Two deeply troubling stories and the death of common sense

WHAT sort of person locks an 80-year-old woman, in the depths of pain and distress, in a police cell, in her nightclothes, for 30 hours? Even a war criminal might expect better treatment than that.

Was Mavis Eccleston a danger to others, like so many of the thugs the courts allow to go free? No. Was she a flight risk, like the prisoners who so often stroll out of our jails? No.

She was just a fragile, frightened, grief-stricken human being at the end of her tether, who out of pure compassion had helped her husband to die at his own request, and sought to accompany him to the grave, just as she had been at his side for almost 60 years of marriage.

Now, after a botched suicide pact, she was threatened with prison, and shoved in a cell as if she were a burglar (not that many burglars see the insides of cells these days).

What was the point of this? Of course the authorities have to be vigilant against those who seek to hurry the elderly out of this world for gain. That is why the law must stand. But that does not mean it must be officiously applied to cases where it is plainly not needed.

There has always been discretion in the law.

Wise police officers have known when to turn a blind eye. Those in charge of prosecutions have likewise always been careful, in the past, not to pursue cases which are not really in the public interest.

That was certainly so when this country was ruled by common sense and accumulated wisdom. But a new system now seems to prevail, of rigidity and inflexibility. Much of this is born out of computerised box-ticking bureaucracies, governed by dogma, which only allow for one right answer. In such systems, every decision must be referred upwards, compassion dies, wooden adherence to the rules earns promotion, and initiative is stifled.

Thank goodness we still have juries, one of the last refuges of common sense in our system, which is why they are increasingly under threat. We should all be grateful to the jury which took just four hours to throw out the case against Mavis Eccleston. But she should never have been locked up, and never forced to endure 18 months of mental torture before being rightly acquitted.

Those responsible for this should be deeply ashamed.