James Morton looks at the art of the short-con, considers the impact television and satellite are having on the profession, and examines the cost of a rising elderly prison population

The old scams are always the best. Recently, I read newspaper reports of the black and pink ribbons that some motorists hang in rear windows or on aerials. This, say the police, signifies the occupants may be willing to participate in a fake accident claim.


It is only a variation of the scam that was carried out in Dublin in the mid-1990s. When it was claimed that a man had fallen over on an uneven pavement, an investigation showed that three of his four siblings as well as six cousins had all come to grief at the same spot.


I was caught last year in New York. A man carrying his spectacles banged into to me and dropped them on a busy street. Two streets later, he caught up with me. I had broken his glasses. He was a poor student and I must pay for them. What I should have said is that we would go to the local precinct house and sort things out there, but I did not know where one was. Eventually I negotiated the $40 specs down to $5, so it was not such an expensive lesson in the art of what is called the short-con.




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The pilot project into televising the Court of Appeal seems to have been a moderate success. The problem, according to Simon Bucks of Sky News, is the quality of the sound for broadcasting purposes. Occasionally, barristers were virtually inaudible or the rustling of their papers drowned their voices. Is this confined to broadcasting?

But the thought is that before long opening statements in the Crown Courts will be televised. From there it is a hop, skip and a jump to fully televised hearings. Will the companies be able to bid against each other for a particularly ‘good’ murder? Will they go the way of Test Match cricket and be available on a form of pay television, or will such events be like the Derby and have to be shown on terrestrial television?



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There seems to be something unpalatable about a man being allowed to give evidence by satellite and so enable him to avoid arrest. This is the House of Lords decision in the Roman Polanski case.

He is wanted in relation to a conviction for under-age sex in the US and now claims he was libelled in England. He cannot come here for fear of being arrested and extradited to the US and he is to be allowed to give evidence by link from France. To rule otherwise would, said the Lords by a majority, deprive him of his rights.

Many might think that by deliberately avoiding the due process of the law he has forfeited those rights. Take things a stage further. Suppose a man absconds his bail and several years later decides to bring an action against an English newspaper that labels him a criminal. Is the plaintiff to be allowed to give evidence from abroad?

What if, in his years in absentia, a paper wrongly said Ronnie Biggs had committed some crimes while on the run? Would he have been allowed to give evidence against the offending editor by link to avoid his imprisonment on his return?



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On the subject of Biggs, it is now coming up to four years since his return to British soil. By returning home he may well have thought that bygones would be bygones and after a few weeks he would be back in the community. Wrong, and painfully wrong at that. Apart from frequent visits to hospital, he has spent the time in London’s Belmarsh prison, where I think it is agreed he is in a very poor way.

However, he is only one of an increasing infirm and elderly prison population. In the past decade the number of older inmates has trebled, but facilities to deal with them have not been put in place.

In 1993, there were 450 sentenced prisoners aged 60 or older. By 2003 the number had increased to 1,441, many of whom are first time non-violent offenders.

Indeed, male prisoners older than 60 form the fastest growing sector of the prison population. The Howard League for Penal Reform has emphasised that older prisoners have specific problems such as lack of mobility, incontinence and complex health conditions. Older prisoners – often rightly – feel vulnerable.

Studies in the US show that the cost of keeping an elderly prisoner in jail is roughly three and a half times that of keeping a younger prisoner and I suppose the same figure applies here. Obviously, some prisoners must serve what amount to full life sentences – but is this a humane and economical way of dealing with the many who do not?




James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist