Hirst v UK (No2) credit where credit is due!

Hirst v UK (No2) credit where credit is due!

The paedophile-looking Jon Holbrook

Jon Holbrook is a barrister, apparently, and according to the Chambers he dosses out in "His practice covers public law, community care, housing, property and general common law. He built up a tenant-based practice during his twelve years at Garden Court Chambers and after two years at Hardwicke Building he joined 2-3 Gray’s Inn Square in 2006 where he is mostly instructed by landlords and service providers".

As you can see from his profile, he has no experience whatsoever of human rights law, international law and European law. Which is not surprising given the utter tosh he has written on those subjects here, and his incompetence falls squarely within the text of this legal maxim "ignorance of the law is no excuse". Writers should only write about what they know about, otherwise they only expose themselves to being ridiculed as a court jester.

There is so much wrong with Jon Holbrook's article:

"As an issue of penal policy the controversy over prisoners being allowed to vote is inexplicable. It was never an issue in British politics until the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) made it into one. And it only became an issue in that court after a postgraduate student on the lookout for an original dissertation subject ‘stumbled across a single sentence in a textbook that said prisoners couldn’t vote’. The student enlisted the interest and support of the Prison Reform Trust and then ‘worked with solicitors to set up a High Court test case under the Human Rights Act to challenge the ban’. This case was the forerunner for the John Hirst case that resulted in the ECHR ruling in 2005 that the British ban was unlawful".

Prisoners' votes: I never imagined this

My 1998 dissertation has now led to the PM feeling 'physically sick'. The arguments I set out then remain just as valid

Fraudster, liar and intellectual plagiarist Joe Levenson claiming credit for work that is not his. Just as well he did not imagine it because it never happened! Just as it had nothing whatsoever to do with his 1998 dissertation (possibly largely plagiarised from other people's works), which led to David Cameron claiming that the idea of giving prisoners the vote made him feel physically ill.

I suspect that David Cameron was lying when he made that ill-judged statement. Certainly the attempt to jump on my bandwagon, like a hobo sneaking a free ride on a freight train, means that Joe Levenson cannot legitimately claim "I'm Spartacus" because he is quite simply a liar, liar, pants on fire publicity seeking fraudster!

For the record, the truth is that in 1989 I, and not Joe "liar, liar, pants on fire" Levenson, read the following passage in a book:

"There are supposed to be 'no votes in prisons' and no political prizes for doing something about them. Any politician brave enough either to tell the truth about them or grasp the nettle and try to change the way they are run is likely, so it is believed, to run into difficulties with public opinion" (Vivien Stern, Bricks of Shame - Britain's Prisons, Pelican 1989, p.133).

Along with my solicitor Elkan Abrahamson, and barrister Flo Krause, we took a case to the High Court in London.

Here's the liar's account:

"We also worked with solicitors to set up a high court test case under the Human Rights Act to challenge the ban. Although this was unsuccessful it was the forerunner for the Hirst case, which eventually led to the European court of human rights ruling the UK government's ban unlawful – and ultimately to yesterday's vote".

According to Hirst v UK (No2):

"15. The applicant’s application was heard before the Divisional Court on 21 and 22 March 2001, together with the application for judicial review of two other prisoners, Mr Pearson and Mr Feal-Martinez, who had applied for registration as electors and been refused by the Registration Officer and who also sought a declaration of incompatibility".

Given that the applications were heard together, it is untruthful for Joe Levenson to claim that the Pearson/Feal-Martinez case was the forerunner for my case. We took a different route in my application, which is just as well we did because when Pearson/Feal-Martinez attempted to take their application to the European Court of Human Rights it was rejected by the Commission whereas mine succeeded.

It is annoying that the Prison Reform Trust, having failed in their attempt, try to hijack my case for themselves or claim credit for the brainwork that is clearly not theirs.