Why do British authors keep making this very obvious mistake?

[YaWeeFurryBastard]

Yet again I’m reading an otherwise good book which refers to a character being unable to put up the money to make bail. This is set in England, bail in England does not require a surety payment except in very limited circumstances. Why do authors or editors not check this to make sure it’s factually accurate?!

See also characters being bailed after they’ve been charged with murder, something which is particularly unheard of in England. Magistrates don’t have the power to grant bail for murder charges.

Surely at some point pre publishing, someone with a basic knowledge of the English legal system reads the book, or do they just not care?

I’m probably very over invested but it’s bloody annoying and almost undermines an otherwise believable story.

How bizarre. It must surely be written by an American.

You only need a very basic idea of English law and society to know that this is rubbish, I'd think.

Magistrates don’t have the power to grant bail for murder charges.

It wouldn't even be a magistrate, would it? Magistrates can't try a murder case - it would be immediately transferred to Crown Court and a judge and the person accused would be remanded in custody, I believe.

What's the book?

I didn't know you didn't have to pay for bail in the UK until a couple of years ago when a friend's relative was arrested and given bail, I can see how people who haven't had a lot of dealings with the legal system wouldn't know.

Are the authors definitely British?

I’ve read loads of books set in the UK but written by Americans who haven’t done all their research.

In England and Wales you don't always have to pay money into court to get bail in the UK, but in some cases, where the court has significant concerns about the likelihood of the accused fleeing the jurisdiction, an offer to pay a surety or a security may assist in persuading the court to grant bail.

A surety is an offer, made by someone who is close to you, to pay a specified sum to the court in the event that you fail to attend to answer your bail.

A security is similar to a surety except that the money is paid into court before the defendant is released from custody. It is not an offer to pay if the defendant fails to attend. The court holds the security sum and will only repay it once the defendant has attended all hearings as required.

In Scotland they have a similar system, and I think a surety-type payment is called a caution?

So embarrassingly sloppy.
Neither do we have a gavel, 'press' charges or have 'statutory ' rape.

It’s an Adele Parks book so very definitely an English author.

There are two ways post charge bail can be granted:

1. By the police in custody, this is for minor offences where the offender is going to shortly appear before the magistrate (I think within 28 days)

2. By the magistrate, all offences that aren’t given police bail are remanded and sent before the magistrate to decide on bail ASAP. If it’s a serious offence, the magistrate will decide whether to bail the defended and then refer to the crown court for trial. If it’s something the magistrate can deal with themselves they will bail/not bail and set a date for magistrates trial. Magistrates cannot grant bail for murder charges, that would have to be done by a crown court judge which would be exceptionally unusual. I believe the defence would have to apply separately to crown court to grant bail which would take ages and I can’t think of a reason it would be granted, so it basically doesn’t happen.

Yes I agree, but in England it’s extremely unusual for this to happen and would be for non-violent offences such as fraud etc. if it happens at all (very rare).

You definitely wouldn’t not be granted bail for attempted murder because you couldn’t stump up the money.

@YaWeeFurryBastard

See also characters being bailed after they’ve been charged with murder, something which is particularly unheard of in England. Magistrates don’t have the power to grant bail for murder charges.

No, but Crown Courts do. BBC News: A mother charged with murdering her teenage daughter has been granted bail. Appearing via video link at Teesside Crown Court, Ms XXXX was granted bail....

Mr Justice Jacobs granted the application, with certain conditions, including that Ms XXXX stay with a family member and abide by a curfew.

A pre-trial hearing has been scheduled for 5 August at the same court, with a trial date provisionally set for 14 January.

(10 July 2024)

It does happen, and Google can turn plenty up. Not all this type of case, either.

Yes I know, I say this in my subsequent post:

Magistrates cannot grant bail for murder charges, that would have to be done by a crown court judge which would be exceptionally unusual.

Maybe “exceptionally” is an overstatement but it is certainly unusual in the UK.

Another one that annoys me is cell phone when the book is set in GB NOBODY. Calls them cell phones

Perhaps it is to appeal to the American market for that particular genre?

That last fact seems to have passed the majority of mumsnetters by, given the number of them that refer to it in the context of UK laws about underage sex.

So did the MP who was being interviewed today about being groomed and pregnant at 15.

The whole thing is so irritating! I listened to a series of audiobooks set in the Cotswolds between the wars, about a lady (daughter of a lord) & her maid solving crimes together. Good light entertainment but there were policemen with guns & nightsticks, trains went from depots and people had nightstands beside their beds - oh & everyone banked at the small local branch of the Bank of England.

Oh yes the “press charges” thing is extremely annoying and often rather self important. People don’t have the power to “press charges”, you give a statement/evidence to support a prosecution and the CPS decide whether there’s sufficient evidence/it’s in the public interest to charge.

I always used to get annoyed in books about the life insurance that never pays out in cases of suicide. When in real life as long as it’s taken out several months before, it will normally pay out. Sometimes the whole plot would hinge on this.

But I have to admit that although I knew about the absence of statutory rape in the UK, I didn't know that people couldn't decide whether or not to press charges about something, or that bail wasn't in return for money. Most of my understanding of legal things like that comes from American crime novels or films or newspaper reports, some of which might be equally inaccurate (the novels or films anyway) but I'd be even less likely to pick that up.

(I didn't grow up in the UK, although I doubt that makes much difference; I grew up somewhere with a system modelled partly on the UK's).

I remember Julian Asaange's supporters forfeiting bail money. That was quite a big story at the time. Perhaps because it's unusual?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/08/julian-assange-supporters-ordered-forfeit-bail

Bail can be granted for murder possibly in cases where the basis is that of a person killing to spare suffering.

Why on TV do judges etc use a gavel? They are not used in UK courts!

@YaWeeFurryBastard

But if you were writing a book which included the court system wouldn't you research it first?
I agree OP that it would out me off reading a book if the author hadn't done basic research.
I like to lose myself in a novel but I can't if there is a glaring inaccuracy

Really annoying, it’s one of my pet peeves. I read a book recently where the heroin had “bangs” (a fringe) and described Bracknell in a positive light. it was written by Sophie Kinsella who’s English and should know better.

A lot of young people have moved to calling a fringe bangs these days. See it all the time on Instagram

I read book a while back where the UK policeman couldn't arrest someone as he didn't have " probable cause".

Exactly this, it shows a lack of rigour on the writer's part, as well as slack editing, surely in the process you would think someone would pick up on the errors.
I recently had to stop reading an otherwise well-written novel about a wartime member of the SOE because of the number of Americanisms and errors in it, including in the dialogue, eg RAF pilots having mayonnaise in sandwiches( didn't come to the UK till the 60s, in the war would be salad cream), British wartime characters saying "Hi", British characters referring to cutlery as flatware, saying sidewalk etc. All the errors jumped out at me and I just couldn't get into the flow of the book so never finished it.
I would have thought that if you were writing about a country you didn't know about you'd check your cultural references very thoroughly.
In the OP's case it's again very sloppy and shows a lack of research. Perhaps the editing team is very young and has been influenced by watching too much American crime drama.

Surely at some point pre publishing, someone with a basic knowledge of the English legal system reads the book, or do they just not care?

Nah. This is exactly the kind of stuff that slips through. Obviously ideally between the author, acquiring editor, desk editor, copy editor and proofreader you’d hope someone might query it from a point of general knowledge but it won’t be read for legal issues … honestly speaking if the plot otherwise hangs together and it’s told well then 99% of readers won’t notice or care. Sorry!