who had gone to jail. However, in the year before the general election the Guardian and the New York Times produced evidence that it had occurred on a much wider scale.

David Cameron could have chosen not to ask his spin-doctor to enter government with him but he chose to ignore the flashing red lights.
He was warned not to by the press pursuing the story, by colleagues, by his coalition partners as well, of course, as the Labour Party.
He argues that that was because Coulson had proved himself to be competent and trustworthy. Others will assert that Cameron was scared to break the link with the former tabloid editor who knew how to reach the parts of the electorate that he could not.
Andy Coulson believes that if he had never crossed the threshold of Number 10 he might not now be facing prison. Without the link to Number 10 the hacking scandal might never have been front page news and the police would never have launched the massive investigation which is now being played out in court.

If David Cameron had simply thanked Coulson for his work in getting him to power but explained that their partnership could not survive he would still be facing embarrassment but not questions about why, as Ed Miliband puts it, he brought a criminal into Downing Street.


Ed Miliband: "David Cameron brought a criminal into the heart of number 10"


[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

25 June 2014 Last updated at 11:55

Cameron facing MPs' questions over Coulson appointment

[snipped]
In light of this, Mr Bercow said he had taken legal advice on whether the issue could be raised at the weekly session of Prime Minister's Questions at 12:00.

He told MPs he would allow references to Coulson's conviction but not to the outstanding charges or any matters relating to sentencing. He urged MPs to "exercise restraint".


[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]



Facing questions at Prime Minister question time at 12.00 today

The Drum
25 June 2014 - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] 
Phone-hacking trial: Why was Rebekah Brooks found not guilty?


There has been a mix of surprise and red top press gloating about [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
However in court itself, where observers had carefully followed the evidence, there was no astonishment when the jury gave its verdict. Indeed many had been saying for months that on the phone-hacking charges, there was very little evidence against Brooks. There was "no smoking gun", as her barrister said in his closing remarks. So what was the prosecution case? Brooks, it should be remembered, was only editor of the now defunct News of the World from 2000 until early 2003 and the charges of the illegal interception of voicemails only ran to 2002. There was a very short window where Crown lawyers could link Brooks to hacking as there was no evidence it took place at the Sun when she became editor of the daily tabloid in January 2003.

Jonathan Laidlaw QC asked the jury to consider the fact that there were only 12 confirmed voicemail hacks while Brooks was editor and for none of them was there an email, a note or a witness that mentioned her name in connection with the practice. While convicted phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire was being paid under her editorship, the defence said, it was not the editor's job to micro-manage the budget. She gave departments spending limits and if they stuck to them it was not Brooks' role to inquire further. It was understandable that the prosecution barristers made much of the fact that the hack of murdered teenager Milly Dowler happened in 2002, when Brooks was in charge of the paper. The defence countered that Brooks had been on holiday in Dubai with her then husband Ross Kemp when the "Milly voicemail" story appeared in the paper. Brooks agreed she had been in telephone contact with the acting editor Andy Coulson while she was away, but told the court she had been discussing front page story about actor Michael Greco leaving Eastenders and no one had discussed the Dowler article with her.

The prosecution case relied on the "editor's question" – the idea that Brooks would have been asking where every story came from. The former editor responded in the witness box that this did not reflect the reality of a modern newsroom. Journalists, she said, were "secretive" about their confidential sources and stories were checked by department heads and the in-house legal team at the paper before being published. Brooks' role, she told the jury, was to oversee the whole process; not to "police" the experienced journalists and news editors who worked under her. The same argument arose on another charge the defendant was acquitted of: bribing public officials. Email evidence showed that on 11 occasions while editing the Sun, Brooks approved payments for stories that were sourced from a Ministry of Defence civil servant, Bettina Jordan-Barber. However the defence contended that nowhere in the emails was the civil servant's name, or role, mentioned as she was only described by the reporter concerned as "my number one military contact". While the prosecution said that it would have been obvious from the stories concerned that this must be someone with inside information, the defence responded that a busy editor dealing with an experienced reporter could not be expected to assume the payments related to a corrupt official. One could argue, they said, that she should have asked but that alone was not proof that Brooks ever did. Legally, for Brooks to be guilty she had to know and agree that the cash was going to a civil servant. Not inquiring may be questionable but it was not a crime.

