Have you ever wondered why your train is running late?
The National Rail Enquiries Twitter feed is very useful for providing answers, as per the typical tweet below.
I can hear those of you with an acute sense of English already asking whether “running normally” on the UK rail network usually involves “following a broken down train” (because that’s what travelling by rail normally feels like? Ed.). 😉
The courts and tribunals interpreting contract being implemented by Capita Translation & Interpreting continues its disastrous course if one listens to anyone except Ministry of Justice civil servants or ministers (posts passim).
Below is a tweet from yesterday posted by London-based barrister Mary Prior.
No further comment is necessary.
So far this blog has recorded a dearth of Capita T&I interpreters for the jobs they’re supposed to be doing in the country’s courts (posts passim).
Now just for a change we’re pleased to report a surfeit, as shown in this tweet (screenshot below).
Are Capita T&I interpreters like buses – one waits for ages and then 3 turn up at once? Or do Capita’s finest believe in safety in numbers? Is any comment on this amazing development forthcoming from Helen Grant MP, the Minister for Victims and the Courts?
I think we should be told.
Micro-blogging site Twitter is complying with a recent judicial decision to hand over identification data for anti-Semitic and racist tweets, reports Le Monde Informatique.
In October last year, there was outrage after numerous anti-Semitic comments were posted on Twitter using the hashtags #UnBonJuif (a good Jew) and #UnJuifMort (a dead Jew). When alerted to the tweets, Twitter immediately removed them. The UEJF (French Jewish Students Union) and four other human rights and anti-racist organisations appealed to the courts to force Twitter to hand over personal details of users who had posted the tweets so they could be prosecuted under French laws against publishing racist and discriminatory hate speech.
In June 2013 the Court of Appeal in Paris dismissed a plea by Twitter and confirmed the social media site’s obligation to pass on the details of the authors of racist or anti-Semitic tweets to five human rights associations concerned.
Twitter announced yesterday that it had handed over the “data likely to enable the identification of certain authors” of anti-Semitic tweets. Twitter also regard this move as settling the dispute with the UEJF, which had directly criticised the social network and its CEO, Dick Costolo, requesting €38.5 million in damages. The parties to the dispute are now going to work together to fight racism. Twitter added that this included “taking measures to improve the accessibility of the reporting procedure of illegal tweets”.
The Bristol Post’s gaffes are not restricted to its website and dead tree version.
Yesterday its Twitter feed yielded the following bit of everyday sexism (and no apology when challenged. Ed.).
It’s always a good idea to keep one’s ears open walking around the city – or anywhere for that matter.
Yesterday lunchtime when crossing St Philips Bridge (below) my ears heard a real treat – a peregrine falcon in the heart of Bristol.
I’ve seen peregrines before near Bristol, particularly down the Avon Gorge, where I’ve spotted them nesting in the Gorge’s old quarries, but never before in the heart of the city.
Naturally, I was quite excited by this and asked Bristol’s Twitter users how unusual this was. After a couple of hours, I received a reply from naturalist and broadcaster Ed Drewitt, who informed me there was a “family of 3 chicks around Cabot Circus way” (they might help keep the city centre’s gull and feral pigeon population under control. Ed.).
Around my home patch of Easton I have over the years seen both sparrowhawks and kestrels, whilst moving further afield the patchwork of open grassland and woodland on Purdown and Stoke Park is ideal buzzard territory.
Finally, there’s one bird of prey I believe I’d heard that I’d really love someone else to corroborate. Returning home some years ago, I could have sworn I heard a tawny owl hooting in the vicinity of the railway embankment between Stapleton Road and Lawrence Hill railway stations. If anyone else has heard hooting there too, I’ll know I wasn’t imagining things. 🙂
Courtesy of the Criminal Bar Association’s Twitter account, evidence has emerged of the Ministry of Justice’s attitude to submissions to its recently closed consultation on its proposed changes to legal aid, which masquerade under the misleading title of ‘Transforming Legal Aid’ (posts passim).
The Criminal Bar Association isn’t the only organisation that has received such information: the Bar Council has too.
Some cynics have already said that they knew the MoJ wouldn’t bother reading submissions. However, what the top screenshot shows is the deplorable lack of IT skills on show from the mandarins of Petty France: they are too thick to realise that their email system sends the originator a message if that email is deleted without actually being read!
Update: Doughty Street Chambers has since tweeted that the MoJ are apparently saying the deletions are an “erroneous technical glitch” and nothing has been deleted, as well as that people have been emailing legalaidreformmoj@justice.gsi.gov.uk to ask for a copy of their response so the MoJ can prove they still have those consultation responses.
Well, that second tweet from Doughty Street just shows how much confidence and trust in the MoJ has eroded.
This blog has written before about politicians’ scrapes with technology and their apparent inability to cope with it (posts passim).
Below is a screenshot of a tweet (since deleted) by Andrew Selous, the Tory MP for South West Bedfordshire commenting on Chancellor of the Exchequer Gideon Osborne’s comprehensive spending review in the House of Commons earlier today.
Andrew should also know that the first rule about criticising others’ use of language is to make sure one’s own is impeccable (but they probably omitted to teach him that at Eton. Ed.).
Hat tip: Phil Gibson.
To give an illustration of the chaos being caused by Capita Translation & Interpreting’s mismanagement of the courts and tribunals contract (posts passim), below is a record of the cases disrupted in the final week of May by failures to provide interpreters at all or provide them on time.
How much longer can Helen Young MP continue to assert that all is well with the courts and tribunals interpreting contract?
