“If judges do speak out on topics which concern the public they may overcome the widely held belief, stemming from all those years of lofty reticence, that they are out of touch or even, as has been said, living on another planet.”It should not be done too often, but it can and does have a role to play in the evolution and development of a sound legal system in which the public can have confidence.”Judges have theoretically been free to speak out on matters of public interest since the Lord Chancellor scrapped “vow of silence” rules in 1987.With few exceptions they have chosen to stick to their traditional role of restricting their remarks to judgments made in court and relying on the media to give a balanced view of the case and the reasons behind sentences. “TV, radio and newspaper critics do not shrink from substituting their assessments for those made by the court. They lambast the judiciary for failing to satisfy what they conceive to be – and indeed aim to shape as – the public’s demands,” he said.”A legacy from past reticence is that judges have acquired and still retain a reputation for being aloof and for holding themselves apart. The Lord Chief Justice said it was up to the judiciary to prove they did not “live on another planet” and be prepared to air their views.
Lord Taylor warned that criticism of the court system was reaching new heights after decades of apparently aloof behaviour by the judiciary.He told a conference at St Albans, Hertfordshire, that the media was scrutinising court cases as never before – often pushing reporting rules to the limit. Their first choice of drink is traditional, no doubt influenced by what they have seen in the home.”.

Judges were told yesterday to shed their crusty image and start speaking out publicly to show they were in touch with ordinary people. The council will use the information to shape the way it informs and educates youngsters about drink.Its spokeswoman, Ann Furst, expressed concern at the ease with which under-age drinkers are buying alcohol. She said it showed that the licensing laws are not being enforced.She added: “Our teenagers are a lot more sophisticated and knowledgeable about drink than people realise. On the Saturday of Mrs Bosley’s reception there were only five staff on duty and three of those were dealing with two disruptive inmates.Earlier, David Rummins, Mrs Bosley’s brother had told the inquest how his sister, a secretary, had driven with her son to her parents’ house and told them she had killed her husband in the bedroom of their home in Basingstoke, Hampshire.The hearing continues today.. First results of the survey by the Scottish Council on Alcohol reveal that the traditional drinks, which contain more alcohol, are favoured by 15- to 17-year-olds.
The report was commissioned to gain an accurate picture of what under- age drinkers are buying.

Under-age drinkers are sticking to spirits, cider, lager and wine despite hype about new fizzy alcoholic drinks aimed at the youth market, according to a new survey. Professor David Bowen, the pathologist, said she would have had to have been determined in order to overcome a natural impulse to gag.Her absence went unnoticed for 90 minutes as prison staff checked in and processed three other prisoners admitted to the jail after her.Mrs Bosley had been arrested and charged last November after confessing to stabbing her husband, Barry, to death.A police psychiatrist, who had been called to see if Mrs Bosley was fit to be questioned, had decided she had been depressed since May, when she suffered her second ectopic pregnancy, leaving her unable to have any more children. He believed she had developed a morbid jealousy of her husband and decided that because of the nature of her offence – and her mental state – the best place for her to be was in a prison hospital.She was remanded to Holloway on 25 November, last year.Her death, the second in the country’s largest women’s jail last year, occurred just one week before the Chief Inspector of Prisons walked out of the troubled prison in protest at the conditions.Yesterday an inquest jury at the City of London coroner’s court was told that since Mrs Bosley’s death – the first to occur in the jail’s reception area – those prisoners arriving with the red-ringed “Pol 1″ written warnings from police are now held near an office where they can be supervised.But Michael Ainsworth, Holloway’s deputy governor, admitted that although staff were trained in suicide awareness there were neither national nor local written protocols on what should be done, when “risk” prisoners arrive.Pauline Martindale, who said she had worked at Holloway for 12 years, estimated that about 30 per cent of all women sent to Holloway arrive with a risk warning. Yesterday Pauline Martindale, told a London inquest into Mrs Bosley’s death: “My assessment was that although she was distressed she did not pose a major suicide risk. She did not give the impression she was in crisis.”Mrs Bosley – who apparently unknown to prison staff had been diagnosed as suffering paranoid depression – was placed alone in a holding room in the prison reception area. She went in to an adjacent lavatory and thrust five sheets of toilet tissue down the back of her throat.

Claire Bosley, 34, killed herself by stuffing toilet tissue down her throat and blocking her airways – a successful repeat of one of three earlier attempts she had made on her life in the previous 72 hours in police custody.
But despite both a telephoned and written warning from police that Mrs Bosley posed an “exceptional risk” of suicide, the senior reception officer at Holloway reached a different conclusion. A suicidal woman suffocated herself soon after admission to Holloway jail in north London, after a prison officer dismissed police warnings and staff left her alone for 90 minutes. More concentration would effect our ability to recruit the best brains in the university system. If they can’t get a place here, they will go to California or Boston.”But the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals welcomed the report.

A spokesman said: “There are so many good ideas and so little money that we have to make sure the money is not being spent on second-rate ideas. It may be regrettable but is inevitable in the present funding situation.”. “Teaching should have a higher status and not be regarded as a poor relation of research. We want universities to maximise funding from as many sources as possible and we take no comfort from the latest projections of government research spending.”The report says it has become increasingly difficult for new fields of research to establish themselves.