The final two charges against Rebekah Brooks were always seen by everyone in court as the weakest. The first related to her personal assistant removing boxes of documents from the News International archives. The PA, Cheryl Carter, told the court the boxes contained her documents and she had never told Brooks she had retrieved them on the day it was announced the News of the World was closed. The former editor's husband, Charlie Brooks, told the jury that he had hid items from the police who were about to search his flat but these contained his personal, and legal, pornography collection which had nothing to do with the hacking inquiry. At no point could the prosecution prove this was false, although they did raise the question of "missing" electronic devices which they said had never been recovered. The jury clearly were not convinced.

When you cover court cases you often find that not guilty verdicts are often given not because the jury think the defendant did not probably commit the crime; instead it is often the case that the jury have decided that the evidence presented to them does not meet the high standard required for a conviction. Recently the English courts dropped the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" on the grounds that it was too confusing and have replaced it with "if you are sure". Often juries will think someone is guilty on the balance of probabilities but decide they cannot be 100 per cent sure that the defence explanation of events is impossible.

Rebekah Brooks has been cleared by a jury after an eight month trial and leaves court without a stain on her character. However when you read the press headlines, especially the tabloid press ones, claiming that she has been "innocent" or is "cleared", remember that no one ever knows what that jury really thought. What we know is that after listening to both sides of the argument, those 11 randomly selected people felt they could not be sure enough to convict and for all the money, that is the only fact that matters.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Ah.. she was too busy to know what was going on.

Whatever.

For goodness sake.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

We all know what they were doing.

Just because they had expensive lawyers and a weak prosecution doesn't change anything.

This is shameful.

I didn't realise you could apply to have your legal costs reimbursed. So, if you can afford to hire the best and most expensive lawyers to fight your corner and you're acquitted, you can reclaim the money from the court (taxpayers). Is this correct, does anyone know? I'm surprised, because didn't Nigel Evans recently complain that he was nearly ruined financially by huge lawyers fees?

Your Rights.org.uk
The 'standard' of proof is that the jury, or magistrates, must be sure of your guilt. Another way of expressing this, less commonly used nowadays, is that they must be satisfied, 'beyond reasonable doubt', that you committed the offence charged. If not - say, for example the jury think you probably committed the offence but cannot be sure that you did - then you should be found not guilty. Jury verdicts must be unanimous unless, after two or three hours, the judge allows a majority verdict of ten jurors. The magistrates' verdicts are by majority.

Verdict
The verdict of the court is one of guilty or not guilty. A not guilty verdict is not a finding of innocence, as you do not have to prove your innocence, but means that, as the prosecution failed to prove by admissible evidence that you committed the offence, you are presumed to be innocent. Where you are tried and found not guilty you normally cannot be tried again for the same offence although there have been recent changes in the law that allow a retrial on the same offence in certain circumstances.

If you are acquitted, you can apply to the court for your personal expenses and your legal costs to be reimbursed, but not for any loss of earnings. Your witnesses can claim their expenses and also loss of earnings from the court whatever the outcome. You may also wish to consider a civil claim against the police where, for instance, there is evidence of malicious prosecution (see Chapter 5). See also How to Get Redress
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Tony Bennett wrote:

tasprin wrote:The Drum
25 June 2014 - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] 

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Rebekah Brooks has been cleared by a jury after an eight month trial and leaves court without a stain on her character.

? Says who?

James Doleman also says:

'When you cover court cases you often find that not guilty verdicts are often given not because the jury think the defendant did not probably commit the crime; instead it is often the case that the jury have decided that the evidence presented to them does not meet the high standard required for a conviction. Recently the English courts dropped the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" on the grounds that it was too confusing and have replaced it with "if you are sure". Often juries will think someone is guilty on the balance of probabilities but decide they cannot be 100 per cent sure that the defence explanation of events is impossible'.

