THE LOONY LEFT
Britain is celebrating diversity in all sorts of different ways.
When the police stopped Nyararia Mukandiwa, whose car had been weaving erratically across the road, he refused to give a blood specimen to test for his level of blood alcohol, on the basis that he was a witch doctor and that the sight of blood would turn him into a zombie, whereupon he would be a risk to himself and others.
Mr Mukandiwa is a 33 year old African who had arrived in Britain 2 years ago on a student visa.
The police charged him with failing to provide a specimen.
In the resulting legal battle, funded by legal aid, Mr Mukandiwa was acquitted by the Huddersfield magistrates’ court. The court had been told by Richard Werbner, Professor of African Anthropology at Manchester University, that mhondoros, which was what Mr Mukandiwa was claiming to be, go into a trance and lose consciousness and become ‘another being’ at the sight of blood.
The Huddersfield magistrates decided that Mr Mukandiwa had a ‘reasonable excuse’ to refuse to provide a blood specimen and found him not guilty.
However, the Crown Prosecution Service appealed and Lord Justice Baker, of the High Court in London, dismissed the original verdict as being ‘fatally flawed’ and commented that: ‘The judge seems to have been mesmerised in this case’. Lord Justice Baker pointed out that Mr Mukandiwa could have avoided the sight of blood by simply closing his eyes or turning his head away.
The case has been sent back to court with directions that Mr Mukandiwa be convicted and sentenced.
When the police stopped Nyararia Mukandiwa, whose car had been weaving erratically across the road, he refused to give a blood specimen to test for his level of blood alcohol, on the basis that he was a witch doctor and that the sight of blood would turn him into a zombie, whereupon he would be a risk to himself and others.
Mr Mukandiwa is a 33 year old African who had arrived in Britain 2 years ago on a student visa.
The police charged him with failing to provide a specimen.
In the resulting legal battle, funded by legal aid, Mr Mukandiwa was acquitted by the Huddersfield magistrates’ court. The court had been told by Richard Werbner, Professor of African Anthropology at Manchester University, that mhondoros, which was what Mr Mukandiwa was claiming to be, go into a trance and lose consciousness and become ‘another being’ at the sight of blood.
The Huddersfield magistrates decided that Mr Mukandiwa had a ‘reasonable excuse’ to refuse to provide a blood specimen and found him not guilty.
However, the Crown Prosecution Service appealed and Lord Justice Baker, of the High Court in London, dismissed the original verdict as being ‘fatally flawed’ and commented that: ‘The judge seems to have been mesmerised in this case’. Lord Justice Baker pointed out that Mr Mukandiwa could have avoided the sight of blood by simply closing his eyes or turning his head away.
The case has been sent back to court with directions that Mr Mukandiwa be convicted and sentenced.
posted by erc @ 11:25 pm
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