Never heard of him.

Not having a pop, just fed up of all these cases and media hype, your missus might know him

Andrew Lancel is an award winning English actor, producer and director. He is best known for his appearance as Frank Foster in the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street, and formerly in his role as DI Neil Manson in The Bill.

Was one of my fav tv drama actors, ill never see him the same again, but he got not guilty of 4 counts of sexual abuse

I knew there would be a good reason why I'd never heard of him!

Being totally prejudiced, I reckon our justice system in the UK to be the best and fairest in the world. What can be fairer than being judged by 12 of your fellow citizens?

Of course they make mistakes, but they're few and far between. I was going to quote OJ Simpson, but that's an American case, I can't think of a comparable British one.

It's different in our civil law, they don't have juries and the class system prevails. I was a plaintiff once, fighting against the establishment in the High Court. I had no chance.

Happy to say that neither of us has ever watched even one episode of either.

Possibly that's why I have never heard of him.

I am not quite so sure about that having seen and studied a little of different systems.

I'm inclined to think that our jury system allowing people to be judged by completely inexperienced amateurs is far from ideal and they are far too easily open to persuasion and being misled by cunning lawyers.

In my view having three properly trained professional adjudicators, much more able to recognise who is telling the truth, who is lying through their teeth and sort out the wheat from the shedfulls of chaff and the sheep from the goats, is a far better system.

Unfortunately I can only speak for myself, no, never seen either, but my wife has been known to watch the soaps, though not a big fan. Not sure what it is the expats find so riveting, that most can't seem to do without their soaps!

I'm half inclined to agree with you, but without the human element of 12 normal people, you're advocating justice dispensed by experts. It's a tiny step away from replacing them with computers, robots.

It might be the answer, once robots are advanced enough. If they're not you might get sentenced to a thousand years in prison for double parking.

Lord only knows how many guilty as sin criminals have walked free due to the human factor after listening to a well presented sob story or the usual it wasn't me gov honest presentation.

It must be a real sickener and disheartening for the cops after all the time and effort they've put in to get justice only to see some evil professional criminal walk free again to carry on as before

Also works the other way of course with a very determined prosecutor stretching the truth or twisting the evidence against a poor lawyer and weak and innocent defendant automatically presuming because he/she didn't commit the crime there'd be a not guilty verdict.

If ever there was a job done by complete amateurs desperately in need of professional know how and experience, then English type jury service has got to be it in my book.

So agree. Most Jurors seem really gullible. Have been a lot of cases where the Jury were aghast when after aquitting someone they have heard their previous form. Many are set free for a technicality with forensic evidence even though they are guilty.

Unless one or more of those three is biased

The possibility of bias or bribery and corruption could equally apply to any system, you don't need look any further than the USA to see that.

However the more people you have in judgment the harder it would be to knobble all or a majority of them.

Not arguing Dick, I just don't know the answer.

Although recently when the UK and Gib separately took cases against Spain to the EU one of the three judges was Spanish


Judge Rosario Silva de Lapuerta served for many years in the Spanish government and is the daughter of a founding member of what is now the Partido Popular

I know of a case where the judge, prosecuting and defending counsel, and the defendant were all Freemasons. It was a guilty plea and there was no need for a jury. The only person surprised by the sentence was the court reporter, who was not a Freemason.

I take your point, but look at the OJ jury for instance where any who were thought to be unsympathetic towards him were thrown out and for all he was guilty as sin it was common knowledge there would be a not guilty verdict.

As far as the EU Court is concerned, I would hardly consider it a valid comparison in view of the whole damned system being undemocratic and biased anyway.

No system is infallible, but given a corruption free trial, which is something we are expected to assume anyway until proven otherwise, I'd still go for the professional approach myself.