Law

Retired US financier Howard Rubin was arrested Friday on sex-trafficking charges for allegedly trafficking dozens of women, including former Playboy models, to be sexually and physically assaulted during encounters in his New York City penthouse in a soundproofed room described in court papers as “The Dungeon”.

The actual accusations are women hired for slap and tickle – commercial sex – got more slap than desired or paid for.

Essentially.

Oh well. Beating up a whore is beating a woman up. Unless there’s specific agreement that you may beat her up of course. So, arguable case at least and why not charge?

Prosecutors said Rubin and Powers were sued for civil sex trafficking in November 2017, but a jury found at trial that they were not liable. The case has been appealed.

Ah, second bite at cherry. Tsk.

Donald Trump said on Friday that he expected more people whom he considers his political enemies to face criminal charges, a day after the justice department indicted former FBI director James Comey and faced a torrent of criticism for enacting the president’s campaign of retribution.

So that’s one way of telling the story.

Trump’s blunt remarks underscored the perilous moment for his political adversaries, given that the justice department pressed ahead with criminal charges against Comey, even though it was widely seen – inside and outside the administration – to be a weak case.

The indictment against Comey, filed in federal district court on Thursday in Alexandria, Virginia, alleged that he misled lawmakers in September 2020 when he stood by his previous testimony to Congress claiming he had never authorized anyone at the FBI to leak to reporters.

But what if he did lie to Congress? He should get away with it? Or not?

And, erm, isn’t in court where this is all supposed to be decided?

James Comey, the former FBI director and one of Donald Trump’s most frequent targets, was indicted on Thursday on one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding, the latest move in the president’s retribution campaign against his political adversaries.

The indictment, filed in federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia, shows Comey’s charges centred on whether he lied and misled lawmakers during testimony in September 2020 about the Russia investigation.

Obviously, there’s a danger in prosecuting your predecessor. At some point someone’s going to say bugger that and they’ll not allow a successor to take office to prosecute them.

On the other hand this goes back to the Steel dossier, piss tape and Russia running intereference for Trump, right? And someone simply does have to get prosecuted for that shit. For that too is all political games well beyond what we want in anything like a democracy.

So, well, maybe then, eh?

Tulip Siddiq has held a Bangladeshi passport and national identity card, documents seen by The Times appear to show, directly contradicting her previous claims.

Officials in Dhaka have uncovered records of a passport issued in London in September 2001 when Siddiq was 19 and a national identity card issued in January 2011 belonging to the Labour MP. Copies of the documents were shared with The Times and Prothom Alo, a prominent Bangladeshi newspaper.

Just to be fair:

When presented with copies of the documents, a spokesman for Siddiq claimed that they were “fabricated” and part of a “politically motivated smear campaign” by Bangladeshi authorities.

“This is a deliberate and desperate attempt to undermine her credibility and reputation,” he said.

Ho Hum.

Main suspect in Madeleine McCann case due to be released from German prison
Authorities say they no longer have legal justification to hold Christian Brückner in jail after serving rape sentence

He’s done his time for what he’s been convicted of. So, he goes free.

This is not a wholly complicated concept.

And lawyers should know better than anyone that there is nothing more powerful than the truth.

We have an adversary legal system. There is no investigatory magistrate impartially searching for the truth. There are two hugely biased advocates seeing who they can persuade by arguing their client’s case.

If you think being a barrister is about the truth then perhaps another career might suit better?

There’s little doubt that picking a fight with 4chan isn’t for the faint-hearted – with members of the anonymous community having already waged war on high-profile targets such as the Church of Scientology, Hillary Clinton, and Shia LaBeouf.
So when Ofcom, the communications regulator tasked with enforcing Britain’s new online safety laws, launched an investigation into the website earlier this year, officials might have known what the response might have been.
This week, 4chan and Kiwifarms, another US website famous for harassment campaigns, filed a lawsuit against Ofcom in the US courts over claims that the regulator is seeking to illegally censor Americans’ free speech.

Well, OK.

