Conservative columnist Dr Frank Shizenhausen gets his teeth into the legal aid debate

It’s about time they reformed the legal aid system. Lawyers have been sucking the public teat for just too long. And criminals have been using the system to drag out their cases and cause bother to prosecutors.

The state has armies of police officers, prosecutors, forensic scientists and other experts to call upon, while most individuals charged with offences are on their own, unless they can manage to afford a lawyer or can get legal aid. If we take away the legal aid safety net it’s likely that the rate of convictions will rise.

So what’s the problem? Don’t we want more scumbags to be convicted?

And don’t give me a bleeding heart story about some poor innocent person being done over by the police. Don’t even try and tell me that the people the cops pick up are all lilywhite. For starters they’re mostly brown.

I’ll admit that the police occasionally get it wrong. But in my own case it was more the crown prosecutor’s fault than the cops. I protested my innocence until I was black and blue, explaining that I was only trying to defend myself. But the crown lawyers decided they wanted to nail me anyway. I bet they fancied the idea of telling their kids they sent a bigtime political commentator and radio star down. But justice was done in the end, and I have a huge amount of faith in our system. The manslaughter charge was dropped after two of the star witnesses had unfortunate accidents. One was found dead in his office after stabbing himself repeatedly in the face. The other was found floating in a river after having tied himself up and thrown himself over a bridge while weighed down with stones. So in the end the prosecution had nothing and had to let me go.

So if I can get off a serious knife charge (and, as I’ve explained before, I was acting in self defence when the vicar came at me with that prayer book), I am fully confident that anyone wrongly accused by the police will have their day in court and walk free.

Of course, some people will just work the system. Like the guy who just got a payout of $350,000 because of a technicality. Apparently DNA evidence proved he didn’t commit the crime. And yet these criminal scumbags want us to feel sorry for them because they can’t afford legal aid. Well I imagine $350,000 will go an awfully long way next time this guy wants to get off a charge.

I do like this idea of having a public defender service, though. I’d usually be the strongest advocate against an increasing bureaucracy, but the plan’s a cunning one. We’ll axe legal aid and take it in-house. Then we’ll outsource the entire service to the Chinese. They can defend these ratbags for a tenth of the price, and best of all just about everyone who goes through the Chinese legal system is guilty.  Justice is swift and often leads to a bullet in the temple, and we can even make some cash harvesting their organs.

We don’t need a legal aid system, because in the end the choices people have are simple ones. If you don’t want to have to beg for legal aid then don’t get charged with an offence you didn’t commit.