In article ,
"BAC" writes:
|
| Perhaps so, but in the example you quoted, unless the onus of proof were
| reversed, it seems unlikely that any malicious jack-in-office would have
| sufficient evidence to have a realistic chance of a conviction.

Grrk. Maybe. But a lot of people HAVE been convicted on less evidence
recently, because they fell foul of the letter of a catch-all law. If
he ****es off the Men From The Ministry, he is likely to **** off the
police and magistrates, and get convicted.

That is what happened to the person who had his career destroyed because
he did a quick check to see if he had been trapped into using a Web-
based card number collector.

| In the extremely unlikely event he would be prosecuted/convicted in the
| first place. If/when challenged over his actions, he responds, my actions
| were authorised by the 'authorised person'. The 'authorised person' confirms
| that was the case. No prosecution ensues, and if it does, the accused is
| surely aquitted.

Fine. IF he realises is what is going on. What if they say to him:
Were you told to remove the nest after we killed the bird.
And he says:
No, but I am tidying up the mess you have made.

| It's also embarassing and dangerous to reputation of jacks in office to be
| seen to bring malicious prosecutions.

Only if their superiors get annoyed with them. A hell of a lot of the
artificial cases have been backed by their superiors - did you hear of
the woman fined 70 (?) quid for throwing a Cheerio onto a grass verge?

| It may well happen, but I doubt it would in the circumstances you described,
| because AFAIK, there is no requirement for the 'authorised person' to
| authorise people to act on his behalf in writing or in public. Hence a
| copper bottomed defence (prior verbal authorisation) is almost certainly
| available, and prosecution would therefore seem very unlikely.

Oh, yes, unless he had already annoyed them by not being sufficiently
obsequious, and they trapped him by a conversation like the above.

| Jack in office would probably find a different charge with which to torment
| his opponenet, e.g. cruelty in not disposing of chicks in nest in an
| appropriately humane manner, or taking eggs with the intention to trade in
| them.

True. But my point never was that this particular law was going to
lead to a stream of malicious convictions, so much as correcting
Malcolm Ogilvie's false claims.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.