Arrogant lawyers REFUSE to prosecute eco-mob (but they'll defend rapists) RICHARD MADELEY

Woke virtue signalling hit a new low this week with the breathtakingly smug, self-satisfied announcement by nearly 150 solicitors and barristers that they will henceforth refuse to prosecute eco-protesters accused of breaking the law. These same lawyers will, however, continue to defend paedophiles, rapists, child killers and domestic abusers. They are utterly unable to recognise the inherent contradiction involved.

So much for the so-called cab-rank system, where barristers must simply take the next case offered to them, without fear or favour. This guarantees an impersonal, unbiased, fully-functioning criminal justice system at the point of trial.

Everyone is entitled to a defence, whatever they are accused of. Similarly, once someone has been charged, they must be prosecuted, rigorously but fairly and, yes, sometimes by a lawyer who may privately believe their plea of innocence.

In the same way, barristers sometimes find themselves defending someone they know with complete certainty is 100 percent guilty as charged. The “brief” may have argued unsuccessfully with their client to change their plea from not guilty to guilty, explaining that the evidence against them is overwhelming.

But they are compelled to continue with the case and follow their client’s instructions, even if the cause is hopeless. So it follows that however passionately a King’s Counsel may feel about the battle to save the planet, he or she cannot decide that a Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion protester mustn’t be prosecuted simply because “the cause is just”.

I put this to one of the barristers at the crest of the self-righteous, hopelessly muddled new woke wave on Good Morning Britain this week.

Jolyon Maugham KC – who had his own brush with the law after infamously clubbing a fox to death in his garden one recent Boxing Day morning while wearing his wife's kimono, and then ill-advisedly boasting about it on social media – believes we should stop prosecuting eco-warriors.

Why? Because they are protesting for the greater good. In his opinion, the climate emergency is so serious that if refusing to do his job breaches his professional obligations, well, that’s just tough.

Hmm. I put the following scenario to him. What if his beloved wife, Claire, were taken suddenly ill and needed an ambulance to get to hospital?

What if the ambulance couldn’t get there because local traffic was gridlocked by a bunch of environmental protesters who’d superglued their bums to the road?

What if the delay caused his wife irreversible harm, or even, God forbid, her death? Surely he’d want to see those responsible for the lethal delay prosecuted for criminal obstruction of the highway?

I’m not sure I followed his convoluted reply, but the point stands. And in any case, it is simply not up to a barrister to, in effect, decide on guilt or innocence (let alone before a trial). That’s the job of a judge, jury, or magistrate, after the case has been thrashed out in court.

Lawyers are functionaries, not lofty arbiters of guilt or otherwise. Mr Maugham and his friends have got well above themselves. In fact, I’d say they’re now in the wrong job.

The Mammoth Meatball

Now, there’s past sell-by... and there’s well past sell-by. How about 5,000 years past it? Because this was the week that proud scientists unveiled a sort of Jurassic Park of gastronomy: meat made from the DNA of extinct mammoths, a species which disappeared from planet Earth at least five millennia ago.

Extracting key cells from bits of frozen mammoth preserved in the tundra, and splicing them with the DNA of African elephants (the mammoth’s closest living relative), a pioneering Dutch experiment called Mammoth Meatball has done something that even 10 years ago would have been technically impossible. The resulting dark fleshy protein could have been shaped into anything – burgers or sausages; patties or paté – but meatballs were chosen purely at random

The technique involved could be applied to pretty much any extinct species. So stand by for dodo drumsticks, T-Rex Rashers, or Tasmanian tiger tongue.

Annoyingly, I can’t tell you what mammoth meatballs taste like because international food legislation strictly prohibits the scientists who have created them from having even a tiny nibble – eating extinct DNA may provoke unknown, unsuspected allergic reactions in humans.

Fair enough. No one wants to wake up with tusks, do they?

Hell on high water

“Hell is other people”. Hmm. I’ve never much agreed with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s cynical, misanthropic observation, but I reckoned he may have had a point when I read this week about the world’s longest-ever cruise, scheduled to set sail this autumn.

Three years, it’ll take. THREE YEARS!

On the high seas, closeted with around 1,000 fellow passengers. The definition of a prison ship, if you ask me.

Yes, the anchor will drop at all seven continents but I think that, stuck with the same people until November 2026, I might lose the will to live. It’s a good job there’s a morgue on board.

A gripping viewing by the BBC

Well, I’m sorry, but I liked it. We both did. BBC1’s controversial adaptation of Dickens’s Great Expectations may have had a critical mauling and a sticky opening (a daft tacked-on suicide attempt by Pip. Why? And an interminable, darkly-lit fight scene on a prison ship and then in the marshes) but once it settled down it was gripping viewing.

Fascinating casting too – Shalom Brune-Franklin plays the older Estella; Olivia Colman has already blown everyone away as the desiccated, jilted bride Miss Havisham. Looking forward hugely to Sunday. We have great expectations.