One of the features of a transition to a police state is that those who should defend our liberties transfer their allegiance to the executive of the state. Viz the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Serjeant at Arms. Now we have a senior coroner. Sir Michael Wright, coroner in the Jean Charles de Menezes inquiry, who has told the jury they are not permitted to return a verdict of unlawful killing.

That is of course the obvious verdict from the evidence. Were it not so, the disgraceful Wright would not have needed to serve the police by so instructing.

Wright went on to give a completely one-sided summation of the evidence, restating police evidence and ignoring the evidence of many close eye-witnesses who contradicted it. In perhaps the most extraordinary passage in a summation in recent English legal history, he went on to justify the occasions where the police killers were caught obviously lying:

However, Wright added, even if the jury found the officers had lied, they would not be able to blame them for the death. “Many people tell lies for a variety of reasons … [including] to mitigate the impact of what might be a … tragic mistake,” he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/02/menezes-police-inquest

Read that again.

However, Wright added, even if the jury found the officers had lied, they would not be able to blame them for the death. “Many people tell lies for a variety of reasons … [including] to mitigate the impact of what might be a … tragic mistake,” he said.

Incredible, isn’t it? So it is fine to shoot a completely innocent man repeatedly in the head, and lie about it in Court, because you are only trying to “mitigate the impact”.

What?

Read it again.

However, Wright added, even if the jury found the officers had lied, they would not be able to blame them for the death. “Many people tell lies for a variety of reasons … [including] to mitigate the impact of what might be a … tragic mistake,” he said.

I still can’t believe the disgraceful old bastard said it.

I still do believe that we will come to recover from the terrible poison of the New Labour years, and return to being a liberal society. We will look back at all this as Americans now look back at McCarthyism, with horror and shame. And when historians write the history of these times, there will be a special footnote devoted to the infamous, the disgraceful, the appalling Sir Michael Wright.

There is a place reserved for Sir Michael in the deepest, blackest, hottest corner of Hell. He has already had much more time on this Earth than was allowed to poor Jean Charles De Menezes, who Sir Michael wishes us to believe was quite lawfully blown away by the police.

Let Sir Michael take his own good time to reach Hell. I certainly do not wish anyone to shoot him in the head while he is sitting peacefully on the Tube. But if they did, I certainly hope they deploy the defence “He was asking for it: he stood up”. And I certainly hope the judge agrees, and the words filter down to tease Sir Michael in his eternal torment.