Celebrities and MPs remain impervious to the laws of the land

Another day, another acquittal, another outcry. This time, Nigel Evans has been acquitted. The uproar is that he should never have been charged and that
the way allegations of sexual offences are investigated should be overhauled.

Queues form to get on television and radio to exonerate and support high-profile colleagues and condemn the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Next year, this same crew will suddenly want to become our best friends and ask us to give them our precious vote.

Obviously we, whose daily working lives are conducted in the criminal courts, and all
those who work at the CPS and
in the police service have been missing a fundamental human right that the law has not yet caught up with.

We thought that our criminal justice system, the blend of legislation and common law principles that make it up, had taken account of the facets of human behaviour that constitute criminal offending – as opposed to moral disapproval – along with the explanations, defences and exceptions that absolve us of criminal responsibility in
given circumstances.

For example, we may clobber someone with a brick and fracture their skull, but if we are acting in reasonable self-defence we are not guilty. We are not guilty of rape if we reasonably believed that the complainant was, in fact, consenting. We are not dishonest if we genuinely failed to appreciate that others would have thought that what we had done was dishonest by
the standards of ordinary and decent people.

However, there is one glaring omission to the list that perhaps we should be grateful to all the insightful commentators and distinguished parliamentarians for pointing out. It’s the new ‘code for the investigation of criminal offences for all famous people unless that person is Jimmy Savile’.

Under ‘CFIOCOFAFPUTPIJS’
(or, as it may become known as more affectionately, ‘one rule for us, one rule for the rest’), no famous person apart from Jimmy Savile should be prosecuted
for any allegations of sexual wrongdoing.

This is because there is no difference in the quality of the complaint from someone normal, somewhere normal compared to one under CFIOCOFAFPUTPIJS. For example, a young woman in Bradford versus a young man she met in a club. No problem, it’s her word against his: if it meets the criteria, then prosecute.

Compare this with a complaint from a television studio or a national democratic institution about a celebrity or MP. CFIOCOFAFPUTPIJS will stop the prosecution dead unless there are two or more of the following: a confession, 16 independent, impartial, sober unimpeachably reliable eyewitnesses (more than a handful are needed for a fair trial), and or CCTV footage.
That should do it.

So, harp on, you parliamentary types. You who have been on television complaining and who so happen to be the ones who make the laws of the land. You can do it, so go on.

The fact that there is a general election next year will only encourage you because you know that you are so right that the people will be with you, wouldn’t you say? SJ

Felix is the pen name of a barrister practising in London