and at a Magistrates’ court you get a high quality judicial process
Most of the old geezers are probably immunized by now
Indeed; once America gets organised, they get on with it. 87M so far. That’s really impressive, given how much protection a single dose gives you.
kwlf wrote:
If you went from Penzance to buy a Mars bar in Inverness you could make a strong argument that the real purpose of the journey was not to buy food, because you could buy an exact equivalent much closer to home.If one travelled a long distance just for a sandwich, that had better be an extraordinary sandwich.
The prosecution doesn’t just need to make a strong argument, it needs to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. That’s a high bar, and a good defence barrister will drive a coach and horses through their arguments. The coronavirus restrictions are law made on the hoof and are quite vague, perhaps deliberately so. If the prosecutions starts talking about the ‘real purpose’ of the journey then the defence barrister is just going to ask them where this stuff about ‘real purpose’, or indeed a requirement to buy a Mars bar from the closest available source, appears in the legislation – because of course it doesn’t.
Airborne_Again wrote:
And who decides whether it is proved beyond resonable doubt if not the judge? (Unless you have a jury trial.) Anyway, isn’t a basic principle of common law systems that courts can create new law by their decisions in individual cases?
Yes and no. As @Cobalt notes lower courts don’t set precedent, and further a judge in a higher court will reference the arguments made in his/her ruling – they do not just decide what they want regardless of the arguments. When precedent is set it’s general principles in the interpretation of law (e.g. the one cited in the earlier case about not having a statutory duty to assist the police) rather than technical details or limitations in narrow areas of law (e.g. good reasons for being away from home under coronavirus restrictions excludes helicopters and one is limited to a 15 mile radius for Mars bars) – they don’t do the latter. In any case precedent does not per se become law, it becomes precedent which prosecution/defence/judges in future cases may refer to.
Anyway, be interesting to see if anything comes from this one. The system nowadays is rather stacked against – if prosecuted he stands to lose financially even if he wins. Unless you have no money at all you don’t get your costs properly covered even if acquitted, so if he hires an expensive barrister to demolish it then he’s unlikely to get much if any of that money back. The system of fixed penalty notices, coupled with minimal cost-covering for the acquitted, is designed to ensure that the maximum number of people waive their right to due process and just accept a policeman acting as judge and jury.
I think the likelehood of a prosecution is almost zero. They didn’t go after Dominic “eye test” Cummings despite his confession that he broke driving regulations in order to excuse his allegedly “illegal under COVID” regulations journey, and despite the massive public pressure to take action against him, and despite the fact that Dominic Cummings actually had a hand in writing the lockdown rules, so I don’t see them going after this helicopter pilot. It’ll be quietly forgotten (and has likely already been forgotten by nearly everyone outside this forum).
Graham wrote:
If you went from Penzance to buy a Mars bar in Inverness you could make a strong argument that the real purpose of the journey was not to buy food, because you could buy an exact equivalent much closer to home. If one travelled a long distance just for a sandwich, that had better be an extraordinary sandwich.The prosecution doesn’t just need to make a strong argument, it needs to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. That’s a high bar, and a good defence barrister will drive a coach and horses through their arguments. The coronavirus restrictions are law made on the hoof and are quite vague, perhaps deliberately so. If the prosecutions starts talking about the ‘real purpose’ of the journey then the defence barrister is just going to ask them where this stuff about ‘real purpose’, or indeed a requirement to buy a Mars bar from the closest available source, appears in the legislation – because of course it doesn’t.
As much as there is zero chance of conviction, if he chose to refuse a FPN, I would be amazed of a successful prosecution, and even more surprised if the CPS pursued it in the first place.
I dont suppose with an hourly operating cost of what £600 an hour these days (havent looked up the type) the pilot would be reluctant to spend some money on defending himself as well.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I would be amazed of a successful prosecution, and even more surprised if the CPS pursued it in the first place.
That is almost certainly the case. The big issue here, is that if prosecuted, and successfully defended, a precedent has been created.
Effectively then anyone could go anywhere, and buy a sandwich when they get there and be able to point to the precedent showing that was ok. The state is unlikely to want to risk such a precedent unless it’s virtually guaranteed success.
Indeed; FUD works a lot better, doesn’t cost much, and doesn’t create a precedent 
And in aviation it works brilliantly. Look at the total nonsense of the “EU operator” EASA attack on N-regs.
Anyway, this heli pilot has already had his balls chewed on the numerous GA chat sites on FB.
dublinpilot wrote:
That is almost certainly the case. The big issue here, is that if prosecuted, and successfully defended, a precedent has been created.Effectively then anyone could go anywhere, and buy a sandwich when they get there and be able to point to the precedent showing that was ok. The state is unlikely to want to risk such a precedent unless it’s virtually guaranteed success.
I would not necessarily be 100% sure. From time to time the CPS comes out with some interesting decisions on what to prosecute, usually because someone wants to make a name for themselves. And as noted previously, the lower courts do not (generally) create precedent.
Right now one can go anywhere in the UK and buy a sandwich. The law is quite clear on that and we’ve never had the ‘within X distance of home’ rules that have been in place (are they still?) in Ireland.
To your last point, the state has no influence in a decision to prosecute or not. It perhaps depends how you define the state, but certainly the government has no influence. Technically at least… various opinions are available as to how truly independent of government the judiciary is in various countries. I think ours is pretty good – it manages to upset the government with its decisions reasonably often!
Graham wrote:
I would not necessarily be 100% sure.
You can never be 100% sure of anything until it happens! 
One possibility that is open to them, is to prosecute in the higher courts, knowing that by the time it will be heard, that the whole thing is likely to be over. At least here, there is a big long delay on hearing cased due to COVID. Not sure if that’s the same in the UK. That way they could be seen to take a tough stance, but wouldn’t have a fear of creating a precedent. But it would depend on the time scales involved.
Graham wrote:
The law is quite clear on that and we’ve never had the ‘within X distance of home’ rules that have been in place (are they still?) in Ireland.
Here there isn’t a “X distance from home” with the exception of for exercise. So you can go any distance with a reasonable excuse. But of the reasons which are automatically a reasonable excuses as per the legislation, exercise is only automatically a reasonable excuse if it’s within 5km of your home.
There have been people prosecuted (in the lower courts, before a judge) for things such as going to a beach outside the 5km (if it was within 5km, they could automatically go there for exercise). Graham wrote:
to your last point, the state has no influence in a decision to prosecute or not. It perhaps depends how you define the state
I assumed that the crown prosecution service was a state body. Sorry, if I got that wrong. Wikipedia describes it as a “public agency”.
dublinpilot wrote:
I assumed that the crown prosecution service was a state body. Sorry, if I got that wrong. Wikipedia describes it as a “public agency”.
Yes, but like the rest of the justice system it retains a significant degree of independence and does not (officially) do the bidding of government. As I said it depends on how you define ‘state’ in this context. The PM cannot order a particular person to be prosecuted.
I don’t believe they get to choose which court a case is heard in, let alone for reasons of political expediency.
Interesting comparison of vaccination rates here
Just heard the US is allowing people to meet up if they have been vaccinated. This would not be allowed here due to PC requirements; there would be loud protests about creating an underprivileged class, etc, etc. That’s fine if somebody else is paying for the economic damage, but actually we are all paying for it…
