A Spectator's Notebook
'Two LONG, lean Celtic faces loomed across the court. The first belonged to the accused, lonely and aloof in the dock; the second to the Attorney- General. . . .' The quotation is not, as you might have expected, from the latest who- dunit; it is from the report in The Times of Cyprus of the trial of that newspaper's editor and founder, Mr. Charles Foley, on a charge of publishing material likely to cause alarm and despondency in the Island. That, at least, was the original charge. But Sir Frank Soskice, for the defence, quickly pointed out that this included two separate and different offences in one count—which was as absurd, he said, as to charge a manzwith both murder and manslaughter. The charge was eventually confined to causing despondency : and of that Mr. Foley was acquitted. Clearly he ought never to have been prosecuted in the first place. Any critical article offering even the mildest of criticisms can be interpreted, if the authorities are stupid enough, as likely to cause despondency! As the judge rightly said, the article might indeed have caused despondency in some people, 'but they would be a vague set of people one couldn't bring before a court.'
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