Tony Bennett wrote:JURY DISCHARGED - FAIL TO AGREE ON ANY OTHER VERDICTS


[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

From the BBC: 'A decision on any retrial would be made on Monday, the judge said. He had considered halting proceedings earlier after Coulson's lawyer criticised Prime Minster David Cameron's "ill-advised and premature intervention" in the case'.

So that must be why Coulson made an application for contempt of court yesterday. This is the second time Cameron has stuck his oar in, during an on-going trial (Nigella Lawson). Maybe it's deliberate.


Dan Waddell ‏@danwaddell [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Interestingly, Court 12's business for tomorrow seems to include an application from Coulson regarding Contempt of Court. Cameron?

tasprin wrote:I didn't realise you could apply to have your legal costs reimbursed. So, if you can afford to hire the best and most expensive lawyers to fight your corner and you're acquitted, you can reclaim the money from the court (taxpayers).

Not quite, tasprin.

The general principle certainly is that if you are charged and prosecuted, and found not guilty, or the prosecution is dropped for one reason or another, the government pays your costs. It is a way of deterring the Crown Prosecution Service from proceeding with borderline cases.

But in fact the trial judge has discretion on whether to award all of yuor costs, some of the costs, or, exceptionally, none of them.

I was able to use this principle back in 2001 at the start of the campaign to keep British road and footpath signs in miles, yards, feet and inches.

After amending an illegal sign in metres at Stansted Airport, I was arrested, put in the cells, charged, had 10 hairs of my head pulled out by the roots so as to provide a DNA record, and summoned to appear in court.

One of my supporters was a shareholder with British Airways Authority. He wrote to the Chairman. The Chairman asked his Director of Legal Services to investigate. Very swiftly the Legal Director advised that the BAA metric sign at Stansted Airport was indeed illegal, as the Traffic Signs Regulations required such signs to be signed in yards. I had legal authority under the Highways Act 1980 (Section 131 if anyone's interested) to either remove it or 'obliterate' it.

As a result BAA withdrew its evidence against me, and the case collapsed. It was a major boost to the campaign to keep British road signs from being changed to kilometres and miles. In 2006, victory was achieved when the government finally dropped its plans to change 2 million road signs to metric. I represented myself in the proceedings and was able to claim £365 costs for my time, after the prosecution was dropped. My wife and I had a jolly good evening out when the cheque arrived from Her Majesty's Court Service

Thanks for the explanation Tony.

Reuters

Judge in phone-hacking trial criticises PM Cameron
LONDON  Wed Jun 25, 2014
06/24/2014

LONDON (Reuters) - The judge in the British phone-hacking trial criticised Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday for not waiting until all verdicts were in before commenting on Andy Coulson, his former media chief who is facing jail.

A jury at London's Old Bailey court on Tuesday found Coulson, who ran Cameron's media operations from 2007-2011, guilty of conspiring to intercept messages to break news about royalty, celebrities and victims of crime. Less than two hours after the verdict on Tuesday, Cameron issued what he called a "full and frank" apology, saying he had taken Coulson's assurances of innocence at the time at face value, something he now realised was a mistake.

The jury was however still deliberating on two further charges on Coulson.

"I asked for an explanation from the Prime Minister as to why he had issued his statement while the jury were still considering verdicts" the judge, John Saunders, said in court."My sole concern is to ensure that justice is done. Politicians have other imperatives and I understand that. Whether the political imperative was such that statements could not await all the verdicts, I leave to others to judge."

The jury was discharged on Wednesday after failing to reach agreement on whether Coulson was guilty of authorising illegal payments.

Coulson's lawyer, Timothy Langdale, said Cameron's intervention was extraordinarily ill advised. "This is an extraordinary situation where the ill advised, premature intervention by the prime minister and others to avoid political damage or to make political capital is impossible for the jury to ignore. It strikes at the heart of justice."

