Archers thread #173: The Fall of the House of Grundy? Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you wish we were hearing more of Pip, or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please! We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

I chose the thread title to echo one I used three years ago, which is here if anyone fancies a trip down Memory Lane: www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4320618--Archers-thread-130-The-Fall-of-the-House-of-Aldridge-Discuss-The-Archers-here. That was the thread where I caused all sorts of confusion at the start by not starting it before the old thread filled up, but others stepped in, fortunately.

At that point I see Ruairi was heading off to London to start his degree, which he has now finished, with none of us any the wiser about what he studied or where. Perhaps this will finally be mentioned now he's graduating.

And now, over to you!

Well he expects her to see Martha as her problem so why should he see his niece as his problem?

Au fond, Alice is a profoundly vindictive person, as evidenced by her voicemail to Emma and her outburst at Ruairi.

Oh absolutely but for the moment she's being saintly Alice.

Surprised it’s ’assisting an offender’ though: it’s in to conspiracy to pervert territory, particularly bearing in mind the trip to the cop shop with the fairy story about Harry

They had no obligation to shop George. They stepped over the line of wrongdoing when they colluded in trying to implicate Harry.

At this stage it’s just ‘they knew’.
I think Emma’s offer to be a character witness for Alice is very dodgy

Will just sounds so thick. I’m sure he wasn’t always this bad.

for a moment there I thought Ruaridh wasn't going to graduate at all/had sat for a different degree/was going to impersonate someone else or similar

OK, I think I am going completely mad. I listened to Brian and Alice at Ruairi’s graduation yesterday.

I listen via BBC Sounds.

I was wondering why you were all taking about Robert on here and Brian possibly missing the graduation.

When I went to Sounds today to listen to the episode for 13 September (at about 7:30pm) it said “listened”. But I definitely haven’t listened to any Archers today.

Did the BBC post the wrong day’s episode to a Sounds yesterday? Did nobody else notice this?

I hadn’t heard the previous episode. I just assumed that they had introduced the graduation with no lead-up (it worked quite well).

Then let us hope they have not told anyone that they did that. Neither Chris nor, presumably, Harrison knows that Emma or Will knew what was going on until George ran away when they told him to hand himself in, and came back with Clive. And that was a couple of weeks after George's lying attempt to implicate Harry.

It’s lucky I didn’t have time to post on here last night otherwise I’d have posted a massive spoiler.

@HotCrossBunplease - Someone on another forum mentioned the BBC Sounds cock-up, when they put tonight's episode up yesterday by mistake. They took it down pretty quickly, so rest assured that you haven't entered a time-warp.

You were lucky to miss the litter picking tbh

Didn’t Will put his house up as collateral agains Ed and Em’s tree surgery business? So if Emma ends up in hot water it could risk Will’s house?

Harrison makes my skin crawl. If my husband had a sudden religious conversion and wanted to work part time I’d question his mental health.

He’s not a very forgiving Christian

He's not a very good Christian at all!

Maybe the person to have a serious talk with him would be Alan, but he's so wet that I doubt he'd do any good.

Well I hope they bloody well report him for assaulting George now.

Oh, and what does Harrison think he's doing, telling Emma and Will to expect a knock on the door from the police? This is like an invitation for them to FLEE!!! I don't think they will, but if they tell the police that they were expecting them because Harrison "warned them", then I hope that's the end of his career.

I’m amazed that the police act so quickly tbh given all the crimes they can’t be bothered to investigate or other things they won’t go out to

have will and Emma broken the law? I don’t know. But I can’t see how prosecuting them is in the public interest tbh

I amuses me that, in my head at least, the person who is coming out of this worst is Harrison. Is this intentional? I rather hope he mysteriously ends up blocking a culvert. Go, Fallon, Go!

No law broken simply because they didn't tell on George. Colluding with the cock and bull mystery man theory, possibly although they didn't speak to the police.

Popping in to say hello.

Hello👋

the way Harrison was talking to Emma and Will made me feel sick. If the sw are writing him this way on purpose then the actor is doing it extremely well. He made me feel sick!

The CPS don't seem to think we have a duty to report a crime.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/reporting-crime

So what did Will and Emma do to assist an offender?
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/public-justice-offences-incorporating-charging-standard
(Scroll down link to see details)
Examples of the type of conduct appropriate for a charge of assisting an offender include:

• hiding a principal offender;
• otherwise assisting a principal offender to avoid arrest;
• assisting a principal offender to abscond from bail;
• lying to the police to protect principal offenders from investigation and prosecution;
• hiding the weapon used in an assault/robbery;
• washing clothes worn by a principal offender to obstruct any potential forensic examination.

There may be an overlap between the offence of assisting an offender and obstructing a constable, wasting police time, concealing arrestable offences (s.5(1) Criminal Law Act 1967) and perverting the course of justice . The courts have made it clear that assisting an offender is a serious offence and, if the statutory offence of assisting an offender can be charged, it should normally be preferred over common law offences. However, the common law offence of perverting the course of justice should be considered when:

• the assisting is aimed at preventing or hindering the trial process (as opposed to the arrest or apprehension of an accused);
• the facts are so serious that the court's sentencing powers for the statutory offence are considered inadequate;
• admissible evidence of the principle offence is lacking.

At worst it was the attempt to frame Harry, but not clear how anyone else other than the three of them knows about the discussions that led to George's false statement. But if it can be proved, surely that is attempting to pervert the course of justice.

I imagine the SWs will have legal advice, so I hope one of the criminal lawyers on here can come and set things me straight!

Yes - there's no obligation to report a crime. Lying to the police to cover up what George did is, but they weren't asked.

I imagine the SWs will have legal advice,

The law is frequently wrong in soaps and The Archers is no exception.

So if they haven’t committed a crime - and they haven’t committed the crime Harrison accused them of - could they accuse him of harassment?

I wonder what boss lady would make of all this. I certainly wouldn’t want him anywhere near so many types of cases