A hard-of-hearing, 85-year-old British Navy veteran, Norman Scarth,has been jailed for six months in the UK for using an audio recorder in court. It’s about time court rules were brought into the 21st century, CLA believes. CEO Bill Rowlings, in a letter to the editor of the local newspaper in the UK, highlighted the irony of a Yorkshire sailor being jailed for using ‘cutting edge’ technology and trying to explore boundaries.
To the Editor, Yorkshire Post, UK:
One must heap praise on Judge Jonathan Rose, the man who sentenced the 85-year-old Norman Scarth to six months in prison for recording in a court room at Bradford.
This Rose of Yorkshire has pre-empted future digital device licentiousness by scores of aged war heroes lurking in court corridors to thwart the long-standing judicial rules which keep the law unimpeachable and its deliberations quiet, unheard and quite mysterious.
Scarth is a sailor, like the scurvy Jimmy Cook who hailed from similar parts about 200 years ago. Cook was precisely of the same ilk, just the type to have used an audio recorder if one had been available back then.
If only a judge of Rose’s conviction was in place in the late-1700s to stop Cook. History shows how much damage one sailor can do if he is allowed to use modern technology to probe at the boundaries of ignorance.
Congratulations Judge Rose, you are man before your time.
Bill Rowlings, CEO, Civil Liberties Australia
http://yorkshirenews.blogspot.com/2011/08/shock-at-harsh-sentence-on-85-year-old.html
http://justicefornormanscarth.wordpress.com/
Thanks so much for the show of support for Norman Scarth. Though I live on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada,I was born in Bournemouth on the south coast of England. I lost a grandfather to the same (naval) tours as Norman, in the Russian/Arctic convoys of WWII.
I can see the ghosts in Norman’s eyes… He woke-up, at 70 years old, to a frightening reminder of his younger days, the spectre of dark clouds forming over 1930s Germany. Norman, because of his age & wisdom, can see the same dark clouds forming again. This time its in the land he fought with great courage to defend.
Because he knows no other way than to do the right thing, he`s at odds with the same system that in the past he`d sworn to protect. He`s obviously touched a nerve, judging by the reptilian response of the “power & the glory” of the established order. The subsequent thuggery of this “gargoyle” in black robes, who sits behind his vaulted bench, with gavel & fascia gripped in cold talons, like some bizarre imperial eagle, is “arrogance & arrogate” personified.
It has been said that the true measure of any society is by how we treat our most vulnerable & disadvantaged. The judge’s credo of ruling with a rod of iron & no mercy shown anyone who does not do exactly as they`re told “parrots” his dismissive “Masters” from years of groveling at their feet. This very same psychopathy & narcissism is running rampant through the elite hierarchies reflected in the way they treat the “sub-humans” today…Us!
Norman stands as a beacon of courage in the spirit of all his Brothers in Arms that gave their lives for our freedom that is so egregiously being eroded by those usurping, in the ‘shadows’, behind their “talking-heads”. There`s a part of each of “Us” in Norman, thanks so much for stepping up & doing what`s right…
Alex, British Columbia, Canada=