John Hemming's Web Log

I noticed that I have not posted this case to my blog. In  this case it was put to the court that having an expert on a retainer to one of the parties stopped the expert being independent.  The court disagreed.  I disagree with the court. I think most people would disagree with the court.

The Court had the sense to allow Mrs Danby to purge her contempt today and be released.  G4S, however, decided that the court order was not enough and they needed permission from the prison service.  In the mean time her handbag had been left in Derbyshire and her suitcase left in a hotel in Liverpool.  Her tickets had run out to return to Orkney yesterday and she was dumped by the system in Birmingham.  Luckily the Daily Mail have agreed to help her get home. Even if the original court orders on contact had reliable expert evidence and the conclusion of the court on only hearing one side of the argument was right (about both of which issues there are questions). Derbyshire County Council have serious questions to ask as to where the public interest was in spending the money to get her dragged out of a Ken Dodd concert to be taken around the country. It is also obvious that although there is potentially an argument to convict her in her absence there is no argumen...

As we move into the new year most of the complaints received by my team have been about problems with rubbish collection. The new system is far less efficient than the previous system and as a result frailer people who need help moving around the large wheelie bins are finding that their rubbish does not get collected. People who have the temerity to put their weeds unwashed (with too much soil) into the recycling bin are being told to wash their weeds  (which I find to be a rather odd requirement) and there remains large amounts of fly tipped rubbish on the streets - although much less in Yardley than other areas.  To save time the operatives are deciding from time to time to leave rubbish because the bins are not that full and people who would rather not have wheelie bins are forced to have them even though the operatives merely take the black bags out of the bin to save time. This is a real issue to be considered within the context of the debates about how public servi...