Perverts and the course of justice

One of those bad courtroom dramas on television might have used the scene as a denouement, and then been panned by the critics for its unrealism. A good and faithful servant, accused of felonious behaviour and facing prison, is acquitted thanks to a surprise intervention by a third party. The third party happens to be the Head of State. The former saintly reputation of the accused is immediately restored. God save the Queen.

In the aftermath, a near-hysterical and assiduously briefed press blames almost everybody concerned. The police, thick, bigoted and incompetent as usual, are said to be especially at fault. The Crown Prosecution Service, it goes without saying, is highly culpable. And there is obloquy for the monarch herself, a harmless 76-year-old grandmother who is vilified for the unpardonable offence of having forgotten a throwaway line in a three-hour conversation five years ago about the grief her interlocutor was feeling after a bereavement.