The Meal That Cost Ten Weeks

Before Reading the Text Learn the Following Words:

Barclay card: banker's card that guarantees payment of a cheque remanded in custody: sent to prison to wait for trial deceit: telling lies

opposed bail: asked for them not to be released until the trial put on probation: released on condition that they did not commit further crimes tip of the iceberg: small visible part of a very large problem raise the bail, find the money necessary as a guarantee for someone released on bail

non-custodial sentences: punishment that does not involve prison

nick: (slang) prison

towed off: pulled a way (by the police)

Last August 5, Jim Young and Kevin Bates, two north Londoners in their early twenties, sat down to a dinner of steak, peas and chips in the Angus Steak House,

Charing Cross Read. They had a few whiskies with the meal, lingered over the dessert and paid the £12 bill with a Barclay card.

Last week, nearly three months later, they were released from Pentonville Prison. Both had been remanded in custody, charged with 'obtaining a meal by deceit', after police had opposed bail at their hearing at Bow Street magistrates court. And last Tuesday, on the day of their release, they were put on probation after being found guilty at Knightsbridge Crown Court. But, in effect, they both served a ten-week sen­tence before they had actually been tried for the offence.

In addition, Kevin Bates claims that he was twice beaten up. And both men are so angry at the way in which they and the 89 other unconvicted prisoners were treated that they are petitioning MP Ron Brown of Hackney to press for a full investigation.

The Young-Bates case is just the tip of the massive 'unconvicted prisoners' ice­berg. There are at the moment 3,442 unconvicted male prisoners and 131 unconvicted female prisoners in jails up and down the country. Last year alone, 49,776 men and 3,191 women were held in prison to await their trial. Some were in for only a few days, but a number spent up to nine or ten months and the average stay is 25 days. And the figures are increasing: a survey by Camberwell Magistrates Court showed that during the decade 1964—1974 the number of convicted people in prison rose by 17%, but the number of unconvicted people in prison rose by 157%.

Not are the prisoners held necessarily charged with violent or serious crimes; the majority are awaiting trial on small theft charges or minor offences. Most are unable to raise the bail or are not represented in court when the police oppose the granting of bail. Almost half of them are eventually found not guilty or are given non-custodial sentences.

"We came up in court last week," says Young. "By that time we had spent ten weeks in nick, lost our flat in Edmonton, had our clothes stolen from it because there was no one there and had our car towed off because the tax ran our in August. And that was all before we even went up for trial..."

Ex.1. Answer the following questions:

1. What did the two Londoners do one day?

2. What happened to them later?

3. What did Kevin Bates claim?

4. What can you say about the problem of unconvicted prisoners?

5. What did Jim Young complain of?

Ex.2. Retell the text using words and phrases below:

To release smb from prison, to remand in custody, to oppose bail, to put smb on probation, to find smb guilty, unconvicted prisoners, to charge smb with a violent crime, to go up for trial.

One of Them is Lying

Something has been lost in the testimony this weekend in the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill dispute. It is the Rashomon possibility - the possibility, to which many people have been clinging, that the terrible conflict can be explained as a difference of interpretation of the same set of events. Such an outcome would have allowed people on both sides of the issue of Judge Thomas's confirmation to hold on to their prior view of this particular dispute on the theory that it was all a matter of conflicting perceptions. But that easy out is now gone. Given Anita Hill's detailed, expanded charges under oath and Clarence Thomas's unequivocal, categorical denial of all of them under oath, the issue now has become the simple one of perjury. One of the two of them is lying under oath. It is thus all the more important that the senators on the committee and the people watching them stay clear and sharp as to what is now at issue.

The prevalence of sexual harassment in the American work-place is not at issue: There has been widespread agreement that it is far more prevalent than many had supposed. Nor is the seriousness of sexual harassment at issue: Virtually everyone agrees that it is a serious and a loathsome offence. Nor is it at issue whether the conduct Professor Hill now alleges Judge Thomas indulged in would, if it occurred, constitute sexual harassment: It would, and everyone, notably including Judge Thomas and his most ardent supporters on the committee, agrees to this. What is at issue, in other words, is not whether these alleged terrible acts are acceptable, but whether they were committed.

One of the two principal characters in this drama stands to pay an enormous price. A crime has been committed. If it turns out not to be Judge Thomas, if he is not the one lying, then his fury over the degradation he has incurred in this confirmation process will have new and heightened meaning. If it should be Judge Thomas who is lying, that fury will go down in the annals of political drama as one of the most cynical and shameful performances ever.

The same would be true of Professor Hill's cool performance: If it should turn out that it is she who is lying, her actions will be seen to have constituted a truly despicable deception.

There is no "truth probably lies in between" solution, of the kind so beloved of a generally compromising Congress, available here. It is one or the other, and the an­swer must now be pursued.

It is not plain to us that the procedures created by the committee can finally get the truth. We share the view, so widely expressed, that this accidental open forum, half-court and half-hearing, is a truly unfortunate one for dealing with such volatile and damaging charges. But it is a fact of life now.

This puts a special obligation on the members (many of whom do look appropri­ately shaken by the dimensions of the drama that has been unleashed) to act soberly and responsibly. Until the procedure is completed, we will not have enough answers to judge which of the two is telling the truth and which is lying. And liar - perjurer - is a grave enough designation to warrant the un-Washingtonlike practice of waiting until all the testimony is in to reach a conclusion. Confirmation of an associate justice of the Supreme Court is no longer the issue. The immediate issue is: Who is lying?