Report comment

I was a magistrate* for a few years before training as a solicitor (and it was the experience of the criminal courts which put off qualifying into crime, or any publicly-funded work).

May I respectfully suggest an alternative argument to that advanced by most people here: this woman is a black hole for taxpayers' money. Spending legal aid on her would be throwing good money after bad. There are some people for whom 'nothing works', and ultimately all we can do is remove them from society. Historically this was done with asylums, but we got rid of those, and so the prison system picks up the burden. Nonetheless, given how much police and court time she has already wasted, I don't see any argument for spending money on legal aid, too.

I realise that's a very right-wing perspective, but I suggest it is more reflective of the view of taxpayers as a whole (whose money this is), than that of legal aid practitioners, who by inference believe in legal aid enough to commit their career, or part thereof, to it.

It seems to me that what most taxpayers want is for people like this to be dealt with as cheaply as possible - and there their concern ends. You may disagree with the morality, but do you disagree with my assessment of taxpayers' views?

* PS I should point out a) I much prefer the idea of DJs to magistrates, so I'm not defending that system, and b) my magistrate colleagues were far more left-wing than me, so please don't assume my views are representative; they're not.