Judge Doesn't Know What a Web Site is

An anonymous reader writes "A British judge admitted on Wednesday he was struggling to cope with basic terms like "Web site" in the trial of three men accused of inciting terrorism via the Internet. Judge Peter Openshaw broke into the questioning of a witness about a Web forum used by alleged Islamist radicals. "The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is". he told a London court during the trial of three men charged under anti-terrorism laws. Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms "Web site" and "forum." An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: "I haven't quite grasped the concepts.""

Comments

My own experience with a criminal trial

[Babbster]

When I was a youngster, 14-15 years old, I had to testify on modern technical issues in a trial. A guy I had thought was a friend from my high school had visited my house once, and I showed him my dad's Apple //c and the cool pirated software I had - California Games, woot! Anyway, a couple months later he was caught in the middle of the day while breaking into our house - through a door which, by the way, was less than 50 feet from a convenience store/gas station...Genius! When his case came up for trial (I guess he must have been 18+), I was asked to testify because he had claimed that I gave him permission to come into our house and "pick up" some discs I promised to copy for him.

Anyway, when my day in court came up I had to sit on the witness stand and explain to the judge and jury what floppy discs were, what videogames were, the process of copying them, the fact that doing so wasn't legal, etc. I must have spoken for 45 minutes on just the technical aspects while it took less than a minute to say, "No, I never told him to come over and pick up anything."

Of course, in 1986 it was understandable that nobody knew what I was talking about. To not understand the concept of a website in 2007 is, to my mind, reason enough to force a judge's retirement. Being that out of touch with modern life simply can't be conducive to making good justice.

The Ruling Classes

[Badfysh]

British judges like this are typically upper class, and live in a different world to the one that we know. Even a TV is considered vulgar, and most upper class types wouldn't have one in the mansion, never mind a computer.

It's hard to imagine for most of us, but people with that kind of privilege are completely distanced from the outside world. They're so cosseted they need to have their morning paper ironed before they can read it. Learn about the internet? Why? It's a mere trifle to keep the peasants quiet!