31/05
Guildford Crown Court
Details:Case listed for sentence. Prosecution & defence counsel, defendant and both complainants were all in attendance by 9.45am. However, the Arabic speaking interpreter was nowhere to be seen.
Capita sent a telephone message via a note to the judge at 10.40 am. It explained that the assigned interpreter “had informed Capita last night that he would not be able to attend as he was double booked”. Capita left a telephone message that it would be able to provide an interpreter for 2.30 pm, some 5 hours after the due time. The defendant was left to wait in custody.
Reported by Kuljeet Singh Dobe, Barrister, Old Bailey Chambers
31/05
Gloucester Crown Court
Details: 3 Romanian nationals for adjourned Plea & Case Management Hearing (PCMH). No interpreter. His Honour Judge Tabor QC was scathing in his comments about Capita.
Reported by Tim Burrows, Iacopi Palmer Solicitors LLP, Gloucester
29/05
Birmingham Crown Court
Court 1 – sitting at 12:00 pm
THE HONOURABLE MRS JUSTICE COX DBE
Trial (Part Heard)
T20127199 KREZOLEK Mariusz 20CV0147212
LUCZAK Magdelena
20CV0147212
Details: Case delayed as Polish interpreter not provided by Capita for a child murder trial.
29/05
Guildford Crown Court
Details: Capita have failed to arrange Vietnamese interpreter for Plea & Case Management Hearing PCMH at Guildford today. Case has to be adjourned. Waste of court time/public money. Judge very angry with Capita and says he will demand a written explanation and financial penalty.
Reported by Guy Bowden (@BarristerGuy)
29/05
Leeds Magistrates Court
Details: Trial at Leeds Magistrates Court aborted due to lack of Polish interpreter. Booked last month. Defendant had come from Poland for trial; witnesses from Slough.
Reported by Sarah Greenan, Barrister (@Sarah_Zenith)
29/05
Derby Crown Court
Details: Case of R v Thang Vu – Vietnamese interpreter booked through Capita. Barrister reports: “None attended but we all waited all day for one to appear. ALS/Capita contacted several times by the court but no interpreter. Defendants in custody. Case put off to next day. Court booked their own interpreter and we got on the next day.”
28/05
Norwich Crown Court
Details: Case: R v Morkūnas T20127248
The above case was listed at 9.30 am for Custody Time Limit hearing. A Lithuanian interpreter – booked through Capita – should have been there for a conference at 9.00 am, but did not arrive until 10.30 am. The learned Judge did not appear to believe the explanation of the interpreter being booked for 10.30 am and said enquiries would be made.
The case was called on twice but the court could not proceed as no interpreter was present. The explanation given by Capita was that she, the interpreter, had been booked for 10.30. No member of the Norwich CC staff would have made a booking for 10.30 am as it is established over many years that CTL hearings are at 9.30 and need to be preceded by a conference. The knock-on effect was that the trial, in which I, Defence Counsel, was committed in an adjoining court, was delayed. Under the old system there were a number of excellent Lithuanian interpreters who lived within 40 minutes of the court, were familiar with its practices, and have never, in my experience, been late.
Reported by Defence Barrister.
24/05
Newport Crown Court
Details: Andrew(@Andjones1000) reports on Twitter: “Vietnamese Defendant not able to be sentenced as no interpreter arrived at court. Efficiency???”
23/05
Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court
Court Room 10
Details:
Case Name: O’Reilly + 11: T20127262; T20127250; T20120479; T20127269; T20127660; T20127381; T20127253;
T20120636.
Andrew Stephen O Reilly; Byron James Milne; Ceri Wilmot; Edwin Gorlee; Jason Lee Seale; Michael John Connolly; Sam Omidi; Steven John Petrie; Theodorus Van-Gelder; Wayne Braund
Two-day sentencing hearing listed to start on 23 May at 10.30 am. Ten defendants (one of which needed a Dutch interpreter) and eleven barristers left waiting in court packed with public and press as Capita fail to provide Dutch interpreter. “This is what happens when you sell off services to the cheapest bidder”, says barrister.
The interpreter booked by Capita was ‘on holiday’ and there had been a diary error. The Judge requested Capita come to court at 2pm to explain what had happened; they didn’t and he described the situation as ‘outrageous’. Capita appeared before the Judge the next day.
Prosecution counsel: Mr Gary Woodall
Defence counsel for defendant Van Gelder – Ms Gatto
Defence counsel for defendant Gorlee – Ms Thompson
All three barristers from 9, St Johns Street Chambers.
20/05
Wolverhampton Crown Court
Details: Solicitor-Advocate Malcolm Fowler (Dennings Solicitors) reports: “Problems on stilts with, in particular, Wolverhampton Crown Court one, with one case from Friday put off for Capita to show cause within 14 days as to why they should not show cause over no Vietnamese interpreter.
Today, no Polish interpreters for a two handed case put off until tomorrow and the Judge calling on Capita for wasted costs or at least to show cause.
Before the Resident Judge at the same court there was no Vietnamese interpreters for five defendants which has caused a trial due to start today to have to be adjourned.”
CAPITA: Translation and Interpreting (TI) (formerly Applied Language Solutions)
Instances of failure to supply interpreters or to comply with the Ministry of Justice contract and Framework Agreement
Volume 2: 1st February – 31st May 2013
The reports contained within this dossier describe justice sector interpreting failures from 1st February 2013. This is the second year of the Ministry of Justice’s Framework Agreement and contract with Capita Translation and Interpreting (formerly Applied Language Solutions) and the variety of failures reported span the following complaints:
Evidence has been compiled from various sources including:
READ THE DOSSIER HERE (PDF)