Dear me…….

[wit]

there’s an interesting letter in today’s Racing Post:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

ACCORDING to reports in the Racing Post, both John Magnier and Michael Tabor have compared Kieren Fallon’s position with Alice In Wonderland.

The comparison is well made:

[ follow various detailed references to, and quotes from, Alice in Wonderland ]

Of course, the judgement of Mr Justice Davis (from which no application for permission to appeal was made) puts things in an altogether different perspective.

But the reality of "sentence first – verdict afterwards" may remain, at least to some, an unsettling and oppressive state of affairs.

Jonathan Harvie, Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hampshire <br><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

<br>I’m curious:

Is this the same Jonathan Harvie who is a fellow QC in Blackstone Chambers to KF’s main "human rights" counsel, David Pannick?

http://www.blackstonechambers.com/cv.asp?StaffID=31

The same Jonathan Harvie who, by some media reports, kindly stood in for Mr Pannick for the delivery of the judgment on the Friday?

<br>If so:

would those have been relevant pieces of information about a letter-writer for an impartial newspaper to bring to the attention of its readers ?

<br>There might even have been space for such information if the RP had made a little smaller the huge photo of the Queen of Hearts used to illustrate the letter.

<br>Or is it, just by coincidence, another Jonathan Harvie entirely ?

<br>best regards

wit

[guskennedy]

I suppose you’d have to ask whether the Post knew.

[wit]

hi gus

i’m just asking if they checked.

if i –  as a mere interested outsider just reading media reports –  get to wonder if there’s a connection, surely a specialist newspaper should be alert to at least the same point ?

otherwise, don’t they run the risk of looking stupid?

best regards

wit

[Alderbrook]

This is a newspaper that chose to highlight the culmination of the apprentice jockey title race by putting the faces of Hayley Turner and Nelson De Souza into the shape of fireworks.

Looking stupid is not something that concerns them imo…

[bluechariot]

Well spotted Wit, too much of a coincidence for it to be anyone else, seems he wanted to deceive the RP by using his home address. Normally these guys have such inflated  egos they cannot write to a paper without using QC and their chambers address.

I hear Willams initial Solicitor who represented him at the police station is p**s
ed off at losing him to a rival EC4 firm

[Mr Frisk]

Wit, I’m pretty sure the bloke standing in for Pannick was Harbie, with a "b".

[Mr Frisk]

Having checked, I had it down as Harby, though oddly, it does seem to be Harvie after all.

Given that I asked him how to spell his name, wrote it down, shoved it in front of his nose and said "is that right?", that would suggest that one of us (or possibly both) was p**s
ed or temporarily insane.

[richard]

According to the Blackstone Chambers’ web site Jonathan Harvie is indeed one of their QCs.

richard

[wit]

mr frisk

thanks for that.

as a cross-check, the bar directory anyway doesn’t list any barrister at all under the other two spellings:

http://www.thebardirectory.co.uk/home.cfm

Both Tabor and Magnier were at pains to emphasise that neither of them was that familiar with Alice in Wonderland.

Tabor kept saying to Claire Balding on TV "Alice in Wonderland, that’s what the lawyers say, not me".

Magnier is reported as saying "the lawyers say its Alice in Wonderland. I don’t know much about that, but I’m going to read it tonight!"

<br>On the other hand, the Mr Harvie who wrote today’s letter to the RP seems to know the book intimately.

He cites chapters with easy authority and refers to "well-known passages".

<br>If he is the same chap as the KF lawyer who mentioned Alice in Wonderland to Tabor and Magnier, then that would point to a quite bizarre background to today’s RP letter, viz:

– Friday of the judgment: lawyer mentions Alice in Wonderland simile to Tabor / Magnier

– Saturday:  Tabor / Magnier repeat the simile  to the media, attributing it to (nameless) lawyer

– a week later, the lawyer writes to RP in own name saying Tabor and Magnier’s simile  "is well made", as if its nothing to do with him but he can see why they made it.

<br>i just can’t believe that scenario.

surely there must be another explanation, such as there being two entirely separate Jonathan Harvies?  

that must be it.

i just can’t see any eminent QC being involved in any half-baked, transparent  PR attempt.

isn’t life full of coincidences ?

best regards

wit

(Edited by wit at 10:47 pm on Aug. 6, 2006)

[davidbrady]

wit – why do you dislike Fallon/Ballydoyle/Coolmore so much? I always had you marked as an impartial onlooker and admired your articles as championing the truth but a lot of your posts the last month have disappointed me. Whilst not disputing the veracity of any of your posts, would you care to fill in between the lines for us!

[Andrew Hughes]

Alice is innocent. She followed the Rabbit down the hole in good faith. How was she to know he worked for the News Of The World?

Free the Wonderland One!

[richard]

Wit,

Maybe I’ve mis-understood your post , but the Directory does include a Harbie but not a Harby or a Harbie.

Taking  your question literally, maybe it says something about the editorial –  what’s the word I’m searching for?, could it be integrity? no, no, obviously not;  perhaps I mean policy? of the Racing Post?

richard

[wit]

david

i don’t have any animus in any direction.

like others, however, (notably sean boyce) i hope i know PR when i see it, and where PR tries to spin the truth 180 degrees and says black is white (as in the HRA is acting wholly outside of precedent, when patently its not), i’ll say so.

equally, when someone is charged with a crime , they ARE in a different position to the rest of us who are not so charged.    its nonsense to suggest otherwise.

they’re not guilty, but they’re not innocent either.  they are in a procedural limbo that will end one way or the other.  

"innocent until proved guilty" in England (and most other common law countries, Ireland excepted) has always meant little more than that in court the prosecution has to prove guilt, not the defence having to prove innocence.

<br>with KF i’ve always said wait and see what happens, and not to try and second-guess anything on the back of media reports that of necessity will be incompletely informed.

if folk don’t engage in "spinning", i wouldn’t say anything.

best regards

wit<br>

(Edited by wit at 11:28 pm on Aug. 6, 2006)

[davidbrady]

I see your point wit, but with the examples of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six as well as the original suspects in the Jamie Bolger case, British justice has a lot to answer for before people can start taking the attitude of "no smoke without fire" in terms of people being charged with offences.

[wit]

richard,

no, i think you have it right.

<br>richard and aranalde,

there’s also the libel action Fallon v MGN Ltd over the  RP article a week after the September 2004 arrests.

according to the judge in the interim hearing in that case, his action against MGN was started before his action against News Group.

it all makes for a complicated civil litigation picture too.

best regards

wit

[wit]

david,

i don’t subscribe to "smoke without fire", or "mud sticks", or anything of that kind.

but nor do i subscribe to the notion that the system is so utterly keystone cops that everything done by it must be assumed to be wrong until its proven right.

there are a lot of talented and committed professionals doing a largely thankless task on the prosecution side in the criminal justice system, as well as on the defence side.

My base starting position is that both sides have my respect until either does something in any specific case  to alter that position.

best regards

wit

[bluechariot]

Lydia has it in the Times today

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, … 37,00.html

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