Damaging Colston’s Statue

Was a Bristol jury correct when it decided to acquit four defendants of criminally damaging the Colston statue? It is a question I have been asked by so many friends during the last 24 hours.

My initial reaction is to pose two questions of my own: (1) Do you believe in democracy? (2) Do you believe that citizens should be tried by their peers or by government appointed judges?

It seems to me that the answers really hang together. If you believe in democracy, then it is necessary that citizens should be tried by their peers. To paraphrase Lord Devlin, the first task of any dictator would be to abolish trial by jury.

You only have to look at the systems that operate in authoritarian countries. Would we want that here?

To answer the original question posed, I say this. I was not in court. I did not hear the evidence. I do not know on what basis the jury reached its verdict – and neither does anyone else.

All we know is the bits that the lay newsmedia consider to be newsworthy, and their summary of the submissions made by defence counsel.

In my long experience of jury trial in this country, juries make up their own minds.  They don’t necessarily agree with the arguments of either prosecution or defence counsel.  They often stand back and consider the justice of the situation.

This is entire speculation, of course, but it may be that the jury thought it was unfair that four defendants should have been picked out from a large crowd which was hellbent on consigning that statue to the harbour.  It may be, they just weren’t sure. As I say, I don’t know but neither do you, the reader.

In this country, anyone who serves on a jury is not permitted to comment on the goings-on within the jury room. Quite rightly, may I say. We only have to look across the Atlantic at interviews with jurors in the Maxwell case.

So we don’t know and neither should we. The decision was for the jury, and the jury alone, based on the evidence before them.

If we favour the jury system, then we cannot individually decide that this verdict is right and the other is wrong. We cannot cherry pick, as His Honour Nigel Lithman QC writes in his book Nothing like the Truth.

The judge writes this:  “It is the independence of the Jury system that every lawyer and every Judge with even half a belief in justice would not change … There are many citizens who believe that the process is a good one.  Twelve citizens, all independent of each other, come together to hear the evidence.  Within the Jury are people very familiar with the two best friends ‘nitty’ and ‘gritty’.  They bring their own common sense and experience to their task.  They will be true to their oaths, the oath being that they swear or affirm to try the case according to the evidence.”

Sadly, at times like this right wing politicians come out to play. It bothers me that these are people who contribute to making the law for it is quite clear from their utterances that those who have the loudest voices seem to know the least about the law and the criminal justice system.