Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

This is certainly novel. A judge halts a trial because the witness is "too believable". Mind you, the headlines on these sorts of things normally belie the full story. The judge sits through the whole case and if he thought a "three second" glimpse of the robber was insufficient to ensure a safe conviction, then that is his judgment. He is paid to exercise his judgment. It would be interesting to know what the process is to scrutinise the judge's judgment. I doubt there is such a process.

A driving instructor who was punched and robbed as she was giving a lesson was left furious and disappointed after a judge told her she was “too believable” to testify against her alleged attacker.
Instead, the judge awarded Denise Dawson £250 from public funds and acquitted the man accused of the robbery.
Judge James Tabor, QC, told the 35-year-old mother of two that she was “honest, utterly decent and brave” but her “impressive” performance in the witness box could sway the jury unfairly.
The case against Liam Perks collapsed because the judge felt that Mrs Dawson’s “three-second” glimpse of the robber was insufficient to ensure a safe conviction.

"The Tories helped kill Gary Newlove"

There is nothing more certain to drive me up the wall than the writings or the image of Peter Hitchens.

I am the first one to put the boot into the Tories, but in his Mail on Sunday today he appears to have finally flipped his lid under the title "The Tories helped kill Gary Newlove":

They had helped pass the laws that stopped police policing and judges judging. They killed Garry Newlove, in my view, as surely as the morons who actually did the kicking.

Typically, Hitchens makes a wistful reference to dictatorships:

At least in dictatorships the scum are scared of the police, whereas here it's the other way round.

Let things carry on like this much longer, and millions will be longing for a dictatorship if it at least means they can get some peace in their homes. This is a genuine danger.

They should keep a strait-jacket near Peter Hitchens at all times. For that matter, keep two - one for his brother as well (albeit in America).

I'd love to know where Peter Hitchens lives. It's surely not the kind of place which he describes as commonplace in Britain today:

After a week or two of public breast-beating, we will begin to forget about it, and the people who are in charge of this country will carry on turning it into Hell.

Hell tends to appear in the midst of societies which don't believe that Hell exists. The fate of ever-expanding numbers of people, trapped in their own homes at nightfall as the whooping, loping ferals come out and play, is Hell.

It is a life of fear, anxiety, sleeplessness, torture, loss and danger - with no prospect of help coming, ever.

You can't blame one tragic crime on a political party. It's nuts.

Let's all calm down a bit, shall we?