The Law is an Ass!

I think one of the worst miscarriages of justice, (and this happens several times a year) is when a parent is accused of hurting or murdering their child because the child may die, and no one can explain how. So that only leaves (in the minds of the authorities) the parents to blame. They must have done something must they not? Sometimes its a simple thing, suchas more than one child of the parent dying of sudden infant death syndrome. One is tragic. Two or more breeds suspicion. A few weeks ago here in England a couple were released while a retrial was arranged, of a couple who were jailed for murdering their son. They were thought to have forced salt down him so that it consequently went onto kill him. However, since their imprisonment, more has come to light suchas the boy had a genetic illness which resulted in his sodium levels raising so high it would kill him. Other cases that come to mind, is where parents have been charged and convicted of shaking their baby so hard its brain bled and it subsequently died. It wasn't found out till after the parents had been tried and convicted the infant had a platelet disorder so the slightest knock, such as the normal rough and tumble any young child has could cause the bleeding without anyone doing anything harmful to it. But the parents were jailed, they not only lost their child, they then had to cope with being the suspects and convicted of being the cause of his death.

I heard of a case a few days ago, where a couple had three children taken away from them by social services, and the children were subsquently adopted. The couple are expecting another child at the moment and they are petrified the same may happen with their unborn child. The children, it is believed since the adoption took place, had brittle bones which would explain their injuries. And these stories are all too common. They happen EVERY week to someone in this country. Yet on the other end of the spectrum, you get parents who are not fit enough to have a pet hamster, and they and their children are never investigated as to how the children are being cared for.

But these cases are making headlines every single week in one form or another. Families are being torn apart and destroyed. To lose a child is a terrible, terrible tragedy that will never quite leave even though life moves on. To then be accused (and at times incarcerated) and labelled by the criminal justice system as being the deliberate cause of their deaths is unthinkable for the degree of suffering and additional hardship to an already heart breaking situation.

The system is failing people, badly. A top lawyer said that going through the legal system is a gamble for how fair it will work out. The guilty are often freed while the innocent are often condemned. And yes, no criminal justice system will never have miscarriages of justice but the amount of per centages our swing towards is horrendously scary. As we may all be sat somewhere today, minding our own business, thinking we will never have any cause of need to be taken through or to seek help from the legal system, but NONE of us knows how our lives could change even before the end of the day, and for the next year or two, the criminal justice system will take over our lives. I don't know what the answers are to this dilemma, but the system is failing people badly. And there but for the grace of God, any of those let down by it, could be you or I. |