A manifestly unfair and draconian new procedure...

Police to seize mobiles in EVERY car crash http://dailym.ai/1rjoCzY via @MailOnline

Don't get me wrong: I understand why they will now be doing this, but it's also a dangerous move. My phone is literally my lifeline - I'm a former heart patient, and not having my mobile phone to hand could be the difference between receiving life-saving medical help, and dying. Further, it's more often than not the only way my relatives can get hold of me. It's the way I can access the internet. It holds immensely personal data on myself, my partner, and the contact details of all manner of people, businesses, and organisations that I know, work with, or do business with.

In short, it would be not only a personal disaster for my phone to be seized, but a professional one as well - all because some damn fool shunts me up the khyber because he wasn't bloody looking.

I appreciate that it's difficult for the Police and prosecuting authorities to gain successful convictions for certain offences, but this is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

I drive practically every day. I use my phone to navigate, warn me of traffic delays and congestion (satnav applications), and yes, to receive calls via my bluetooth headset (thus ensuring that I don't handle the phone when I'm driving), which IS legal.

Moreover, being a bus driver, I'm not permitted, BY LAW, to even use a hands-free headset or headphones, while I'm in control of a bus, let alone driving one (PSV regulations are much more draconian in this regard than for mere car and van drivers).

Yet, the old bill will seize the phone if some other bugger smacks me while I'm driving.

Patently, this is manifestly and grossly unfair.

Equally as obviously, it's treating everyone as being guilty before being proved so in a court.

So much for a cornerstone of English Justice, that of the presumption of innocence.

I wonder what it'll take for Liberty to get involved in this mile-wide paintbrush of draconian practice?

Justice must be seen to be done, or society as a whole suffers.

Amanda Knox has been hitting the headlines of late for the murder of Meredith Kercher, since her conviction for murder was reinstated in an Italian court, after a retrial in which the evidence was closely reviewed.

Just like the most courts in the western world, this was a transparent, fair, and unbiased retrial, following a fair, balanced, unbiased and transparent trial and its resulting appeal.

The guilty verdict therefore, is fair and just.

The US, like most countries, refuses to extradite its citizens to other countries if there is a possibility that a death penalty might be imposed. That's quite reasonable, and very understandable.

In this case however, there is no chance of a death penalty being imposed whatsoever. Unlike the US court system, in EU countries, of which Italy is a member, there is no recourse to a death penalty - right or wrong, and there are many opinions on the topic, life imprisonment is the maximum penalty permissible in the EU.

Therefore, there is no reason that Knox should not be locked up in Italy. Yet, she's publicly refused to go back to that country. The only recourse to this cowardly behaviour is for a warrant for her extradition to be issued by the Italian courts.

If the US then fails to honour, or permit, that extradition, then punitive action should be taken throughout the EU: For instance, the UK-US extradition treaty, which many have said is unbalanced in favour of the US to the cost of British subjects, should be torn up, and the members of the EU should follow suit by tearing up their own extradition treaties with the US.

Yes, this will cause one hell of a diplomatic ruckus, but the point MUST be emphasised with a hell of a lot more than politely worded letters of complaint, which invariably have little or no effect. Instead, as the US tends to understand grand gestures, since it tends to make them a lot, a set of EU-wide grand gestures with some actual meaning and effect and teeth, which tearing up these treaties would have, should be ready in the wings, should Knox fail to be extradited to face her sentence.

In the final analysis, it must never be forgotten that an innocent British subject, Meredith Kercher, was murdered, and that the Italian courts have found Knox guilty of that horrendous crime. Justice MUST be seen to be done, or society as a whole suffers. Knox has had her trial, her appeal, and her retrial (this last in absentia). As a now convicted murderess, she must now face the consequences of her actions - her sentence.

There can be no alternative.

Footnote: This will be hardly a surprise to anyone, but according to reports in the media, apparently she's planning to appeal this fresh affirmation of her conviction. It remains to be seen if this will succeed or fail.