Blog

News from Italy has concerned the guilty verdicts in the manslaughter trial of five crew members of the ill-fated cruise ship Costa Concordia. Sentences ranged from one-and-a-half years to two years and 10 months for the ship’s first and third officers and helmsman and the company’s cabin service director and crisis unit director, although it is thought unlikely any will serve any time. The separate trial of the skipper of the vessel is another matter, with a possible sentence of up to 20 years if he is found guilty.

The sentences were greeted with dismay by campaigners for justice for the five people killed in the disaster. They are angry at the leniency of the sentences. Compare that to the way we in this country deal with those responsible for disasters such as Hillsborough and the scandal at Mid Staffs, or Barrow, or…or…or.

Lawyers have been in the firing line again this week – on both sides of the pond. Here, a the Court of Appeal has censured two solicitors and a barrister after an embargoed draft judgement was disclosed to ‘third parties’ in breach of a court order. The breach of confidentiality was considered serious enough to attract the censure.

Speaking out of turn has, of course, always been viewed with the utmost of severity by the legal establishment. In most cases that view has been manifestly justified. Only occasionally has there been a hint that there has been anything approaching the desire to guard privilege.

• More mundane misdeeds have also been reported – in one case with something approaching glee.

Experts in the property field are celebrating the fact that prices are on the rise. Well, the online newsletter property expert is. It quoted ONS figures and data from the website SmartNewHomes.

Ominously, the analysis appears to partially bear out the fears expressed by Ed Balls that the Government’s flagship Help to Buy programme could create another bubble, a fear echoed by the OECD on 29 May.

According to Steven Lees, director of SmartNewHomes: “It has been a very positive spring for developers. The launch of the Help to Buy scheme in April has boosted confidence in the new homes market, reflected in positive monthly, quarterly and annual price growth.”

The trend is more marked in London, where a YouGov survey found that most people expect prices to just keep on rising.

It would be deliciously ironic if the government of old Etonians were to be sent into headlong flight by the professional classes that it is seen by many to represent. As the miners brought down Heath through militant industrial action and the council workers did the same for Callaghan, could it be that the Cameron government could be forced into back-pedalling by, of all people, barristers and linguists.

Following the half-day strike by silks in Manchester and promises of ‘mayhem’ in Wales, there are reports that a ‘mass meeting’ of barristers in London vowed to boycott the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates and to defeat it. Moreover, the circuit leader launched a blistering attack on the cuts to legal aid, saying they would “destroy the independent bar” and hit “middle-class families hardest”.

Yet more woe was heaped upon Chris Grayling today with the publication of a poll showing two-thirds of people think the cuts in legal aid will result in people being convicted of crimes they did not commit.