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.

Its simple. Lousy lazy author.

@ISeriouslyDoubtIt Was it one of the Maggie Hope series? I started listening to them as it sounded interesting but I gave up after a scene with a (historically inaccurate) IRA bomb attack where someone referred to the perpetrators as “terrorist nutters”

I agree.

I write books, sadly not as my main job as I’ve not yet hit it ‘big’ however, my biggest irritation is a lack of attention to detail.

The ones I rant about the most are:

• somebody once calling A2 paper ‘tiny’
• somebody once writing an entire book (very well known author, lots of books) based on a social media channel, using a timeline based 2 years BEFORE the platform had gone live.
• Authors who write about children who behave wildly younger or older than their age (doing the school run for an 18yo etc)

It doesn’t take much to research these sort of things.

This is really interesting, as I’ve just read one of her old books and she referred to a maternity package as a ‘severance package’ and a few other things which felt very American when it was based in London!

edited to add: I quoted the wrong bit - but you get the idea 🤦🏻‍♀️

No, it wasn't one of those, although in your case I'd be interested to know which word stopped you from reading further, as the IRA were terrorists and no doubt some people would have called them nutters.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA so true.
Why pick a place you’ve never had the misfortune to visit?

My understanding is that the Magistrate would deal with the case in the first instance until it is committed for trial.

As someone who works in the English legal system, I can assure you most people living in England have absolutely no fucking clue about how the legal system works. It grinds my gears as well.

'Pressing charges' is particularly a problem as people seem to believe this is true. I've seen numerous professionals including social workers tell women they have to 'press charges' in domestic abuse and rape cases, just adding to the confusion. Have also seen it written in formal reports. I imagine it is the influence of American tv, rather than these books, but it's really frustrating

My favourite was the second series of Broadchurch, where the relatives of the victim were running around trying to find a prosecuting barrister and having meetings with her. We never did work out what the writers thought the function of the CPS is.

@ISeriouslyDoubtIt I had a similar experience with an otherwise great series of books set in the UK across various periods in history. The US English completely destroyed the sense of time and place. Is it true that authors get bad reviews online if they use non US English so British, Australian etc depending on where the story is supposed to be?

As far as pressing changes, no you can't only the crown prosecution service can in England BUT as the complainant, the victim you often need to be willing ti give a statement and potentially testify in court/via video link and not everyone is willing to, without the victim's testimony often the police can't provide sufficient evidence to the crown prosecution service.

As far as statutory rape, whilst the law strictly speaking has a longer title, a quick peruse of google shows dozens of U.K. solicitors firms using the term as shorthand. We know there is discretion in England for 14&15 year olds where consent was given and there is no suggestion of coercion, typically when the other party is similarly aged.

I was about to quote the same book! The “bangs” thing drove me mad. The main character also wore “sneakers”.

Interestingly I remember reading an epilogue for one of Diana Gabaldon’s earlier books (historical time travel for those who don’t know)

I am no history buff but I think her books are reasonably accurate and well researched. A lot of Americanisms do creep in, presumably because Americans can’t handle British colloquialisms, whereas we can translate.

anyway she had an issue where her timeline didn’t quite fit the actual historical timeline. She was talking to her husband about how she’d get round the issue, and he said something along the lines of you’re asking readers to accept time travel is real, I’m sure some battle a few months earlier won’t stretch their disbelief 😂

she still apologised for the inaccuracy though 😂

Not technically inaccurate but why do white shirts always have to be ‘crisp’? 😆

Makes you wonder if some of the big-name authors are increasingly using ghost writers for the actual grind of producing text.

@ISeriouslyDoubtIt The phrase as a whole didn’t strike me as being something a young English female character would have expressed at the time. I don’t disagree that the IRA were terrorists, although I’m not sure that word was in common usage at the time; more from the 1970s onward.

I once read a book by an American author which started with a holiday in London. The US heroine was looking forward seeing Westminster Abbey and her travelling friend made a comment about her watching Charles and Di's wedding live on the internet.

The heroine was mid-twenties and the book was published 2016.

I could have accpted the venue mix-up but the rest....

This sort of thing really annoys me too.

Not a legal error, but I remember reading a book which involved a hostage situation in a childcare setting/nursery school in winter. Half the children were 5 years old (so should have been at school) and they all spoke in 2-3 baby talk sentences. Not one person proofreading spotting that they’d got school starting age wrong really pissed me off - let alone the totally inaccurate portrayal of 5 year olds.

That would explain a lot.

It's almost as if some quite famous authors don't actually write all of their books.

As a former criminal law barrister... books have nothing on Soaps!!

The murder trial two weeks after the murder.. the endless "Mi'Ludd" ing and robes warn entirely wrong.. worst bit is they DO have legal advice they just choose to ignore it when it doesn't suit.

As others say.. most people don't know much about the law but yes authors should give it a quick Google for the sake of our sanity 🤣

What do robes usually warn of? 😂

but yes, I’m medical and lot’s of tv programmes have contracted advisors- but when you advise that their storyline wouldn’t happen they’re just “oh well the correct way doesn’t fit the character/storyline, so we’ll keep it how it is”.

Oops. 23 hours driving to France does not make for careful spelling.

Mine used to warn of a day that was likely to be too hot but they were at least WORN correctly. 🤣

What was the book series please? Sounds right up my street