LONDON
LETTER
433
not alter these methods
In
the least, but will perhaps insure that
charges against any accused person are considered with some realism.
In the Ward trials, there can now be no doubt that undue
pressure was used by the police both to insure that hostile witnesses
should be present-by bringing frivolous charges against some, and
fixing enormous sums as bail-and by telling others who were vulnerable
what they were, and were not, to say. A self-declared prostitute who
gave damning testimony against Ward (and later withdrew it, greatly
to her credit) appeared recently on television and told the astonished
viewers what threats had been used by the police to insure that when
she entered the witness box she said what the prosecution wanted.
It was impossible to watch this interview without becoming convinced
that this woman was now telling the truth ; and equally impossible to
heed the soothing platitudes of the retired police officer who followed
her on the screen to assure us that such mis-practices are alien to
English police behavior.
Nor has that other great shibboleth of English mythology-that
our justice, like our whisky, marmalade and chocolate biscuits, is second
to none in quality-survived recent occurrences. Lord Denning, a judge,
is at present undertaking a massive enquiry into the whole Profumo
affair and its ramifications. To this task, he has been appointed by the
Prime Minister. But is it right and sensible, we must ask, that a judge,
removed from the panoply and objectivity of his court, should be
employed by a politician to investigate a matter in which other politicians
of his party may well be involved? And since his report, whatever its
content, is bound to be controversial, is it wise that a judge should
descend from the impartiality of his bench to swim in the murky
political ocean? In brief, the feeling is general that the essential separa–
tion of function between judiciary and legislature is being blurred, and
that the government is using the prestige of judges to whitewash their
own supposed misdeeds.
When the appeal of Aloysius "Lucky" Gordon, a Caribbean, against
his conviction for assaulting Christine Keeler was recently allowed, the
Lord Chief Justice declined to let the written evidence on which his
decision was based to be read out in public court-though he did allow
the defense counsel to see it. A case has thus been decided by justice
no doubt being done, but certainly not being seen to be done. This
Chief Justice is the same legal luminary who, at the time of the Vassall
tribunal, rebuked a reluctant witness for not putting the interests of the
State above all other interests. For adhering precisely to this doctrine,