“The UK Parliament would like to reverse that. And that’s, that’s, that’s not going to fly in the US.”
An Ofcom spokesman said: “We are aware of this lawsuit. Under the Online Safety Act, any service that has links with the UK now has duties to protect UK users, no matter where in the world it is based. The Act does not, however, require them to protect users based anywhere else in the world.”

Everything on the internet is governed by the laws of “where it is read”. Just sa with hte basics of libel law. You can say whatever you like in the US, sure. But the arrival of just the one copy of a US book into England then brings that book under the libel laws of England.

Sure, sure, Americans can say what they like – in America.

Now, this Online Safety etc law, bloody stupid etc. But Ofcom is actually correct in the legal sense. What gets “read” in England is subject to English law.

For the lawsuit against BHP, the high cost of litigation has resulted in financial pressures for Pogust Goodhead. Its 2022 annual accounts posted losses of £290m and auditors reported “material uncertainty regarding an ongoing concern”.

Ambulance chasing lawyers might go bust? Be still my beating heart.

Demanding solicitors’ exams are “discriminatory” and risk leading to a “lack of diversity” across the industry, lawyers have warned.

A petition signed by hundreds of trainee lawyers has called for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) to be made easier over concerns the tests are “disproportionately challenging” and favour “certain backgrounds and learning styles”.

In an appeal to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), the lawyers said that low pass rates among ethnic minority candidates “will undoubtedly lead to a lack of diversity within the profession”.

Stupid poeple must become lawyers too.

Anyway, not to worry. Not that it’s a female entry dominated profession it’s on the skids anyaway…..

River Island faces collapse within weeks unless landlords and creditors approve a radical rescue plan, The Telegraph can reveal.

The retailer has put forward a proposal to hand the keys back on 33 stores, slash the rents on a further 71 shops and write off a series of debts to stave off a severe liquidity crisis.

That’s what you’ve got to do in order to be able to gain lower rents.

The rescue plan would allow River Island to walk away from a slew of debts, including tens of millions of pounds in outstanding rents to landlords.

Of the stores that aren’t being closed, the company is proposing three-year rent cuts of between 75pc and 25pc. The owners of 24 stores are being asked to accept zero rental payments.

Landlords affected by the restructuring include British Land, the Crown Estate and Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group. All declined to comment.

As I’ve said, ad infinitum, most commercial leases are upwards only at rent review time. Without that clause the landlords would be taking more of the pain sooner.

Wikipedia could be forced to limit access in the UK unless crucial elements of Britain’s online safety rules are changed, the High Court has been told.

Lawyers for the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation which helps run the online encyclopaedia, warned it could be required to introduce a “quota-based” system for UK visitors if it is classified as a “category one” service under the Online Safety Act.

Services falling under this designation are subject to the strictest duties under the digital laws, which are intended to stop children accessing harmful online material and prevent the spread of illegal posts.

To stay outside the scope of the regulation, Wikipedia could cap visitor numbers from the UK so it does not qualify as a “category one” site, which are defined as those with seven million users. This would make it harder for British users to access the site when they wanted.

We’re to be made safer by not being allowed to visit popular sites. Isn’t that well done of our rulers?

The UN has opened the door to Britain being sued over its historic contribution to climate change.

In a significant legal opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said failure by countries to meet their climate obligations could, in specific cases, allow other states affected by climate change to sue them.

It also cleared the way for lawsuits over historic emissions, which could leave the UK, the birthplace of the industrial revolution, at risk of legal action from other nations.

Every grifter and their Granny will now be lining up to sue us. So, leave the system.

Fuck off.

Five gang members, including an illegal immigrant who should have been deported nine years ago, have been convicted of murdering two people during the filming of a drill rap video.

Leonardo Reid, 15, and Klevi Shekaj, 23, died after they were mistaken for rival gang members at a gathering of 40 people in Elthorne Road, Islington, north London, on June 29 2023.

Lorik Lupqi, 21, Jason Furtado, 28, Abel Chunda, 29, Xavier Poponne, 22, and Eden Clark, 31, were convicted of double murder on Wednesday following a 15-week trial at the Old Bailey.

