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Ritchie doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about

Yeah, I know, big surprise:

Helen Heenan says:
August 22 2016 at 8:29 pm
“I think it absolutely wrong that magistrates are unpaid.”

There are about 30.000 of us out there in the country that find the system works well on a voluntary basis. It’s rare to hear anyone criticising a volunteer lay magistracy. If you think we are still the great and the good, and ladies who lunch, and that we are unrepresentative of the general public, I would have to disagree. I’d be interested in your objections.

Reply
Richard Murphy says:
August 22 2016 at 9:45 pm
I believe people will be excluded by the rule

Many self employed, for example

And that’s not reasonable

Reality:

Approximately 30,000 magistrates serve the community voluntarily and they are not paid for their work in the courts. However they are entitled to some allowances such as travel, subsistence and financial loss, which is limited to a specific amount. The amount that may be claimed by justices for financial loss allowance is subject to an upper limit which varies depending on whether they are employed or self employed, the current maximum payable for sittings exceeding four hours is £116.58 for self-employed justices and £93.27 for other justices.

Now I realise that £15 to £20 an hour won’t sound like much to someone living off tax free research grants. But a really rather large number of people think that’s a very fair addition to the joy of being able to serve the community. Like, you know, the 30,000 people who do it?

19 thoughts on “Ritchie doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about”

  1. ” Now I realise that £15 to £20 an hour won’t sound like much to someone living off tax free research grants.”

    And thank heavens it isn’t more. The money grabbing scrote would want his entitlement. And the idea of that cnut sitting in judgement on his inferiors doesn’t bear thinking about.

  2. There are many tens of thousands of people in other positions who also volunteer.
    Because they believe they can give something to society or a section of society by their actions and time.

    It works.

    We have magistrates who presumably do a good job and help our justice system run.
    Why change what isn’t broken?

  3. Bloke in North Dorset

    “I believe people will be excluded by the rule”

    Another evidence free assertion taken as fact.

    There’s a lot of people do a lot of serious thinking about how our criminal justice system works and he just waltzes in and declares himself an instant expert.

  4. “There’s a lot of people do a lot of serious thinking about how our criminal justice system works and he just waltzes in and declares himself an instant expert.”

    An instaspurt… heh…

  5. Sounds like he wants to be one but wants more cash too. Anyone told him he won’t get to hand down death penalties?

  6. I have been wondering, does Mr Murphy actually exist or is he just a fiction in the manner of Henry Root as a symbol of the opinion heavy and evidence free commentariat that has evolved from social media and the blogsphere? Come on Tim, you can admit it, YOU are Richard Murphy, you write the unsubstantiated inanities on one blog and then neatly take them apart on another to better educate us, don’t you? Don’t you??

  7. Sadly my powers of satire just aren’t that great. I just don’t know how to misunderstand so many different things.

  8. @Mark T – there was a parody blog called “Murphy Richards”. The chap behind it gave up cos the reality was funnier than the parody.

  9. Abacab, he gave up because “Dachau” Murphy complained to his employers. And then the preening obese narcissist blogged about it

  10. Abacab, he gave up because “Dachau” Murphy complained to his employers. And then the preening obese narcissist blogged about it

    That was Christie Malry of fcablog. Unless the LHTD has done it more than once?

  11. Plenty of lay magistrates are quite awful.

    One example from my own experience, at Ealing MC: the prosecutor stood up to ‘open’ the case for trial – ie, tell the Bench what it was all about.

    Do you know what one of the ‘justices’ did? As soon as she heard the offence described, and remember, this is before any evidence has been called, she picked up a copy of the relevant sentencing guidelines and started looking at what she could give the defendant in the, er, event of a conviction.

  12. Aww. Poor iccul dumpling isn’t even powerful enough to tell scrotey youths to scrub graffiti as punishment for pissing in shop doorways.

    But he really really REALLY wishes he was.

  13. @BiW

    Yes it was the Christie Malry blog that Murphy got shut down. The Murphy Richards blog just gave up trying to lampoon Murphy as no matter what was put on that site it wasn’t as stupid and illogical as the stuff Murphy spouts anyway.

  14. Getting paid is the start of getting state controlled. Working for free means independence .
    Hence they are doing away with motherhood which is free and installing childcare which is paid.

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