One of my son’s friends has always been a bit of a cheeky chappy. He’s not a bad lad but he has pushed the boundaries at school, let’s say. Now that they’ve done their A Levels they’re off out in the local bars where their mates also hang out.
Sometimes, they go a little too far and drink a little too much. But many of us can look back and remember that we also had one or two evenings like that in our youth.
However, late one night the lad in question did have one too many and whilst walking the last part home, stupidly managed to irritate a motorist. The driver was angry and gave chase and the lad tried to hide and call the police for help.
But when the police arrived, they threw him to the floor and arrested him. Believing that he was the victim here, he resisted and gave them some unsavoury verbal including a racially unacceptable word against the Asian arresting officer. Clearly he had managed to make a bad situation much, much worse.
Having been charged on several counts, he went before the magistrate’s court but he was advised to plead not guilty. A year went by and after several court appearances, he ended up in front of the judge. Despite the fact that he is not the criminal type and that he had sincerely apologised to the policeman concerned, who had accepted it, and despite the fact that the prosecution had recommended only a hefty fine, the judge had his own agenda. He decided that a prison sentence was in order. All other charges had been dropped along the way. So it all boiled down to one small but offensive word.
Not criminal damage. Not fraud. Not assault against a frail person. One wrongly chosen word used in anger against a person trying to arrest him by a young man who was drunk.
The judge had a problem though. He wanted to teach this whipper snapper a lesson and put the lad into a prison with real offenders; but he was about to go on holiday.
The judge went against all advice and put the lad under house arrest with a ‘tracker’ on his ankle and a curfew of 9pm-6am. The judge went on his holiday. So after a year of court appearances, police time and the expenses of the tracker and its fitting, a sentence was still not given.
This story illustrates very well how a relatively small misdemeanour or poor choice of action can result in a seemingly inappropriate punishment.
I’m currently researching the advertising guidelines and rules relating to banned words on websites and advertising pamphlets. My findings so far are not pretty and I shall be reporting back to you in due course.
Indeed, this thorny subject is part of the workshop that I’ve been asked to run by the British School of Osteopathy in London on 7 September this year.
The recurring issue, as you all know, is that of evidence based proof that osteopathy is effective. You might agree with me that double-blind trials are a ridiculous notion. It seems to me that the only way to prove that osteopathy makes a difference is to let me ‘treat’ a patient and then you treat the same patient! But that’s just me and my silly common sense!!
I do wonder, however, how prestigious schools of osteopathy and well-regarded public universities can be allowed to teach people to practice osteopathy and even present them with a Masters; or train them specifically in post-graduate in paediatric treatment in an accredited establishment by highly skilled and experienced teachers and then the powers that be say you’re not allowed to tell people exactly what you have been trained to do whilst you were there!
And quite possibly the language used within that training is not allowed to be used in the advertising of those skills. I cannot comprehend such utter nonsense.
It seems to me that in both these cases, the common denominators are evidence and language. Too much in the first case and not enough in the second.
Please do leave your thoughts in the comments box as to how we might tackle this to everyone’s advantage.
