I went off to my favourite Youth Court the other day to deal with a feisty Client. The Client was attending at Court to be sentenced. I read through the pre-sentence report with them and they expressed their discontent with the author of the report. The discontent was that they were not understood and no one listened to what they had to say.
When the case was called on the District Judge asked the feisty Client directly if she should pay compensation to a victim who had sustained a small cut. The answer was, "No way!" The Client was asked why they felt like that and were asked the question by the District Judge, "If you were the man would you not deserve compensation?". At first the adult accompanying the Defendant whispered, "Say yes", even though the Defendant had been convicted at trial they said, "No," and explained the basis of their unsuccessful defence. The District Judge listened and then said he would not order compensation for the reasons given by the Defendant.
The Defendant had some balls saying what they did, and it did the trick! No compensation was ordered on the basis of what the Defendant had said.
2 comments:
And what were exactly the reasons given by the defendant ?
That the Defendant's conduct only just went outside the realms of reasonable behaviour and the victim did in part contribute towards the offence.
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