Stephen Lawrence

As a non-intellectual, I'm finding this matter totally mesmerising. I just wish to say however, that Bagitha's wise input, makes sense. I shall now drift off and compose a word picture in order to calm myself down...

I agree jingl. Honestly, all of this is taking me over. I was in the middle of a yoga session just now and broke off to come and do a post. I'm going to have to be firm with myself and close my computer down for an hour or two

Yes. Was referring to a couple of posts back.

After all this time, and given the existence of the internet, there is bound to be stuff on both sides which one hopes will not be given credence to. The judge would have been referring to all of it.

The internet could well influence some of the jurors.

Jingl not sure what you mean but if you are referring to my comments on previous page I was quoting what the judge said to the jurors after they were sworn in when he was instructing them on how they should approach the case (you will see I've used quotation marks). I think he meant that some of the rumours which were untrue were against the suspects and shouldn't be taken into account when they were weighing the evidence. It wasn't my own observation.

petallus, there are often horrible rumours put out on the internet which are completely untrue. In this case any rumours out there have been put out by more racist scum.

Of course the judge told the jury to ignore.

I am very happy for the men accused of Stephen Lawrence's murder to have a fair trial and I am confident that, having heard the evdence, the jury will reach the correct decison.
I have no objection to anyone expressing an opinion on any subject, but it is contrary to the etiquette of most forums to post derogatory remarks about another member.
Freedom of speech is not universally applicable as it is governed by respect for the rights of others, as evinced by the laws of slander, incitement to racial hatred, etc.

Well said Bagitha

Hmm. Now we're onto free speech. I don't agree that one shouldn't express an opinion just because it may offend someone's feelings. One shouldn't say things only to cause offence, but sometimes there is no intention to cause offence but offence is still taken. What then? Censorship? If controversial things were never discussed we'd still be in the Dark Ages. Controversial things have to be discussed (confronted) for progress to be made. Think slavery, for instance, or women's suffrage.

I digress. Fair trials for all is what justice is about. Our justice system may not always achieve that because human beings are faulty, but we can at least try. And verdicts of trials must depend on hard evidence rather than emotion.

Well put Greatgran that is why I will continue to keep my own counsel on this and other controversial threads.

Whenever my mother was about to say something hurtful, she would preface it by her mantra 'I am entitled to my opinion', to which I would reply, 'Yes, but you are not necessarily entitled to express it , if it is going to hurt someone's feelings'.

My point, Greatnan is that they wouldn't have someone on a jury in the first place if they thought that person was convinced of the guilt of the accused. But whatever! I agree everyone has a right to their opinion and to express it in any way they think fit.

I would guess that most, if not all members of gransnet are strongly anti-racist and their feelings are, quite rightly, hugely intensified by racism made manifest through murder. For some, there is a release of these powerful emotions by posting comments about this trial – sometimes quite forcefully expressed, sometimes more moderately but with the same degree of disgust and horror. There are others, whose anger, distress and shock about this appalling crime is just as great, who feel that they have nothing to add and who simply await the outcome of the trial – with or without a trust in our legal system – and equally desperately want justice done and some kind of "closure" (for want of a better word) for Stephen Lawrence's poor parents. There is nothing wrong with shouting, as it were, your anger but, equally, there is nothing wrong with quiet fury either.

No, I haven't served on a jury but I don't think that makes me unable to recognise the guilt of these men. We shall see.

Me again! I've become really interested in this case and just did a bit of googling. In the Daily Mail it says that when the judge addressed the jury after they were sworn in he told them to ignore past publicity and approach the case with a clean slate. He said they were not to research the case on the internet because 'much of what is on the internet will, in fact, be completely irrelevant to this trial but, even worse, quite a lot of what is out there is either mistaken, unreliable or consists of unproven rumour' I find that quite reassuring but don't know if many others here will.

Jingl I don't seem to mind bu----s at all oddly I agree with FlicketyB that regardless of how loathsome suspects appear to be, smiling, smirking or whatever, they should still have a fair trial and people should wait untill they are convicted before pronouncing them guilty. Greatnan have you ever served on a jury? I did a fews years ago and we were warned not to be swayed by how the person looked or what we had heard (nice or nasty) but to go solely by the evidence. Not easy!

Of course we all know that innocent people have been convicted, but we are talking about one specific case - perhaps we should revert to this thread once we have the verdict.
I still find it offensive to be told that my genuine rage at the way these men have evaded justice for so long, thanks to police racism and corruption, puts me on their level.

I accept Flickety's right to make her point.

I didn't see the accused men on TV because we don't have one, but if they behaved like racist scum in front of cameras then I think it's fair for them to be called racist scum, whether they are murderers or not. People say don't judge by appearances but by what else are we supposed to make useful judgements about people? Besides, as a social species which picks up the majority of its clues about others from their behaviour and their body language, it simply is how we judge others. There's no point pretending otherwise. And, yes, I do think that knowing a member of a social species which does not benefit from racism is likely to be offensively racist is a useful thing to be able to judge.

The murder issue is separate and I accept flickety's point.

Fair enough Flickety.

Well, I shoudnt be and we dont. In my lifetime there have been so many miscarriages of justice in high profile cases where men and women have been hounded and condemned by the public and media that 'knew' they had done it before the trial 'rightly' convicted them and then years later their lives and families destroyed, the evidence is found that proves their innocence.

Although Colin Stagg was never convicted of Rachel Nickell's murder everybody, including the police, 'knew' he had done it and for 15 years or more he was hounded by the press and reviled by those around him. Every trick and deception going was used to get him to confess to the murder. Years later they found the real killer by which time a psychologically fragile man had had his life completely destroyed.

As far as I am concerned I await the outcome of the trial and will not defend or condemn until it is known.

I know it's deviating from the thread topic, but I do wonder what the evidence was they thought they had against the landlord.

Suppose we shouldn't bring it up though, now we know for sure he wasn't guilty.

But it is interesting.

No FlicketyB (I use your name as a matter of courtesy , perhaps you could extend the same to me), we saw them smirking and gesticulating on television so we were able to reach our own conclusions about what kind of people they are. I find it hard to believe that anyone can cling onto the belief that they might be innocent, and I repeat that they are only presumed innocent.
You do not know me and can have no idea what emotions made me use the phrase 'racist scum' but they certainy were not the emotions driving the villification of Chris Jeffries, in which I took no part.

I wonder who tipped off the media about the police interest in Joanna Yeates' landlord?

Fl

Point taken, flickety. Media bastards! Who'd a thunk it?

You are asking the impossible FlicketyB.

Everyone knows they are guilty.

Bagitha, going back to your posting immediately after my last posting, we go round in circles. The reason I brought up the Yeates case was because I was comparing the emotions behind the Gransnetter who used language like 'racist scum' for the men now on trial for Stephen Lawrence's murder and the same emotions driving the vilification of Chris Jeffries, which can be blamed on the media yes, but they were often reporting what was said of him by other people like us living in the area - and this applies to those now on trial, what we know of them comes from the media. That could be as wrong and as biassed in their case as it was in the case of Chris Jeffries

The real point I am labouring is that in this country people are innocent until proved guilty and this applies as much to the men on trial now as it applied to Chris Jeffries. I think this should be reflected in comments people on Gransnet make about the current case .