But what would have happened if we’d been told his track record in advance? Well, the verdict would still have been the same, no question – but I’m willing to bet we’d have spent a lot less time than four-and-a-half hours discussing it. But it was precisely because we took that time, painstakingly sifting through the evidence and matching it to multiple witness testimonies, that we could say with a clear conscience that we sincerely believed we’d got it right in <I>this particular case</I>.

And that’s the only thing that matters. True, we’d have put away a pretty unpleasant character come what may, but, as Reinder says, that’s not good enough: the victims of this specific case needed justice done too. And I’m not convinced that this would have been the case under these new proposals.

Anyway, the true culprit walked free for 18 months because the law and the judiciary pounced on a witness’s prior record. Yay for keeping our children safe, etc. etc. Lucky we don’t have the death penalty here.