Confirmation from the Birmingham Sunday Mercury (yes I know it's only Thursday, but they seem to be more on the ball than the Midland's Dailys) of the charges against the Dudley Two.
MEMBERS of the right-wing English Defence League (EDL) who held a rooftop protest in the Black Country were remanded in custody charged with burglary and inciting religious hatred.
Leon Mccreery, 28, of Stockport, and John Shaw, 39, of Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, indicated not guilty pleas before Dudley magistrates yesterday after the Bank Holiday Monday demonstration.
They will appear via video-link at Dudley Magistrates’ Court for a committal hearing on May 10. That will be for committal to the Crown Court for trial by jury and, let us hope, a successful application for bail beforehand. And maybe, as the indictment is being drawn, somebody at the CPS will remember that her senior officers decreed that spraying on a War Memorial "Islam will dominate the world, Osama bin Laden is coming" was political comment not religious hatred and judge the EDL banners accordingly.
Posted on 05/06/2010 7:16 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Comments
6 May 2010
Hugh Fitzgerald
"trial by jury.."
Will a jury of their peers include Muslims? Will a jury in a case involving Muslims necessarily exclude non-Muslims, or necessarily include some Muslims?
Does the jury system of the Anglo-American world still meet the case?
6 May 2010
Esmerelda Weatherwax
There have been a lot of changes to the jury make up since I worked in the Crown Court. Then many of the jurors were unemployed men. Anybody in work couldn't be spared, while men who had been made redundant were glad of something useful to do. Anybody in the legal profession, including officials of the Lord Chancellors Department were ineligible for Jury Service - we case hardened cynics knew too much about the system you see.
Now there is no restriction, even serving Judges have done jury service in the last 3 years. But a good defence lawyer should still have a right of objection and use it if the panel looks weighted.
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