So...you get accused, end up acquited, and have to pick up the legal costs of defence? God help anyone on middle income in this country. Bring back the poor house, stocks and the birch
That's an entirely different situation. If a defendant is going to have a short, simple case (e.g. guilty plea in a Magistrates Court), he can either represent himself or pay for a lawyer out of his own pocket. Costs would be minimal. Little point in going for legal aid in a case like that. In the Nightingale case however, the costs will certainly run into six figures. Sgt Nightingale had the easy option of getting AFCLAA to pay most of the costs, but he chose otherwise so will apparently be left with the whole bill himself. Well, that's his choice.
Different again, Steve. This thread is about a criminal case, so the legal aid aspect is just about criminal legal aid. Civil cases and family cases are a different kettle of fish, and issues about legal aid for them are straying a long way from Danny Nightingale. Nowadays the government is getting more and more reluctant to help pay for private disputes about debts, damages, divorces, etc. with a few limited exceptions.
£15m for just one firm on legal aid gravy train Scale of taxpayers' bill revealed as Coalition vows to save £200m | Mail Online no wonder they are protesting....its just who are they really looking after....
Yet another piece of lazy, inaccurate, thoughtless, misleading journalism from the Mail surprise surprise. What is wrong with a firm being paid £15million for doing £15million worth of work? The government has pushed more and more legal work towards a smaller and smaller number of larger and larger firms - so the resulting large firms are large and do a lot of work - so the government then heaps blame on those firms for being large, and being paid for doing a lot of work. And the Mail parrots a government press release.
the greedy Lawyers!!!possibly followed by the greedy politicians.......and in this case not the mail..........are you disputing the evidence the mail has presented then Pete, are the figures and facts in that report not factual?
You could have made it clearer who exactly you were abusing. And maybe why. I have not troubled to enquire into the accuracy of the figures, because they are wholly irrelevant. Lots of firms are paid various sums of money for doing various things; often they are paid far more than £15million. So what? Why on earth should the government, or the Mail, assert that there is something inherently wrong with somebody being paid £15million for work they have done? There is, in the article, not the slightest indication how much work was done in return for the payments, and no reason to suppose there was any overpayment for anything. "Greedy lawyers" eh? - I don't suppose you would consider supplying even some small shred of rational justification for the sneer, would you?
[QUOTE= Pete1950 335] I have not troubled to enquire into the accuracy of the figures, because they are wholly irrelevant.
Yeah, come on Andy - everyone else thinks they're the most generous and charitable pillars of our communities!
We don't know what the verdict on Danny Nightingale will be next week, guilty or not guilty. But if it turns out to be guilty, an interesting point will then arise on sentencing. Where the Court Martial Appeal Court orders a retrial and then a defendant is convicted again, there is a statute saying that the new sentence can be no more severe than the previous sentence. However this present hearing is not a retrial (although the media often refer to it as one); this is the first and only trial of these charges, so that statutory limitation presumably does not apply. The CMAC declared the guilty plea was a nullity, declared the conviction to be quashed, and ordered a trial. The previous sentence had been reduced by the usual one-third following a guilty plea, but the hypothetical new sentence would have followed a not guilty plea thus would not attract that discount; it follows that the new sentence would be longer. No doubt there would be argument about this, if it arises.
Pete, so if I read that correctly, are you saying that if it all goes pear shaped Mr. Nightingale could get right fucked over?
