You’d have thought aliens had landed in Liverpool Crown Court this week, but sadly, it was only a short-circuit judge.
He was not from any mother ship or Death Star but from the distant galaxy of, um, Chester.
The extraterrestrial bigwig who descended on next year’s Capital of Culture started getting homesick as soon as his feet touched down on Scouse soil.
The robed one (purple with a red sash - not like Darth Vadar’s) tried to show he possessed a light as well as a dark side and made what I thought was a pretty ill-judged comment about the Liverpool accent.
After a serious case in which a sex offender was given a nine-month prison term, this judge decided that was an appropriate time to engage in a bit of banter from Planet Public School.
He knew he would get a laugh from his audience of android-esque counsel. They're too scared not to laugh.
Once the defendant had been dispatched to the cells, the knockabout judge, with a Cheshire Cat grin, said to his equally plummy pal from the same circuit: “You may have noticed, I have not yet developed a Liverpool accent.”
Well, they all nearly fell off the bar, clearly enjoying the funniest thing they’ve ever heard.
As for me, I sat still as a Dalek who has just encountered his first staircase.
The joking judge then followed up his remark with: “Maybe by the end of the week I’m be saying, Calm down, calm down.”
This was met with mirth on an astronomical scale with the usual bunch of sycophants who always guffaw at the slightest judges’ witticism (you know who you are). They found this most amusing.
I thought this was patronising in the extreme. You know, the way Han Solo used to treat Princess Leia....
I wonder if the happy chap would have made these crassly stupid comments had anyone being in the public gallery.
Hmmmm, I wondered. Had this been the musings of a mad person (say Boris Johnson, or the slightly saner Davros) an outcry would have ensued amid the tedious demands for an apology of some sort.
This was still in a public forum and anybody could have been in the court. I’m all for a bit of fun in the workplace and I love a bit of gallows humour. I’m certainly not a droid.
These remarks, in my opinion, were insensitive, but above all, they just weren’t funny.
If the venerable space cadet doesn’t like earning his cash in a court which will be far more exciting and legally stimulating than his own on Planet Chester, then I have a few words of advice for him, firmly rooted in Planet Earth: “Why don’t ya do one, yer honour?”
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit