Court and enforced use of 'preferred' pronouns

TW did not plead guilty though so could surely appeal the conviction. TW did not admit to assault, they claimed self-defence/prevention of another offence. Maybe it won't happen, I don't know. But the job of the judge is to be even-handed and I think this judge was, given the circumstances. It would have been an outrage if he had accepted the self-defence argument, but he dismissed it completely. If we are talking in terms of winners and losers, TW is definitely the loser here and MM the winner. You can't win on absolutely everything.

Firstly, there are no court costs payable by the Appellant. It's free and simply involves filling in a form saying you want to appeal. As Wolf/Wood/Whatever was legally aided in the Mags, that would remain the case for the appeal.

The only financial implications are if the appeal is lost then the prosecution will apply for further costs on top of what were ordered in the Mags (£520 for an appeal conviction). It's within the court's discretion whether or not this is ordered to be paid and the amount.

Unlike with appeals from the Crown Court and appeals in civil matters, the judge being appealed from the Mags does not need to have erred in law (there is a specific procedure for when that happens called Stating a Case and it goes to the High Court - this is what happened with the term-time holidays case that was all over the news last year).

An appeal to the Crown Court is a complete re-hearing - so exactly what happened in the Mags but this time heard by a Crown Court judge sitting with two lay magistrates. So Wolf would run exactly the same defence - prevention of crime (the fear of being "doxxed") and defence of another.

As he seems to be viewing this case as great publicity for "the cause", I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he has a crack at an appeal.

I am just conscious of the fact that had the judge totally sided with MM and thrown the book at TW, you can bet your life there would be an appeal looming with lots of lawyers willing to act pro bono for TW and lots of coverage and probably a retrial.

Sorry to butt in, I'm new to MN so apologies if I'm doing this all wrong.

Whist the idea of making a ruling "appeal proof" is true in the Crown Court and Civil Courts, there is an automatic right to appeal a conviction in the Mags. You don't need grounds or permission, and if you had legal aid in the Mags, you'll get it for the appeal.

I would not be in the least surprised if Wolf/Wood appeals.

Maria was told that she could use "the defendant" instead of "she".

But think of how stressful it is to be a witness in court, trying to give an accurate account of what happened 6 months earlierand now you also have to focus your attention on eschewing pronouns? It sounds like a 21st century version of Just a Minutewithout deviation, hesitation, or misgendering.

Pronouns are deeply embedded in our linguistic unconscious. I have a Chinese friend who has spoken English constantly for 20 years, but when he is a bit drunk or tired he'll start getting pronouns wrong--as Chinese doesn't distinguish him/her.

MacLachlan could have referred to "Tara Wolfe" or "Wolfe"A bit cumbersome but nothing to complain about.

There's nothing in the Guidelines to cover that. As with everything transgender, the well-intentioned authors did not think through the implications.

Quite. As I said above, it's one thing for court officers, quite another for participants in criminal cases involving violence or sexual violence.

Couldn't you get round the pronouns issue by not using them at all? Just say 'the defendant' every time you need to refer to the defendant. Or would that be seen as contempt of court for not validating the identity of the defendant?

Will this happen when a woman is sexually assualted do you think? Is there anything in those guidelines to address that circumstance?

There's nothing in the Guidelines to cover that. As with everything transgender, the well-intentioned authors did not think through the implications. And we should emphasize again, this was part of the trend of making self-identification a fait accompli before anyone had a chance to debate it. How many people were consulted about this new rule in the Bench Book?

No, of course it has no relevance to the case or the sentence, but in terms of public perceptions, it might come across as six of one and half a dozen of the other. I do have a lot of admiration for Julia Long though and of course she can shout whatever she wants.

I am just conscious of the fact that had the judge totally sided with MM and thrown the book at TW, you can bet your life there would be an appeal looming with lots of lawyers willing to act pro bono for TW and lots of coverage and probably a retrial.

No Julia shouted this after the verdict and sentencing, after everyone had left the court, outside the court.

What Julia said after the verdict and outside the court was not relevant to Maria's case, nor should it be.

I don't think TW even has a GRC, let alone a birth certificate.

Does Tara Wood have a GRC? If TW does, we wouldn't be allowed to say so by law, under the EA(2010)

The question is whether he has a female birth certificate.

Ok, but again Susan, how can a female victim be compelled to address her 'male' attacker as 'she' in a courtroom? And be censured for failing to do so?

I agree that it's not ideal, but as I outlined above, that is the position we are in. I think that if judges did not follow the guidelines, they would be attacked for breaching the Equality Act.

Julia Long apparently shouted 'guilty, guilty, guilty' into her phone when the verdict was read and then shouted something along the lines of 'guilty of male violence' to the courtroom. Again, I see her point but it probably doesn't help.

On the filming issue, there was no evidence that Maria was told to stop filming before Tanis tried to smash her camera.

This is an interesting sidelight on photography--it's quite legal to take a photo up a woman's skirt:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/09/woman-fights-upskirting-sexual-offense-told-men-put-camera-skirt/

The prosecution was far less aggressive than the defence. And so one could charitably say that the judge was not given a clear view of all the facts of the case. The line continually pushed by the defence was that Tanis lived in desperate fear of being "outed" by evil TERFs, despite the fact that he was crowdfunding his facial feminization surgery (the prosecution didn't mention that inconvenient fact).

It was also incredible that Wolf's intimidation of yet another woman while he was on bail wasn't raised in the sentencing phase. All we heard was that he was of good character.

Does Tara Wood have a GRC? If TW does, we wouldn't be allowed to say so by law, under the EA(2010) www.lawsociety.org.uk/support-services/advice/practice-notes/working-with-transgender-employees/

BTW, I've never heard of law that prohibits filming people in a public place. It's also odd to say that trying to film someone who just tried to smash your camera is "unhelpful"

It's not, but I would personally feel extremely uncomfortable being filmed against my will. Surely she was also filming before the camera was knocked out of her hand?
If judges said it's perfectly fine to film someone even if they don't want you to, then how would they deal with cases where a woman is being filmed by a man and she has enough and knocks the camera forcefully out of his hand and is prosecuted for criminal damage or assault? Filming can be very intimidating (not saying it was here, but I don't think we can say that it's always fine).

I think it is one thing to require court officers to observe preferred pronouns - for witnesses, for defendants, etc. And I expect that's the spirit of the guidance being quoted.

However, the crux of this case was that the victim (Maria) characterised the assault on her (by Flik Wood) as male pattern abusive behaviour. And she was asked to give evidence outlining what happened and her view of it.

It's the same argument we're having on the other thread about using the word "male" - how can Maria accurately communicate her point of view if she's told to lie about her perception of her assailant? It's a nonsense.

It doesn't matter what we think about it, what Flik Wood thinks about it, what the judge thinks about it. It doesn't matter what position you take on self-ID. Maria's evidence should be an accurate reflection of what Maria thinks about it.

Plus, the logical extension of this is that in other cases a traumatised victim of sexual offences might be retraumatised by being forced to use the preferred pronouns of her attacker. This cannot be right.