The human and the internet – a totemic case
Have the courts caught up with where we are with social network? This amid the conviction in the High Court of the juror, Joanne Fraill, who got in touch with a defendant, Jamie Stewart, during the hearing of the case in which she was sitting in judgement.
Ms Fraill has admitted she did it and faces jail. Naturally the jury when sworn in were told that they couldn’t resort to the internet to supplement their evolving knowledge of the case in court.
But to today’s citizens, what she did, however indefensible, is completely organically normal. She was exposed during the day to an item of information about which she sought more. In so doing, she quite naturally, organically, found the defendant in cyberspace.
Cyberspace is not a place where you pass by on the other side, turning your face away. Cyberspace is a place where you continue to dig, to connect, to understand and, in this case and many others, break the law.
We are all only too aware that pornography is one of the key drivers of the web. We know too that the vast numbers who go in search of it exceed the numbers who, before the web, sought it out in other mediums.
Serial connection on the web is what the beast is all about… Connect, connect, connect, in search of content, content, content. There has been nothing like it in the history of humankind.
None of this excuses Ms Fraill for breaking the law. But the High Court will presumably be mindful of what is happening to the human interface courtesy of the internet. Jailing Ms Fraill may punish her, but will do nothing to resolve the problem. Jailing Ms Fraill will be expensive.
This is a perfect example of where community service has a real potential to serve the community. Ms Fraill clearly understands the working of the web, even if she failed to foresee the danger she put herself into and the cost that the consequent abandonment of the case incurred.
Ms Fraill may be the first to have been prosecuted for such an event. She will not be the last. Is this the moment to accept that Ms Fraill should be ordered to teach responsible internet activity to older citizens whose lives could thereby be transformed? 200 hours of teaching internet classes?
Redemption is supposed to travel with punishment. Ms Fraill’s tears speak to the punishment she must already have suffered thus far. Is it time for redemption and for Ken Clarke to save the community the minimum of £35,000 a year it will cost to jail Ms Fraill? We and Ms Fraill must await the judge’s sentence in this totemic case.