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. Others involved, naturally including the accused himself but also, interestingly, the hated husband of his deceased former employer, come up smelling of roses.

Mr Burrell’s re-sanctification has gone down especially badly with some of those who investigated him. The police know that he denied, when his home was raided early last year, having any of the late Princess’s chattels in his possession. They subsequently found what on some estimates were £5 million-worth in his attic. They say he offered 12 separate explanations, under questioning, of why they were there. They have doubts, still, about Mr Burrell’s reliability, although he has, of course, been acquitted of all the charges he faced in the recent court case.