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An example of this?

alexuk wrote:

Oil has saved more lives than it will kill.

You might like to think about how many lives have been lost in wars fought over oil before making that statement. Not to mention the seven million global deaths each year from air pollution and the death by famine of those whose farmlands have turned into deserts due to global warming. Not sure it's quite as clear cut as you make out.

Those comments are cynical and demonstrate a failure to grasp the scale of the problem we face and the urgency in tackling it.

Global heating is a slow-moving disaster. This glacier that threatens a 1.5m sea-level rise is just one aspect of it.

The last I heard companies supplying renewable energy to the UK were so profitable the government was planning to cap their income, in contrast to their approach to the entirely reasonable profits being made by oil and gas companies.

Or something

As I read somewhere else today (maybe in these comments, maybe on twitter?). Reporting criminality is not vigilanteism and vigilanteism is a crime. By calling Mikey a vigilante, the mail and other similar publications are committing an act of libel. I would guess he would have a good chance to win a lawsuit on that one as they would have to prove he was committing that crime, which he is not or at least that they believed he was (which is true I have no idea, I am not a lawyer)

Patrick9-32 wrote:

......vigilanteism is a crime.

Got some evidence for that claim?

I don't believe being a vigilante is a crime per se, the issue is that you do not have the legal protection of, for example, being a police officer who are granted additional powers under the law. Many actions taken by vigilantes can therefore lead to prosecution for assault, false imprisonment etc.

brooksby wrote:

Problem is, as with the death-by-driving type cases, witnesses, juries, and judges all have an attitude of "I'm not going to find him guilty, because I might have done the same thing".

Haven't there been cases (I know it happens in America but I think it's happened here too) where the defence or prosecution have successfully applied to have a trial moved elsewhere on the basis, for example, that a Newcastle fan on trial for hooliganism in Newcastle is most likely to be facing a jury of fellow Newcastle fans (town chosen at random, no slur on Newcastle fans intended)? Seems as though some similar safety valve is required for road traffic offences.

Where were you thinking? Sark?  (Or somewhere warmer...)

If Hydra was good enough for Leonard Cohen for seven years I certainly wouldn't be objecting to being called for jury service there.

Driving, and more particularly, criminal driving, is so consistent and ubiquitous across all demographics that it would be very difficult to find a full jury of people who honestly didn'g have a bias for or against dangerous drivers. 

If you fill the jury with those without driving licenses the bias would be way too heavy, if you take driving out as a consideration of juror validity you end up with only drivers (on average, you might have one non driver) and you have heavy bias the other way. 

I agree and the same applies for many other types of events, that's why, as I have mentioned elsewhere, I think we should consider moving to the French system of a tribunal of highly trained legally qualified judges rather than a jury.

Patrick9-32 wrote:

Driving, and more particularly, criminal driving, is so consistent and ubiquitous across all demographics that it would be very difficult to find a full jury of people who honestly didn'g have a bias for or against dangerous drivers. 

If you fill the jury with those without driving licenses the bias would be way too heavy, if you take driving out as a consideration of juror validity you end up with only drivers (on average, you might have one non driver) and you have heavy bias the other way. 

 

Just try driving offences with a panel of three driving examiners

brooksby wrote:

Problem is, as with the death-by-driving type cases, witnesses, juries, and judges all have an attitude of "I'm not going to find him guilty, because I might have done the same thing".

And this is the crux of the issue. You don't have to look much further than speed compliance data. Speeding is the most common driver-related factor leading to car accident fatalities, yet you're not going to get a jury of drivers to agree to throw the book at a speeding driver when most drivers speed, most of the time.

Whilst it's tempting to see it in that light I don't think I'd agree. Don't forget Mikey has had plenty of victories to accompany this defeat. As have many others. 
And honestly - if you're not a cyclist - the video Mikey's submitted for evidence is pretty ambiguous. (Waits for the flaming). Which is how jury trials work rightly or wrongly.  

Secret_squirrel wrote:

And honestly - if you're not a cyclist - the video Mikey's submitted for evidence is pretty ambiguous. (Waits for the flaming). 

Not going to flame, I agree that it is certainly ambiguous as to whether there was any danger or harm done, so one can certainly see how a jury would on balance decide that the assault charge could not lie. However, Lyon-Maris was also charged with dangerous driving, which is defined on the UKGOV website as "driving which falls far below the standard expected of a careful driver." He drove his car at a person on foot, he admits that, the video shows that. How can deliberately driving your car at a pedestrian who is posing you no threat (I think we can discount Martin73's ridiculous "He might have been about to rob your Rolex" excuse) not be far below the standard expected of a careful driver?

Good point which I cant really refute.

I can only speculate but I wonder if the juries logic was no assault = no danger.

I do wonder if there had been a careless driving charge whether that would have stuck.  But we shall never know.