(Reporting by Michael Holden, writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Kate Holton)

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Guardian
Summary
• David Cameron was criticised by the hacking trial judge for his statement on Andy Coulson that threatened to derail the remainder of the case. The judge Mr Justice Saunders wrote to the prime minister requesting an explanation for whether the comments were made "in ignorance or done deliberately" following concerns raised by Coulson's legal team.


• The trial against Andy Coulson has ended after the jury failed to reach verdicts on two remaining counts on alleged unlawful payments to public officials. Jurors were discharged at about 12.30pm after failing to agree verdicts on two counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office. Coulson and former News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman deny the charges.


• Prosecutors are expected to decide on Monday whether they will seek to bring a retrial over the two charges. Coulson and Goodman are expected to return to the Old Bailey on Monday to learn whether they will face a second trial on those counts.

• Andy Coulson is expected to be sentenced next Friday. He faces a custodial sentence after being found guilty on Tuesday of plotting to hack phones.

• Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband have clashed in the Commons over the prime minister's links to Coulson. 
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

tasprin wrote:Reuters

Judge in phone-hacking trial criticises PM Cameron
LONDON  Wed Jun 25, 2014
06/24/2014

LONDON (Reuters) - The judge in the British phone-hacking trial criticised Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday for not waiting until all verdicts were in before commenting on Andy Coulson, his former media chief who is facing jail.

A jury at London's Old Bailey court on Tuesday found Coulson, who ran Cameron's media operations from 2007-2011, guilty of conspiring to intercept messages to break news about royalty, celebrities and victims of crime. Less than two hours after the verdict on Tuesday, Cameron issued what he called a "full and frank" apology, saying he had taken Coulson's assurances of innocence at the time at face value, something he now realised was a mistake.

The jury was however still deliberating on two further charges on Coulson.

"I asked for an explanation from the Prime Minister as to why he had issued his statement while the jury were still considering verdicts" the judge, John Saunders, said in court."My sole concern is to ensure that justice is done. Politicians have other imperatives and I understand that. Whether the political imperative was such that statements could not await all the verdicts, I leave to others to judge."

The jury was discharged on Wednesday after failing to reach agreement on whether Coulson was guilty of authorising illegal payments.

Coulson's lawyer, Timothy Langdale, said Cameron's intervention was extraordinarily ill advised. "This is an extraordinary situation where the ill advised, premature intervention by the prime minister and others to avoid political damage or to make political capital is impossible for the jury to ignore. It strikes at the heart of justice."

(Reporting by Michael Holden, writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Kate Holton)

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Looks like David of Cameroon is more interested in making his nose look clean. Thinking only of himself and jumping the gun for damage limitation. He is emotionally and personally involved, not just with Rebekka and Charlie, but also with his 'dodgy employment' of Coulson, and his judgement is not based on politics but on 'self'.
He's not good at covering up his personal involvements where they are shady.
When he tried to deflect the questions re was he fixing it for Murdock to win the Sky B whatever contract/monopoly media takeover, he blathered then, in full view of the public as well as all in the House of Commons.
He's going to need to pull a really big clean white rabbit out of the hat before the next election if he is going to get his motley crew back in.
The government at present is a 'by default' govt anyway, with Clegg made to do the puppet dance to keep the cons in power.
David had better not try to push a whitewash through, what with the way the public are already briefed up on the McCs and daily getting wiser.

This very revealing article was published by The Independent on 1 October 2009, just after The Sun dramatically changed horses from Labour to Conservative with its headline: 'LABOUR'S LOST IT':

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  


It was about 10 minutes to 10 on Tuesday night that mobile phones across Brighton started bleeping. They belonged to the members of the Cabinet and caused many to abandon their dinners and hunch overtheir Blackberrys, urgently discussing what to do next.

Britain's brashest and biggest-selling tabloid newspaper, which likes to sometimes make news rather than merely report it, was at it again. After 12 years of supporting the Labour Party, The Sun was filling its front page the next morning with the headline "Labour's lost it".

