Month: May 2018

Divorce revamp would end maintenance awards for life

/ Mike Buchanan / Leave a comment

A piece by Frances Gibb, Legal Editor, in yesterday’s Times:

Proposals for a five-year limit on maintenance awards in divorce were published yesterday to end huge payouts and massive court costs.

Baroness Deech, a crossbencher, called for a system more like that in Scotland, to end open-ended awards that have made London the divorce capital of the world.

Instead of indefinite maintenance awards, which critics have called a meal ticket for life, her Divorce (Financial Provision) Bill would give guidelines on maintenance and dividing assets. It proposes awarding maintenance for five years, with longer terms only if needed to prevent hardship. [J4MB emphasis. We can be sure gynocentric judges will set the “preventing hardship” bar very high for rich men’s ex-wives.]

The framework would avoid the need for “judge-made law”, which leads to uncertainty and militates against mediation and out-of-court settlements, she said. “Judges are having to intervene, which is not their task, and brings delay,” she said. “There are many accounts of cases where nearly all the assets are wasted on the costs of litigation: in one, a husband was awarded £50,000 but was left with a bill of £490,000 in cost.

“It is more sensible to load the separation of assets in favour of property, pensions and lump sums rather than ongoing periodical payments.” [J4MB emphasis. This could be the sting in the tail for men. While a limit is put on the duration of alimony payments, an even higher proportion of men’s wealth will be handed over to ex-wives.]

The bill would also make prenuptial agreements binding if legal advice had been taken, [J4MB: Good news, but of course this is only happening because well-off women will thereby get legal protection of their assets before marriage – for some years they’ve been the driving force behind setting up pre-nups] because “there is no evidence that marriage breakdown is encouraged by prenuptial or postnuptial agreement,” she said.

“The result [of the bill] should be better opportunities for mediation, less need to go to court, reduced trauma for children, lower costs, an easier time for litigants in person and a fairer outcome recognising partnership in marriage,” she added.

In its Family Matters campaign, The Times and Marriage Foundation are urging an overhaul of the divorce laws to make them fairer and reduce damage to children.

The bill has its second reading on May 11.

You can subscribe to The Times here.

Elizabeth Hobson – Director of Communications

/ Mike Buchanan / Leave a comment

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Elizabeth Hobson, a well-known and highly respected activist, to the position of Director of Communications, with immediate effect.

Elizabeth is a mother of two boys, and is currently studying for a BA in History and Politics at the Open University. She calls herself an anti-feminist Gender Equality Activist, and she’s worked with Trigger Warning, The Liberty Belles and Ladies for Philip Davies, as well as being part of the organising team for the March for Men / Messages for Men conference in London in 2017 and 2018.

Her areas of particular interest include: the family and father’s rights, MGM, feminism and freedom. Elizabeth wants to end the Sex War – artificially constructed by feminists – and pursue a more just society based on Liberal values, such as liberty, equality and meritocracy.

We wish Elizabeth every success in her new role. She can be contacted at elizabeth@j4mb.org.uk.

Piers Morgan wades into fierce row over whether TfL ‘Thought for the Day’ sign encouraged sexual harassment

/ Mike Buchanan / Leave a comment

Controversy: A woman claimed a TfL 'Thought of the Day' board encouraged sexual harassment

Controversy: A woman claimed a TfL ‘Thought of the Day’ board encouraged sexual harassment (Dina Rickman)

Our thanks to James for a piece in yesterday’s Evening Standard. The start of the piece:

A fierce debate has erupted over whether a Transport for London Tube station board urging passengers to give compliments amounted to encouraging sexual harassment.

Piers Morgan waded into the row after an image of the ‘Thought of the Day’ sign was posted on social media by commuter Dina Rickman who claimed it could invite commuters to “sexually harass a stranger”.

It read: “When you see something beautiful in someone, tell them. It may take a second to say but for them it could last a lifetime.”

Ms Rickman tweeted the picture with the caption: “Thought of the day: why not take the time to sexually harass a stranger.”

Her post was retweeted by Mr Morgan, who wrote: “Everything that’s wrong about modern feminism right here.”

Four years ago Dina Rickman, the swivel-eyed Looney Tune who tweeted the silly remark above, and I were in a studio discussion (video, 15:20) on London Live TV. One of the 177 comments on the video, from “Miss Peori”:

Was Dina on cocaine or something? It was hard enough to listen to her bullshit without also having to watch her chase the mice in her brain.

Give fewer suspended sentences as too many are breached, courts told

/ Mike Buchanan / Leave a comment

A piece by Richard Ford, Home Correspondent, and Frances Gibb, Legal Editor, in yesterday’s Times:

Judges and probation staff have agreed to cut the use of suspended jail sentences amid concern that the number of criminals breaching them will cause a surge in the prison population.

