Law in Action asks: Legal aid changes: long overdue reform or denial of justice?

Radio 4's Law in Action asks: Legal aid changes: long overdue reform or denial of justice? I listened to this programme today. There isn't an iPlayer version available unfortunately, but the programme will be repeated on Thu 23 Feb at 20.00 on BBC Radio 4. ""The single biggest attack on access to justice since the legal aid system was introduced". That's the view of the Law Society on the government's controversial proposals to reform the civil justice system. But the government argue that the legal aid system has become unaffordable and along with no win no fee has helped create a litigious society. They say the current system is a boon for lawyers, while draining resources from organisations like the NHS and leaving many small businesses in fear of legal action." It is clear that the intended changes to the legal aid system will have a disproportionately harsh effect on medical negligence victims and their families, who are already abysmally and inhumanly treated by the NHS and their scandalously futile Complaints System. I constantly wonder why Kenneth Clarke (Justice Secretary) is so astonishingly hard on medical negligence victims. I remember he was of the same mind when he was Health Secretary over 20 years ago. His bluff, faux-reasonable style cuts no ice with me.

Why does it never occur to anyone in government that the best way - incomparably the best way - to reduce the costs of medical negligence, both the financial costs to the victims and their families and to taxpayer funds, and the terrible cost in pain and suffering to the damaged victims, is to reduce the ever-increasing incidence of clinical negligence? - And the best way - incomparably the best way - to accomplish that is make health professionals ACCOUNTABLE for their negligence.

The tragic death of Gareth Myatt, a teenager who choked and died while being restrained by three guards at a privately-run youth prison.

Use of restraint blamed for prison death of boy, 15 - Guardian

Extract:

"The death of Gareth Myatt, a teenager who choked and died while being restrained by three guards at a privately-run youth prison, could have been prevented, an inquest jury found yesterday.

Jurors criticised officials at the Youth Justice Board for failing to review the safety of the restraints used on teenagers in custody, which they said was one of the causes of his death. The verdict came just days after a political row over the Ministry of Justice's plans to clarify the rules governing the use of restraints in privately-run children's jails to allow staff to use them to enforce discipline and good order.

The 15-year-old, from Stoke-on-Trent, was the first child to die while being restrained in custody when he choked to death at Rainsbrook secure training centre in Northamptonshire in April 2004. He was three days into a six-month sentence when staff followed him to his room when he refused to clean a sandwich toaster in the communal area. The inquest heard that while he was being restrained the teenager, who was 1.47 metres (4ft 10in) tall and weighed less than 45kg (7st), tried to warn staff he could not breathe but was ignored.

The jury took a day and a half to reach a verdict of accidental death. It found that the lack of an adequate safety assessment of the restraint and staff's lack of knowledge about its dangers contributed to his death. The coroner, retired judge Richard Pollard, had given it the option of a verdict of unlawful killing, which could have opened the way for legal proceedings against individuals and organisations involved, but the high court dismissed appeals for it to be given an option of corporate manslaughter."

Personally, I find it difficult to regard this as other than deliberate and wholly unwarranted cruelty against a child.