ye olde case againne

One thing I’ve observed through my arrest and trial is that both the police and the legal profession have ‘insider cultures’, though they’re each quite distinct. What they have in common of course is their exclusion of precisely those people whom, you might say, it’s their purpose to serve. Not surprisingly, the exclusion practised by the police is more brutal and blatant, whereas that practised by the courts gives the impression of being almost an oversight, a sort of avuncular forgetfulness. I’ve made three or four court appearances so far, and my presence has been completely superfluous. It’s all rather ghostly.