Lawyers win again

THE disgraceful treatment of the war hero Lord Bramall calls for more than an apology from Met deputy assistant Commissioner steve Rodhouse. He must resign. He brought disgrace on scotland Yard and on the justice system.

We must wonder whether the case would have gone on for so long if, instead of the adversarial system of justice prevailing in this country, we had the inquisitorial system of the civil law regimes of Continental Europe.

there, it’s the function of an examining judge or magistrate, with the assistance of court officers, to gather evidence and examine witnesses before the case goes to court.

there’s no jury of untrained and inexperienced members of the public to be putty in the hands of a manipulative barrister.

in this country, whether a person is convicted of a crime or not depends on the skill of the barrister rather than on the truth or justice of the case.

a highly trained barrister, using techniques of cross examination developed by the ancient Greeks and perfected by Roman rhetoricians such as Cicero, all of whom are studied in the law schools, can make witnesses say what they want and prevent them saying what they shouldn’t.

Witness control is one of the key arts of counsel, as any law student knows.

as to convincing the jury to return the verdict he wants, no salesman knows how to do it better than a barrister, such as the late sir George Carman.

it has cost Lord Bramwell a lot to remove the smear on his name and thus not spend the last days of an illustrious military career in a prison hospital on the word of this anonymous ‘Nick’, who would probably then go on to claim against his estate.

as they say, British justice really is the best in the world — for the lawyers.

P. MIVENS, London WC1.