In an unprecedented agreement, senior judges have asked courts and probation officers to avoid recommending suspended sentences — even when this would be justified by the seriousness of the offence — because when offenders breach the sentences they end up in jail. [J4MB: Is the concern here that women – who are more likely to get suspended sentences than men – are being sent to jail, i.e. actually being punished, when the whole point of suspended sentences is NOT to punish women?]

There was a ten-fold rise in the use of suspended sentences in the ten years to 2015 and a halving in community punishment orders. At the same time jails have faced rising violence and severe overcrowding. The number of community orders fell from about 203,000 to 108,000 in the decade to 2015 while the number of suspended sentence orders rose from fewer than 4,000 to 52,000.

A guideline due to be released this month, which will tighten up rules on when an offender should be sent to jail for breaking the terms of a suspended sentence, is behind the deal. The guideline could lead to many more offenders being sent straight to prison.

Magistrates were informed of the deal in a letter from the Sentencing Council, the watchdog that advises courts. It reminds them that a suspended sentence “is a custodial sentence [J4MB emphasis] and not a more severe form of community order”. [J4MB: A suspended sentence is a custodial sentence. You couldn’t make this s*** up.]

Lord Justice Treacy, chairman of the council, wrote that he had agreed with the director of the National Probation Service that probation officers “will refrain from recommending suspended sentence orders (SSOs) in pre- sentence reports”. He added: “This does not mean that the court should never suspend a custodial sentence.”

In separate guidance, probation officers have been advised that suspended sentence orders must not be proposed “even when the courts indicate that a custodial threshold has been crossed”.

In his letter, Lord Justice Treacy said that the action was being taken because courts have not changed their sentencing behaviour, despite guidance a year ago on correct use of suspended jail terms.

Last night there remained concern among magistrates who insisted that it was for courts to decide on sentences. John Bache, national chairman of the Magistrates Association, said: “Suspended prison sentences can . . . be an effective option and magistrates should not be deterred by this letter from using them when appropriate.”

Ian Lawrence, general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said: “We are not convinced this is the best way to approach this issue. Whilst it may increase community orders it runs the risk of having the opposite effect as well . . . We would urge Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service to educate sentencers on how best to use suspended sentences rather than on preventing them being proposed.”

A related leading article in the paper yesterday:

Cell Block

The pressure on prison places is so intense that judges have been instructed to avoid suspended custodial sentences. Interrupting the path to jail would be preferable

He who opens a school door, closes a prison,” said Victor Hugo. There is more wisdom in that single remark than British penal policy has managed in generations. The success of a policy that really ought to be measured by how few people are in prison has instead led to a situation in which the prisons are full to bursting.

The problem is so acute that, as we report today, judges have reached a deal with the Ministry of Justice and probation staff to cut the use of suspended jail terms, even where this would be called for by the gravity of the offence, because frequent breaches are sending too many people into prisons with no cells to accommodate them. There was a ten-fold increase in the use of suspended sentences over the decade to 2015 and a halving of community punishment orders.

In February last year courts were advised that a suspended sentence was a custodial option and not a supercharged form of community service. The implication of that guidance was that courts should seek to refrain from rushing to custodial sentences. The counsel was not followed and so it is now being, in effect, reissued but this time with stronger wording.

Malcolm Richardson, not long retired as chairman of the Magistrates Association, put his finger on a serious problem when he told the justice select committee in March last year that a lack of confidence in community sentences was tempting judges towards the custodial option. That is true; community orders are not as good as they need to be. A sentence has to fulfil the twin criteria of punishment and rehabilitation and too many community orders are of too low a quality. Some recent probation reports tell tales of supervision that was nothing more than a brief phone call.

The absence of viable alternatives, in combination with pressure from government for sentencing to be tough, has produced a prison population in Britain of more than 80,000, which is an occupancy rate of more than 100 per cent. The capital does not exist for an extensive prison building programme so judges have been prevailed upon to keep people out of jail. Clearly, this is all back to front. Tariffs for punishment should be set for the severity of a crime and then the necessary prison places allocated, rather than devising sentencing according to the capacity of the prison to take in new inmates.

The solution actually lies with Victor Hugo’s insight. Half of all British prisoners are classified as “functionally illiterate”. A renewed focus on literacy — perhaps holding pupils back at school until they have gained the basic level — would do more to reduce prison numbers than any deal between the forces of order. Then, when prisoners are detained, the curriculum in jail, which is currently pitiful, needs to be extensive and compulsory. This would be expensive but so is recidivism, which is the other option. We also report today that, with the closure of Pupil Referral Units, pupils excluded from schools are free to roam the streets. We know from previous instances that their chances of falling into crime are depressingly high.

