Truemors
is reporting from
Member
NP Rank:
NP Rank:
"What's a Website?" Asks Judge... During Internet-Related Trial
Share: 
by Jordan Yerman | May 17, 2007 at 11:18 am
373 views | 0 Recommendations | 2 comments
Oh, goodness. You would think (indeed, you'd expect) that there would be some manner of vetting process for this sort of thing-- it would be like allowing a judge who had never seen a car before to adjudicate a traffic dispute.
A Judge stunned a court yesterday by admitting he did not know what a website was.Judge Peter Openshaw brought a shuddering halt to the trial of three men accused of internet terror offences as a witness was being quizzed about an extremist web forum.
He told shocked prosecutors at Woolwich Crown Court, South East London: “The trouble is I don’t understand the language. I don’t really understand what a website is.”
Prosecutor Mark Ellison then tried to help the judge by explaining. But confused Judge Openshaw, 59, said: “I haven’t quite grasped the concepts.”
Later he said he hoped a computer expert would give “simple” evidence when called to the stand — because otherwise he would not understand it.
Judge Openshaw said: “Will you ask him to keep it simple? We’ve got to start from basics.”
The bizarre exchange came during the trial of Younes Tsouli, 23, Waseem Mughal, 24, and Tariq al-Daour, 21.
Each denies a string of charges under the Terrorism Act, including inciting another person to commit an act of terrorism “wholly or partly” outside Britain.
My ninety-year-old gran uses the Internet, by the way.
Advertisement
NowPublic on Facebook
What is NowPublic?
NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 08:03 on May 18th, 2007
Wow! Unbelievable! If the accused are being prosecuted for internet terror offenses, maybe the judge should step down!
at 08:00 on May 18th, 2007
That really is amazing actually. I wonder what percentage of people have never seen or used the internet. This would be a hard study to do because you couldn't use the internet to find them! It's radically irresponsible however to be prosecuting online terrorism charges under this person's direction.