LETTERS Beware of judge-bashers
Sir: Alasdair Palmer's piece about under- cover police officers might have been a lit- tle more balanced if it had been illustrat- ed by the exploits of an unattractive male officer (Drugs, contract killings . . . that kind of thing', 26 August). No judge would express anything but admiration and approval for undercover work which has as its object the thwarting of crimes. It's dangerous and effective. The obtain- ing of confessions by surreptitious means is not the same thing at all; the vice of Palmer's article is to suggest that disap- proving of one is to undervalue PC Catherine's work in the other. The point about confessions is that they must be val- ueless as evidence unless they are obtained in circumstances which make them likely to be reliable. The number of miscarriages of justice in recent years should have made that obvious. And it's equally obvious that the inducements held out to obtain the Stagg confession made it inherently unreliable as evidence.
Your readers should analyse carefully the pronouncements of those seeking to join the ranks of judge-bashers.
Judge Paul Collins
Wandsworth County Court, 76-8 Upper Richmond Road, London SW15
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