Doubtful Reasonability

The trial of a policeman over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man has ended in collapse rather than acquittal, because the Crown Prosecution Service decided that "secret evidence" is best confined to those trials which concern national security or militant Muslimity. The man on trial was not the one who pulled the trigger, because the CPS had previously decided that, like undercover agents provocateurs or militant Muslims, the killer probably thought he was acting for the best. Those responsible for instilling that unfortunate delusion in an armed policeman have doubtless been promoted, in order to fill the succession of gaps left by the meteotic post-Menezes rise of Cressida Dick. Instead, the CPS chose to prosecute the chief constable of Greater Manchester police: not in his own person but as a corporate representative, and not for corporate manslaughter but for breaking health and safety rules. Having begin the prosecution, the CPS then declined to see it through because the judge had the temerity to demand that evidence be disclosed in open court. Although the trial has provided a reassuring test case for G4S and other corporate citizens wishing to become the entrepreneurial face of law enforcement, the local police and crime commissioner will be raising the matter with the mad old cat lady at the Home Office, who will doubtless regard it as one more stormtrooper in her cadre of excuses to abolish health and safety rules.