As the news spread like bushfire around the sealed-off part of Brighton where Labour is holding its annual conference, the doors opened on a suite in the Grand Hotel where News International, which owns The Sun, was holding a party.

Gordon Brown, who was expected to attend, immediately cancelled his appearance, as did Peter Mandelson, now his First Secretary, but who in a previous life played a central role in the negotiations between Tony Blair and the Murdoch empire in the 1990s which led to The Sun's backing of Labour in 1997. He knows News International's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, well, and vented his fury in a telephone conversation with her.
Yesterday, Mandelson's people claimed he told her that she and her colleagues were "chumps". Her version of the same conversation had Mandelson using a noun that sounds similar, but is great deal more vulgar.

But while it was a shock to the Labour faithful, the news that David Cameron now has a political asset that has eluded Conservative leaders for 12 years did not come from nowhere. It was the product of months of networking, negotiating, wine drinking, canape quaffing, villa visiting and yacht boarding as the Conservative Party and Britain's biggest media company learned to love and understand each other once again.


Yesterday, one of the happiest men in the country was Andy Coulson, David Cameron's highly paid and much criticised communications director, for whom the front page of yesterday's Sun was the culmination of months of delicate diplomacy.

Four years ago, when David Cameron did not have an experienced tabloid operator like Coulson to advise him, it nearly went horribly wrong. When the raw and newly elected Tory leader first met News International's patriarch Rupert Murdoch, he was intent on projecting himself as a socially tolerant leader with modern ideas who would shake up an outdated Tory Party. In his anxiety to be modern, Cameron described with great enthusiasm how he had enjoyed the new US blockbuster film Brokeback Mountain. Far from being impressed, the ageing Murdoch was appalled that a would-be prime minister should be watching a film containing graphic scenes of gay sex.

In those days, Murdoch had more time for John Whittingdale, the Tory chairman of the Commons committee on culture and media, who had worked for Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street, than for anyone in Cameron's shadow cabinet. He also thought that the Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, was more of a Thatcherite than Cameron.

Cameron's master stroke, in June 2007, was to hire Coulson five months after he had lost his job as editor of the Murdoch-owned News of the World when it emerged that the paper had been bugging royal telephones. It was a controversial appointment that opened Cameron to political attack and is costing the Tory party a hefty salary – reputedly £200,000 a year. But it produced dividends, because it meant that the Tory leader had at his side someone he trusted absolutely, who was also trusted inside the social world of the Murdoch clan.


Coulson is a dear friend of Rebekah Brooks, formerly Rebekah Wade, who edited The Sun from 2003 until she stepped up into her post earlier this year. When Wade was arrested in 2005 for allegedly assaulting her then husband, the actor Ross Kemp, it was to Coulson she first turned for help. It is said that each would die for the other.

This link gave Cameron a secure line into the social circle that includes James Murdoch, his sister Elisabeth, her husband the publicist MatthewFreud, Wade's second husband, the old Etonian former racehorse trainer, Charlie Brooks, and Nat Rothschild, of the banking family.

Rothschild, son of Jacob, the fourth Baron Rothschild, is an exact contemporary of David Cameron's most important political ally, George Osborne. As young boys, they were in the same year at a private preparatory school. They met again at Oxford University, where they were members of the elite Bullingdon Club.

In summer 2008, David Cameron and his wife were flown in Matthew Freud's private plane to meet Rupert Murdoch in his yacht, Rosehearty, off a Greek island. Afterwards, Cameron was flown to Turkey for a family holiday, and Murdoch went on to Corfu for his daughter's 40th birthday.

Osborne was already in Corfu, on a family holiday that acquired notoriety because Peter Mandelson was also in the area, and what was said in private aboard a yacht owned by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska blew up into a political row after they returned to the UK.

The Osborne family was holidaying in a villa owned by Nat Rothschild, in an area of northern Corfu which is so popular with the London set that it is known as "Kensington on Sea". David Cameron and his family had previously holidayed there in 2006.

