I’m in court as an observer today.

The first case features a moped rider using a cycle path ( though that doesn’t have seem to have been proven really) and then whether that person has committed an offence.
The woman who admitted to being the rider of the moped ( that belonged to someone else ) then ( a week later ) said it wasn’t her riding it in the first place…
Having checked the legal status. it seems to be the case that if there was no one else on the cycle path that was inconvenienced, then there was no offence committed, so there was no driving crime.
But… the other part became about driving without insurance, as the lady who had at first said she WAS the rider, who then said she wasn’t, was not insured to be on that moped.
So it became all about proving the identity of the rider, and the video footage provided only showed the rider from behind. To be fair, the rider looked more like a large fella than a 6 stone woman, but hey maybe she had padded clothes on… fit for surviving a crash while riding up a pavement/ cycle path…
The woman accused didn’t have her glasses with her today so she couldn’t read any evidence ( seriously, you forget your glasses when appearing in court? ) and protested her innocence, saying that she had mistakenly filled in a long form admitting to have ridden that particular motorcycle on that particular day, in that particular place ( like you do ). Her defence was that she had just been reunited with the mother that she had never actually known ( having been separated at birth ) who now had dementia, and couldn’t actually remember having had her in the first place…?! That was, she said, very stressful and there were lots of forms to fill in, with the one about admitting to a driving offence that she hadn’t committed being filled in by mistake amongst all the other forms…. well that’s how she described it, anyway.

There was footage, as I said. It showed what seemed to be someone else, and the magistrates ruled not guilty, understandably. That she was in the habit of riding motorcycles that she obviously wasn’t insured for didn’t seem to be significant , since that wasn’t the offence being tried today. It’s a bit daft, isn’t it, that she’s let off one offence despite admitting to others in a courtroom, and then goes home ‘ unpunished ‘?
I doubt it was her on that given video, but I’m also pretty sure she is in the habit of breaking the law by riding a motorcycle without insurance, but there is no absolute proof of that…
So… if you are minding your own business on a cycle path near Feltham, West London, and you hear a moped riding up behind you, be sure to avoid getting knocked over by it, as the rider probably isn’t insured to cover the repercussions of the injuries you will sustain in the collision, but only if it’s a small lady dressed like a much bigger man.

Remember where you heard that advice first.

Next up was about a gay tiff, where the accused had broken an IKEA chest of drawers, by pulling out the said drawers, with the main structure then collapsing. Also he damaged the glass in a picture frame and sprayed shaving foam over his ( now ex ) boyfriend’s clothes. Then he sent some texts, saying he was ‘ a storm about to break’ , and ‘ the target is you’, as well as texting the ex’s mum to say her son was a drug addict ( although he actually wasn’t ) and threatening to tell his ex’s new girlfriend (!) that he had been sleeping with a man for 24 years…
The accused disputed the £1500 value put on the damaged items, saying they were worth £250, and had been upset because he had been to a funeral recently and thought the other guy might have custody of the ‘ gay dog’ that they shared if they broke up……. well that obviously justifies his actions then.

The defence lawyer was amazingly inarticulate, mumbling her way through his defence, and mispronouncing words. It’s a first to hear ‘ ridiculing ‘ pronounced as ‘ridic- you- ling’ for example. I could see from her large print notes that she should have been wearing glasses, but opted instead to have 20 words per page of large print. What is it about court and glasses ( notes the optometrist in situ ) ?

If you get your hair done by a gay, middle aged hairdresser ( ahhh that’s most of you then ) watch out for his temper tantrums, and keep him away from your Swedish self assembly furniture, in case it’s this meek looking chap in the dock today, is my advice.

The overheads incurred in running a court must be WAY more in value than the ‘ costs’ being disputed, if today’s snapshot is anything to go by, but obviously a legal system has to exist and run.
I’m going to look into becoming a magistrate. It looks pretty easy to be honest. The clerk of court makes sure it’s all legal and the Mag’s just ask a few questions along the way.

And it’s all VERY amusing!