Margaret Moran 'not fit to stand trial' over MP expenses charges

[rojash]

"...suffering from a depressive illness and extreme anxiety and agitation, and the stress of the proceedings and allegations she was facing made it impossible for her to participate in court proceedings."

Surely this applies to many white-collar crooks who've been caught out?

Does that mean they should get away with it?

http://www.guardian.c...t-moran-not-fit-trial

[ludwig]

// Does that mean they should get away with it? //

Let's hope not.

[jno]

Ernest Saunders rather blackened the name of medical experts, didn't he. You wonder at these "experts", and how many there are of them, and whether they do all agree.

[ludwig]

Yes jno, him and Adbel baset al Megrahi. The guy that some other medical experts said had a few weeks to live - what was it about 5 years ago?

[Hopkirk]

She has hardly 'got away with it'

[flump1]

what a load of bullcrap.

[jno]

Megrahi was reported to have terminal cancer; I'd imagine that was fairly easy to diagnose, though any estimate of how long someone has to live will always be speculative. So I wouldn't swear his doctors were wrong. Saunders however miraculously recovered from Alzheimer's "moments after leaving prison", according to Wikipedia.

[ludwig]

Didn't Saunders do the Blackadder trick? - put underpants on your head, a pencil up each nose and just say 'Wibble'. That's what fooled them back then, so I bet she's done the same thing.

[Gromit]

I do not want to belittle mental illness which I realise is a genuine condition, but being depressed after being caught stealing should not let anyone escape justice.

I she is not guilty, then she is a fool not to defend herself. If she is guilty then she should plead guilty and get it over with as quickly as possible.

But then she might be deemed too ill to go to prison because it might depress her.

[ummmm]

It's a joke. It makes a mockery of genuine depression sufferers who didn't get their illness because they were caught stealing from the tax payers.

She's not depressed. She's pissed off and scared.

She is also accused of falsely claiming £14,805 for boiler repairs and work on her conservatory.

I know heating engineers are expensive....but c'mon!!!

[FredPuli43]

I do hope that the QC and the psychiatrist do not mean what the QC said ( ' she is unfit to stand trial') in the strict legal sense. If the psychiatric evidence and the legal argument is that, that she's incapable of understanding the nature of the proceedings or instructing her counsel, she'll be committed to a mental hospital!

Nice try, sounds good to the defendant, the QC earns his money for a bit of arm-waving to please her, and it's bound to fail.

[andy-hughes]

Because of the contempt in which crooked MP's have been held, it is a short step to imagine that a woman who would cheat the nation would also cheat the legal system.

I don't think the logic holds up at all.

Professional psychiatrists are not in the habit of 'letting off' criminals by using their expertise to deny legak orocess, it just doesn't fly.

The knee-jerk reaction is to assume that a woman who has faked expenses is faking a mental illness, but anyone who knows anything about depression knows that faking it to an expert is highly unlikely.

I therefore err on the side of sympathy, given that like everyone else passing moral judgements, I know nothing about the case, or the individual concerned.

We should not be too quick to leap into the national default mindset of shadenfreude.

[FredPuli43]

Well, it has worked a bit. The BBC 1 pm news report is that she is not to be tried now, by reason of her condition, but the case will be held later.

[ludwig]

We should not be too quick to leap into the national default mindset of shadenfreude.

I agree. We should give it about 10 minutes in this case. I don't like liars and thieves, and I don't care that she's suffering as a result of her dishonesty.