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Archiver > SUFFOLK > 2002-12 > 1038915018


From: "David Jackson" <>
Subject: RE: [SFK-UK] SUFFOLK in OZ paper (HUMPHREYS)
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 11:30:18 -0000


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Debbie Godbold [mailto:]


> The following is a snippet I read in our weekly free newspaper, here in
> Warwick, Queensland, Australia !
>
> "If you can't beat it, fight it...
>
> A magistrates court in Suffolk was stunned by the response to
> what should be a routine case involving a man charged with failing to
notify the motor
> vehicle department that his motorcycle was off the road.
> However, the defendant, 60 year-old Leon HUMPHREYS came looking for a
> fight -- literally. He told the shocked combat that he was demanding the
> medieval right to trial by combat -- a request that wiped the
> need to enter
> a plea. Trial by combat was based on the theory that God is always on the
> side of the winner, so a fight was a good shortcut to settling a
> court case.
> Introduced during the Norman era, before lawyers fees became
> prohibitive, Mr
> HUMPHREYS is obviously hoping trial by combat will see him come
> up against a
> motor vehicle bureaucrat his size - or preferably, smaller."

As I recall, there was a famous case, Ashford v Thornton 1818 where the
plaintiff claimed the right to trial by combat under a statute of Henry II.
The statute was repealed the following year.

I'm not a lawyer and haven't studied law, so I don't know whether this was
the only statute on the subject.

--
David Jackson in the Roman auxilliary fort of Condate
Now known as Northwich Cheshire
http://www.condate.freeserve.co.uk


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