A solicitor who has battled for years on behalf of disabled and elderly residents of care homes has been told she will get no legal aid work in the coming year – because of a typing error.
Eh..?
Sources at the Ministry of Justice confirmed that Ms Hossack's applications for legal aid contracts had been turned down because of a typing error. Applications have to specify the area in which the applicant is practising, but the specialised nature of Ms Hossack's work means that she represent clients from all over Britain.
She submitted 125 applications. because of an error in her office the word "Wiltshire" appeared on all of them, which was the ground on which 124 were rejected. The 125th, which covered Wiltshire, was refused because her office is in Northamptonshire.
Now, there are all sorts of mutterings about the authorities being out to ‘get her’ because she wins too many cases against them, but I can’t help but be amused at a lawyer being caught out on the sort of pettifogging nitpickery they so often employ to win cases…
The outcome will be interesting. She obviously won't let it rest at that.
ReplyDeleteRationing systems in the UK are forever subject to this kind of bureaucracy.
ReplyDeleteBe fair, folks. If you'd got a speeding ticket or something for going a few mph over on an empty motorway where it couldn't possibly have put anyone else at risk - something that must happen on at least a weekly basis - wouldn't you want a lawyer who went in for pettifogging nitpickery? Hell, if you were accused of almost anything wouldn't you want it? Some of your increasing list of men falsely accused of rape could be in jail but for that, and I can think of at least one case here where an insufficient number of nits were thoroughly picked and someone did 15 months for a rape he didn't do. Getting a fair trial is all about destruct-testing of the prosecution case, and we do it that way round not to help more guilty men go free but to make sure far fewer innocent ones go to prison. We may not like the way lawyers resort to loopholes, especially if it looks like a real piece of shit is getting away with it as a result, but the lawyers are only playing with the law as it's written. If it's unnecessarily complex, if not downright impenetrable, self-contradictory and full of holes the finger should be pointed at the ministers who asked for it, the civil servants who helped them write it, and the lobby fodder backbenchers who nodded it through without reading it properly.
ReplyDeleteIf Ms Hassock is who I think she is, she has been a thorn in the side of various councils over the years because of her work - some of who have tried to get her disbarred.
ReplyDeleteIt could be a a case of nitpicking or it could (tinfoil hat time) be more malicious.
As Sue says I can't imagine that she will let the matter rest regardless.
I would, on the whole agree with AE ..
ReplyDeleteBut its still nice to see the biter bit once in a while ..
Call it schadenfreud, if you will .. Lol
XX but the specialised nature of Ms Hossack's work means that she represent clients from all over Britain.XX
ReplyDeleteAha. The perpetual problem with forms, and particularly those on internet.
No box to tick for "maybe".
The simple solution would be to have a box "Other", but because the mentaly spastic bastards that write these things have not got the imagination to REMOTELY consider that ALL options may NOT have been covered, we end up with forms that will not let you go any further if, for example, you just have NOT GOT a bloody telephone.
Let me see....who do I fancy for legal aid?
ReplyDeleteYvonne Hossack who tries to defend old dears from being shunted round the care 'system' so they'll die off quicker (they don't take well to being moved) or lawyers representing prisoners wanting compo for not being allowed to vote, it's all against their youman rights, innit.
That's a toughie.
However, there is a genuine cost problem which Yvonne Hossack has refused to recognize, always wanting to fight and confusing her clients' rights to care with their preference for care in a particular place.
There will always be some instances where it is ridiculous to run a 20-bed residence for the last three inhabitants, who simultaneously claim for upgrades to the rooms when the sensible thing to do is to move somewhere purpose-built.
Hossack's attiude that there must be a limitless lake of money for her clients means that resources which should have gone to caring for people goes to paying for council lawyers to argue about it.
"She submitted 125 applications. because of an error in her office the word "Wiltshire" appeared on all of them"
ReplyDeleteHardly a typing error. More like a photocopying blunder.
" If you'd got a speeding ticket or something for going a few mph over on an empty motorway where it couldn't possibly have put anyone else at risk - something that must happen on at least a weekly basis - wouldn't you want a lawyer who went in for pettifogging nitpickery?"
ReplyDeleteOh, indeed. I just thought it was rather amusing, as Capt Haddock points out.
"The simple solution would be to have a box "Other"..."
Indeed!
"Hossack's attiude that there must be a limitless lake of money for her clients means that resources which should have gone to caring for people goes to paying for council lawyers to argue about it."
It's a war of attrition - who will throw in the towel first?
"Hardly a typing error. More like a photocopying blunder."
ReplyDeleteMore probably a temp who didn't understand templating or mail merge.
One of my personal heroes is the loophole guy who gets so many motorists off on pettifogging speeding charges. Given the times in which we live, anyone who conspires to throw a few handfuls of sand in the gears of our overweening State deserves to be carried round town head-high in a chair by a cheering crowd.
In the case of Hossack's vulnerable clients it's usually more a case of kicking the bucket than throwing in the towel.
ReplyDeleteGet me coat.