Lupqi, a Kosovan, and Furtado, a Portuguese national, were both on tags at the time of the killings.

Furtado, born to Angolan parents, had a lengthy criminal record and the Home Office had first tried to deport him nine years ago.

He launched at least two appeals against his deportation despite committing serious offences in the lead up to the murders.

Who paid his legal bills? More importantly, who received his legal bills, who got paid? And can we, should we, go after them?

Yes, yes, I know everyone deserves a defence and so on. But stipping a bit of this anonymity away from the guzzlers at the feed trough would still be fun and useful, no?

Nearly half of all convictions in England and Wales are being decided in secret by a single magistrate without the defendant appearing in court or having any legal representation, a new report has revealed.

Out of a total of 1.5 million convictions handed down last year, some 772,580 were issued by magistrates behind closed doors under a system designed to speed up justice and clear the backlog of cases left by the pandemic.

In the name of efficiency, obviously.

What, then, does Unite, and by extension other major union backers, want from Ms Rayner?

On the most basic level, Unite wants the Government to force Labour-run Birmingham city council to reverse cuts to the pay of refuse workers, who have been on strike since March.

But the higher pay is illegal.

Because of the idiot law that says that the teaching assistants do “work of equal value” to the binmen. Therefore they must be paid an equal amount.

That is, Brum finds itself forced to pay dinner ladies and teaching assistants the same as binmen – pay differences necessary to get the jobs done are illegal.

Kill that mistake and there would be no dispute. So, why do I seem to be the only person in the country shouting that we must kill that mistake?

Emmanuel Macron is pressuring Sir Keir Starmer to recognise Palestine as a state.

1) What are the borders?

2) Who is to be recognised as the de jure government?

I suppose if we recognise Hamas then we get to try them at the International Court of whatever for going to war and so we can hang them. But would that actually happen?

Sir Keir Starmer has been warned by Lord Hermer that UK involvement in a US attack on Iran could be illegal.

Advice ascribed to the Attorney General is understood to have said that Britain must limit its involvement to protecting its allies from attack.

A one way ticket to Tehran even?

OK, so they’re going to have a national inquiry now. But the important thing is the terms of the inquiry. And, obviously, the vigour with which it is pursued. You could, if you actually went at it, have something done by Christmas. They won’t, of course.

But what is the initial question being asked? What powers of evidence? And, of course, how formidable the person running it?

Sir Brian is also expected to recommend that the public should be spared jury service if a case is going to last more than 12 months because of the “unfairness” of it taking a year out of their lives and livelihoods. Instead, such cases would be heard by a judge without a jury.

So anything complicated doesn’t get a jury then. Railroad time!

Of course, this is lawyers so they’re being lying, sneaky, duplicitous little bastards.

He suggested one type of case judge-only trials could be where there was significant “public opprobrium” over the case such as sexual or sadistic violence and could sway the jury

It’s all about having the rape trials heard by judges suitably prepared by feminist indoctriniation. None of that basic societal “But that’s not rape!” is to be allowed.

A church sacked an accountant after she was discriminated against for not being Catholic, a tribunal has found.

University of Cambridge-educated Janet Parker argued with her female boss after she asked for leave to care for her newly adopted daughter.

When the 55-year-old’s request for flexible working was refused, she complained, observing that “the Catholic Church does not have a blemish-free history when it comes to adopted children or children in care”.

Ms Parker was then subjected to a “witch hunt” investigation for alleged professional negligence, which led to her dismissal from her £60,000-a-year role.

She has now won claims against Clifton Diocese after a tribunal ruled it discriminated against her, harassed her and then unfairly sacked her because she was not religious.

Ms Parker, who later told a reporter that she was an atheist, claimed the diocese’s approach to her flexible working request was “tainted by negative views of adoption, emanating from the religious beliefs of its staff”.

And she’s won and getting compo. I assume because the court is packed with idiots.

The Catholic Church has a negative view of adoption, does it?

Sheesh.