THE following incident recently revealed, throws considerable light on the need for a more open and demonstrable system of justice to be seen to be working fairly and democratically in our country.

I refer to the case of a woman who was being sued by an Inner London Local Education Authority, for deceitfully stating that her mother’s address was the permanent home of her child, in order to obtain the school of her choice for her offspring.

She was being sued as having committed a fraud, but because this was eventually considered as not being legally a fraudulent issue, this was dropped and the case dismissed on this technicality.

No-one could honestly support this lady or defend what she had done as being legally proper or desirable, but the LEA concerned decided to employ the full panoply of legal proceeding against her for this offence, no doubt seeking to bring this case as an ‘awful warning’ to other parents tempted to commit a similar offence.

However, when we compare this comparatively innocuous case with the infinitely far more serious recent revelations from the Daily Telegraph about the fraudulent claims made by many of our MPs for non-existent mortgages, on ‘flipped’ second homes, and ask how many of them are now facing criminal charges for the thousands of pounds of taxpayers money being misappropriated, and fraud being committed on the IR, nothing appears to be happening.

If, as it now begins to appear, that many of these MPs are sheltering behind Parliamentary Privilege, then more needs to be done than mere dismissal from their constituencies by an irate electorate (whenever they promised General Election is eventually called by this ‘bankrupt’ Government).

Consideration by the police whether legal proceedings can be brought is not good enough.

E J TILLEY, Chorley