One guest who has also stayed at the villa said: "It's an old olive press and olive mill that Jacob Rothschild bought about 25 years ago and which Nat now has. It has been extensively added to over the year, in a very simple way, so that it sleeps about 20. It's stunningly beautiful and understated."

He added: "It all seems incredibly cosy. James Murdoch, Rebekah Wade, Charlie Brooks, Matthew Freud, Elisabeth Murdoch, Cameron and Osborne are all very much at ease with each other. There is a mix of the social and the political. It all seems incredibly close."

No one doubts that it was the Murdochs, father and son, who were behind yesterday's announcement in The Sun, rather than the paper's new editor, Dominic Mohan.

[REST SNIPPED FROM THE ARTICLE]


NOTE from TB: The summer meeting with Murdoch, with the plane trip provided by Matthew Freud, took place days after the McCanns were freed from their status as suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the same time at which Goncalo Amaral published his book, A Verdade da Mentira.

Just weeks after this meeting on Murdoch's yacht, Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns' spokesman, was apppointed as a public relations consultant by Matthew Freud (Sep 2008).

And just 18 months later (Mar 2010), Clarence Mitchell was appointed by David Cameron and Andy Coulson as the Conservative Party's Deputy Director of Communications.

Was the case of Madeleine McCann discussed on that yacht?

Good article.

We see here a glimpse of the real power structure that usurps democracy.

But these people are merely the public interface.

Except for Nat Rothschild of course.

David Cameron is on the rack. His judgement is questioned. He has now been rebuked in very strong terms by the judge. He may end up causing a retrial as a result of his comments yesterday. He has authorised OG fiasco. He is going to look very stupid if Amaral wins the libel case. Unless AR can solve the case. A lame exit with £10m cost and no result will be seen as his fault. Another error of judgement.

Rothschilds own about a third of the world. Or close.

Immune and untouchable.

Powerful people behind the scenes.

DC - puppet. Like the rest.

Go to 4.50

Schofield not interested in who OK'ed the hacking.

An interviewer with an agenda.

He went on to work as a features journalist at the now-defunct [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] between 1994 and 2001, briefly becoming deputy features editor in 2000.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Between 1994 and 2001.

Who was signing headed notepaper at the News of the World in 2001 when Paul McMullan was there?

I wonder why Schofield was so quick off the mark?

Can`t watch that man (PS) - I can feel my blood pressure going up after a couple of seconds.

"We did all these things for our editors, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson. You only have to read Andy Coulson's column in Bizarre.

"It would just be written that poster A had left a message on poster B's phone at two in the morning. 

"It was that blatant and obvious."

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Paul McMullan has been the only one telling the truth even if you disagree with his viewpoint.

I can't see it anywhere.. but surely Paul McMullan was called as a witness in the Brooks trial?

Also he said yesterday live on TV that he has signed documents by his boss authorising him to hack phones (before Philp Schofield shut him up).

BlueBag wrote:I can't see it anywhere.. but surely Paul McMullan was called as a witness in the Brooks trial?

Also he said yesterday live on TV that he has signed documents by his boss authorising him to hack phones (before Philp Schofield shut him up).

Don't know if he was a witness at the trial BlueBag, This is a report and video on the TV program

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]" />
Thank you for this, Candyfloss.

What heinous stories of fraud, sexual violence, violence, surveillance, tapas and dodgy lawyers...

Particularly unflattering picture of Camilla.

PeterMac wrote:A jury is composed of twelve people who weren't intelligent enough to get out of jury duty.

How does one go about getting out of jury duty?   

MrsC wrote:

PeterMac wrote:A jury is composed of twelve people who weren't intelligent enough to get out of jury duty.

How does one go about getting out of jury duty?   

The standard way in the old days of peremptory challenges was to wear a dark suit and carry a copy of the Times or the Telegraph.
More modern ways include saying you are pregnant, are hoping to be pregnant, are a student (Lectures cannot be repeated) are mentally ill
have served in the last 5 years, have an expensive holiday booked, are prejudiced against whatever type of person is in the dock

The possibilities are endless . . . if you are intelligent enough !