"Internet e-mail is not a secure medium. Any reply to this message could be intercepted and read by someone else. Please bear that in mind when deciding whether to send material in response to this message by e-mail."
Are they afraid that "someone else" may find this reply to be bollocks too

"This e-mail (whether you are the sender or the recipient) may be monitored, recorded and retained by the Department For Constitutional Affairs. E-mail monitoring / blocking software may be used, and e-mail content may be read at any time. You have a responsibility to ensure laws are not broken when composing or forwarding e-mails and their contents.!"

Which laws ?

looks like you will be dumped in the junk mail box from now on Alun!.

nevertheless I decided to respond thus:

Dear Mr Hichfelder,

Many thanks for your reply in which you state that His Honour has just as much right to freedom of speech as anyone else.

I would like to make the following points:

1) IF I were to say "His Honour in uneducated in cannabis and a fool for giving such an opinion in an open court" - could I face the charge of "contempt"?

2) IF I were the defendant and decided to challenge his Honour's statement in Court - would I probably not be told to "shut up"?

3) His Honour referred to "those whose minds are steeped in cannabis", according the The Telegraph report, not the individual up for sentencing - that comment from a legal "authority" would obviously sound as if it was meant for others than those in Court on that day; the comment, and similar, when given by judges, are likely to be printed and have may be read and believed by many people.

4) The comment suggesting that people high on cannabis are capable of committing crimes such as in this case, is factually incorrect, unscientific, bias and abusive to millions of cannabis users in the UK and hundreds of millions world-wide, who, apart from their use of cannabis, seem to commit no other crimes.

I respectfully request that his Honour be asked to retract this statement

Many thanks

Your sincerely

Alun Buffry

Statement such as this,used by any judge, alienates the young informed public from the law!!!

I like the letter Alun, and hope you get a possitive responce.

winstone

Hope you get a better response than I did.

Wow - got a response within a couple of hours: not exactly positive but it appears we can call the judeg an R-sole openly outside of the court room - ?? Maybe I'll see if the Telegrapg want the story again.

in para 1 he says I would not be guilty of contempt for saying "His Honour is uneducated in cannabis and a fool for giving such an opinion in an open court". Previously I have been led to believe by a barrister that one can be prosecuted for saying that sort of thing about judges or even barristers almost anywhere as contempt of court. this is the reply from the Judicial Correspondence Unit.
===
Thank you for your further comments, which I shall answer as best I can.

1) Describing the Judge in the terms stated would not constitute a contempt of court, unless you were to make these comments in court (in which instance it would be a matter for the Judge to decide whether this represented contempt). You are otherwise free to express your opinions, as indeed you have done.

2) It would be open to you, as the defendant in court, to challenge any statement made by the Judge, provided you did so at a time when you "had the floor", for instance, in the course of giving evidence. It would be inappropriate, on the other hand, to interrupt the Judge when, say, he was giving his judgment.

3) I can only note what you say, namely, the suggestion that Judge Niblett might have intended his comments about "those whose minds are steeped in cannabis" for a wider audience. To put it the other way around, a Judge may not be prevented from expressing opinions pertinent to a case and to his judgment in that case, for fear that they might be reported in the media.

4) Again, I can only note what you say, namely, that the Judge's comment that people high on cannabis are capable of committing crimes is factually incorrect. You have already made it clear that this is not your view and you are, of course, entitled to this opinion and to express it.

I regret that we cannot ask the Judge to retract the statement for the reasons set out here and in our earlier letter.

so you are free to tell the judge he is a complete bafoon, and that his gross ignorance has led him to make an arse of himself in the safe knowledge that after youuve said this the same man will pass sentance. Free to say whatever you want as long as u dont mind a lengthy sentance. Free to say whatever they want you to say more like

he blatently think that what he says is true, how can someone who belives that cannabis causes criminality be allowed to judge on a case where cannabis is involved, if i thought taht black peole were all criminals id make a shit judge where race was concerned and wouldnt be allowed to judge, PREJUDICE IN A JUDGE IS ALLOWED?!?!?!? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!!!! !! ! !

In other words you are only allowed to express any view when we say so, even if the comments upon which you wish to express a view are made after we've said you're not allowed to speak any more. No point arguing with them, the entire legal system is a fucking shambles and they know it as well as we do, it's got fuck all to do with justice and never did. Contempt of court ? it's beneath fucking contempt, the whole rotten system.

A few years ago, about 1996 I think, I sat through a trial where the defendant was trying to tell the jury that they could say "not guilty" if they disagreed with the law (he was led by the FCDAE - until they dropped him and refused to help him any more - later I found out that it is the "application" of the law that jury can judge, not the law itself) -- but I digress

Point is, he kept trying to say things and was continually told by the judge that "now is not the time" until it suddenly became "you should have said that before, it's too late now". In that way, the truth, the whole truth, was kept from the jury and they came back with guilty.

So you are quite right Boojum, it is a shambles and pretty well tied up. They protect their own, these people like judges who can spout crap and get printed in the national press and theirs seemingly nothing anybody can do about it. They investigate themselves. Doesn't matter that he's insulted millions of users out of his own ignorance.

Alun

I sent this to Teleghraph although I don't have high hopes of it being printed
dtletters@telegraph.co.uk

Sirs,

In your story "Cannabis smoking leads to criminality, judge tells arsonist" (7 October), you reported that Judge Anthony Niblett told an arsonist who had set fire to his former girlfriend's house while under the influence of the cannabis: "Those whose minds are steeped in cannabis are capable of quite extraordinary criminality.""

This is indeed worrying considering that at least 4 million people in the UK have had their minds steeped in cannabis recently, according to Government figures.

Are we to expect a surge in criminality - apart from the use of the illegal plant itself?

Or could His Honour have been misled by some of the popular scare-mongering press. Truth is, Your Honour, the vast majority of cannabis users do not engage in criminal activity at all, aside from their use of the plant?

Alun Buffry
Legalise Cannabis Alliance
PO Box 198
Norwich
NR3 3WB

They get away with this because Tesco's don't sell rocket launchers. If they did there wouldn't be a court left standing in the U.K after some of these judgements.

We have Human Right to do exactly what we are told.