An exciting first day at Bristol Crown Court as we got to meet some of the cast of ridiculous British establishment characters involved in this ludicrous criminal damage prosecution of the Colston Four for ‘the crime’ of pulling down the Colston Statue in June 2020.

First up, let’s give a very warm welcome to the judge. He styles himself The Recorder of Bristol His Honour Judge “Ded” Peter Blair QC and he is, naturally, an old white man and a graduate of Oxford University. Who would have ever guessed?

It’s also worth noting that Judge Ded was appointed Recorder of Bristol by, er, Bristol City Council, the complainant in the case, “to recognise the traditional association between the City Council and the administration of justice in the city.” (Stop laughing at the back please).

Obviously there’s absolutely no conflict of interest here because Judge Ded’s a very important man indeed who went to Oxford University, which makes him totally disinterested and objective. He even booted a couple of council employees off the jury he’s so focussed on a fair trial.

Opening the case for the prosecution was Sir William Scrotesack QC (surely William Hughes QC? ed). He usually prosecutes Homicide, Serious Fraud, Money Laundering, Organised Crime, drug trafficking, serious and historical sexual offences. So quite what the fuck he’s doing prosecuting some Mickey Mouse criminal damage case in Bristol is anyone’s guess.

Sir William is an old white man too. He went to school at Merchant Taylor’s School, Northwood (motto: Concordia parvae res crescunt) so he’s earning an extremely fat fee for highlighting to a bored jury the criminally damaged pavements of Bristol during an opening statement combining considerable tedium with low farce.

Scrotesack will be back tomorrow to introduce his witnesses, which will include Bristol City Council who can apprise us of their “traditional association with the administration of justice in the city.” in person!

We can’t wait …