Peeking Behind the Curtain.
The Independent has ‘a’ story… but it is NOT their story. It is Anna Raccoon’s story…
Mea Culpa! I have long been guilty of boring you all to a state of near death with my tales of the Court of Protection. There was method in my cruelty. I shall not make you suffer much longer – my task is almost complete.
The task I had set myself was to campaign effectively for the Court of Protection to open its doors to public scrutiny, for justice to be seen to be done. More than that, for the legal profession to have adequate access to the ratio that lay behind prior decisions to be able to competently contest those decisions. Our entire legal system rests on lawyers understanding how and why the law has developed in the hands of judges. Without that knowledge they are blindfolded – and without informed legal advice there can be no effective representation in any court….
If you have time.. please read what Anna Raccoon said and go back in her posts….. She did it and she is right to have done so. It really is an important legal story.
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Update: I have decided to provide the link to The Indie story..… but it would have been better if the journalist had Googled ‘Stephen Neary’ before writing his piece.. he may just have found out that others had done some spade work before his story yesterday? Acknowledgement costs nothing..and attribution is all?
Anna Raccoon states clearly in her blog post: “The court was told that the Uxbridge Gazette, Private Eye, and ‘other publicity’ had already raised the profile of the case. No other media outlet had been prepared to touch it.”
Am I being unfair to the journo? My email address is here if I am
I covered Anna Raccoon’s story at the time: Law Review: Words fail me – a truly shocking story – please read and publicise
Charon QC 
It’s disgraceful when a national daily doesn’t give credit when it’s due. It’s not as if it costs them money, and it’s ethically dubious (to put it mildly) to claim all the credit for exposing this story.
the way it trumpeted the decision, you’d think the indy did the job single-handed. great kudos to anna raccoon.