General Chat

Mr Justice Mitting the judge hearing the case in which, the former chief whip Andrew Mitchell MP, is suing News Group Newspapers over claims he called Police Constable Toby Rowland a "pleb" in 2012 - has ruled that the former chief whip did not tell the truth - and as a result he has lost his libel case.

The judge at the Royal Courts of Justice has said he was "satisfied" that Andrew Mitchell did use the "politically toxic word pleb" in the exchange with PC Toby Rowland.at the Downing Street gates.

While Andrew Mitchell thought he was right & everybody else wished he was wrong, chances are it's the others who were wrong.

Or possibly vice versa - I think!

To be absolutely honest I couldn't care less!! This has been dragging on for so long, costing heaven knows what, all over what is in fact a storm in a teacup. If Andrew Mitchell swore at the Police then why didn't they warn him about the use of bad language and then if he persisted, arrest him on the spot. Even if he did call the Officer a Pleb I don't think that is against the law, and quite frankly people, including me have been called worse and risen above it. I still can't see all these shocked bystanders in the YouTube video, but then my eyesight isn't what it once was, so maybe they were there in the shadows. I can only imagine too that these 'shadowy' people's hearing must be excellent as well bearing in mind the distance and the fact that you couldn't hear any of this confrontation on the film! (my hearing is still excellent!) So frankly, both sides take a deep breath, get a grip and settle out of court and end this idiotic saga.

So now we know don't sue plods the judiciary reckon they are too stupid to fib. Toytown politics Larry the lamb lost. He will get a serious bill and will have to flog something or other dear to his heart.

Mitchell was unpleasant at school - good quality in a chief whip - but as always Cameron cannot see the downside. Maybe Cameron should become a football manager. He would fit right in at Arsenal with his talent of losing from the jaws of victory.

:-D

RolloTheRed - not a fan of UK police then?

I have no idea whether Andrew Mitchell was unpleasant at school as I have no inside information and certainly don't know him personally. Rumour has it that this was the case, but rumour can be biased, and exaggerated over the passage of time, so for me I couldn't really comment one way of the other. There are, however, arrogant, patronising and rather unpleasant people on all sides of the H of C, and the judge was certainly extremely patronising and dismissive of the P.C concerned to the point of rudeness. A plague on all your houses as it would seem that all parties of this saga are as bad as the other!

So a 15 second conversation two years ago has taken 2 weeks in court, presumably hundreds of police hours and costs of £2million.


For what?

Andy

Quite!

My old man was a DCI in the Met. Some of my rellies are police people in today's force. So am I generally anti blue ? No, not at all.
Just commenting on the basis of the judge's reasoning which is that the word of a privy councilor is outweighed by that of a copper because ( underline the next bit ) the plod is too stupid to fib.

On the "balance of probability" that is - 75%.
Actual physical evidence was ignored.

Amazing.

Makes me wonder if he said Pleb or Plod,the later seems more than likely as they are generally regarde as that. :-S

Whatever he said, a simple apology made at the time of the incident would have saved him a hell of a lot of money, something along the lines of:-

"I am sorry officer, I have had a bad day, I took my anger out on you, I apologise for losing my temper, I should not have used that kind of language, after all you were only doing your job."

Unfortunately the political elite are not normally at the front of the queue when it comes to apologising for any error of judgement - specially if the the other party is a plod or a pleb ;-)

Politicians have a pathological unwillingness to admit to making a mistake, let alone committing a crime.