The other notable problem is drugs. In a recent report lamenting the increase of violence in prisons, the chief inspector noted that drugs were seized almost 30 times a day. There are far too many people incarcerated who would be better off, for their sake as well as everyone else’s, in a medical facility.

Rehabilitation for lots of prisoners is a physical necessity as well as a mental requirement. There should not be so many people in jail because they have been unable to pay fines and too many of them are women. [J4MB emphasis. Let’s put that another way – not enough of them are men.]

We are abandoning people to a dismal future because of the stigma of a spell inside. This does not work for victims or criminals, let alone the taxpayer.

You can subscribe to The Times here.

Crackdown on university students silencing free speech

/ Mike Buchanan / Leave a comment

A piece by Rosemary Bennett, Education Editor, in today’s Times:

Students will be banned from refusing speakers a platform at their universities under the first government intervention on free speech on campus for 30 years.

Sam Gyimah, the universities minister, will announce tough guidance on the issue at a meeting today, calling attempts to silence debate “chilling”.

He will accuse some student societies of “institutional hostility” to certain unfashionable but perfectly lawful views. A “murky” legal landscape, with guidance from various regulators, lets zealots censor those with whom they disagree, Mr Gyimah will say.

The new rules signal the seriousness with which the government is taking free speech on campus. The previous universities minister Jo Johnson said last year that the Office for Students, the new university regulator, would enforce existing measures.

Mr Gyimah has decided that the watchdog will use its powers to impose the government guidance. The OfS, which came into force on April 1, could name, shame or even fine institutions for failing to uphold the rules.

The last time the government intervened on the issue was in the Education Act of 1986, when a duty of free speech was imposed on universities. Ministers have grown alarmed at the number of “safe spaces” on British campuses. Originally intended to make sure debate was respectful and speakers were not shouted down, safe spaces have at times been used to silence opinions in case they are seen as offensive.

So-called no-platforming, where a person is prevented from speaking at a particular event or others refuse to share a platform with them, has also been used this way. It was originally a method used to stop fascist speakers.

Mr Gyimah wants action to protect lawful free speech on campus and a single set of guidelines would be “a new chapter” for openness.

“A society in which people feel they have a legitimate right to stop someone expressing their views on campus simply because they are unfashionable or unpopular is rather chilling,” he said before the meeting.

“There is a risk that overzealous interpretation of a dizzying variety of rules is acting as a brake on legal free speech on campus. That is why I am bringing together leaders from across the higher education sector to clarify the rules and regulations around speakers and events to prevent bureaucrats or wreckers on campus from exploiting gaps for their own ends.”

The guidance that governs free speech on campus is issued by organisations ranging from the Charity Commission to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. This is often exploited by opponents of free speech and “overzealously interpreted”, he will say.

The new rules will be drawn up by ministers, but will have input from the National Union of Students, representatives of university vice-chancellors and regulators.

A recent investigation by MPs found that campaigners against abortion, Christian groups and secularists were among those who felt that it was hard to get a hearing at universities.

Feminists who oppose transgender self-identification have also found it hard to speak on campus. The group Woman’s Place had to keep the venue of its meeting last week in Oxford a secret. When it leaked out, more than a hundred students protested outside.

Events involving MPs, including the Conservative Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, have been disrupted on campus. Events on Israel and Palestinian statehood are another target.

Many students and university leaders think that the problem of censorship has been overblown. Alistair Jarvis, chief executive of Universities UK, said: “Tens of thousands of speaking events are put on every year across the country. The majority pass without incident. A small number of flashpoints do occasionally occur, on contentious or controversial issues, but universities do all they can to protect free speech so events continue.”

You can subscribe to The Times here.

How does the FA tackle sexism? An all-female Subbuteo team! Classic table-top football game ‘hauls itself into the 21st century’ by launching its first female teams (not available to buy).

/ Mike Buchanan / Leave a comment

Our thanks to Mike P for this. Extracts:

The FA said the new version supported its objective to tackle barriers within the women’s game. [J4MB: What barriers would those be?]

The set includes 22 outfield players and six substitutes, each hand-moulded and painted with their own characteristics – and detailing that is clearly female…

Although the set is not available to buy, fans will have the opportunity to win one via FA social media channels.

Marzena Bogdanowicz, FA head of marketing for women’s football, said: ‘This new, all-female Subbuteo set is a reflection of the rapid growth that women’s football is seeing in the UK right now. [J4MB: Nonsense – because it’s not available to buy, it’s a reflection of how little interest there is in the women’s game.]

‘We aspire to greater equality all the way from board games to boardrooms, and every day we are striving to transform the future of the women’s game on and off the pitch.’

Last May Sports Minister Tracey Crouch threatened the FA with a loss of £30m – £40m of public funding if it didn’t have at least three women on its board by some point in 2018. Our blog piece on the matter is here.