For “often”, read “never”. 10 years means five with good behaviour (which plenty of people who’re badly behaved enough to get a 10-stretch don’t show). The emergency “oh fuck we’ve got too many prisoners” releases save a few months only – it’s 10 *month* sentences which are turned into next-to-nothing…

With the possible exception of terrorism, where national security issues might arise, the rule should be that whoever gives testimony should give their names, if only to those in court, if they are adults.

He said the problem of people being afraid to testify for fear of reprisals is something they have to deal with all the time, and many criminals get off for exactly that reason. The fact that a 10 year sentence actually often means 2 or less, doesn’t help.

But it’s true that the problems of witness intimidation aren’t new.

It’s just that since (I think…?) the Seventies, with the ’supergrass’ trials, the police have relied on this tactic more and more, to the point where it’s not really surprising that defence solicitors say ‘Enough’s enough’.

With better protection for the witnesses, and long sentences for the offendors, anonymity wouldn’t need to be such a factor.

I honestly can’t figure out whether you’re being serious.

Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides in relevant part: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with the witnesses against him.”

But hey, what’s 2000 years of history and the Anglosphere’s common law when Labour want to rush through a law?

Surely the problem has been caused by the laxness of the modern day ‘justice system’?

I’m sure back in the Sixties, there were no problems finding people to testify against the likes of the Krays, because the penalties were severe and people knew the police would actually act…

If you lived in any large-ish town in England but were unpopular with your Underclass neighbours (persistent photography of buses, perhaps) and a long list of anonymous Underclass people said they saw you stalking children, would you be able to challenge them? How would you prove their mendaciousness if you had no idea who they were?

Yet another problem caused by the insistence on treating terrorism as a civilian crime. Military intelligence is, by its nature, anonymous. This hasn’t mattered before, because it’s been used to decide military action. Now the idiots have started using it as evidence in civilian courts. And now we have their solution to the problem inevitably caused by treating enemy combatants as citizens: change the law so that all citizens are treated as enemy combatants.