CPS drops charges against Jonathon Seed...
It’s likely that anyone living a) outside of Wiltshire or b) not working to end fox hunting, won’t have heard of Jonathon Seed, and thanks to a decision announced yesterday by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that’s unlikely to change anytime soon…
So who is Jonathon Seed and what was the case the CPS dropped?
Seed is a former huntmaster of the notorious Wiltshire-based Avon Vale Hunt. He is a strong supporter of fox hunting, which let’s not forget was made illegal by the passing of the Hunting Act 2004 (and he appeared in court for a breach of that Act in 2012). Last year he stood for election as Wiltshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, telling a local reporter who wanted to discuss his hunting past that only trolls wanted to talk about it.
I have to say, it seemed entirely reasonable to me to ask whether a former hunt master who has hunted for years and called for repeal of the Hunting Act might show (at the very least) some ‘unconscious bias’ when it comes to policing fox hunting, but the good citizens of ‘true blue’ Wiltshire didn’t seem too bothered by the question (or lack of an answer) and in May 2021 Mr Seed received 40% of the vote in the first round and was elected after it went to a second ballot, winning a combined total of 47% of the vote…
…only, just days later it emerged that Seed was ineligible to stand as PCC because of a historic driving offence. His candidacy was withdrawn, and us Wiltshire taxpayers were forced to pay for another (expensive) round of elections a few months later which was won by Conservative Philip Wilkinson. In the meantime the CPS was looking into the goings-on in Wiltshire, and announced in September they would prosecute, saying that they had “authorised police to charge Jonathon Seed with making a false declaration in the nomination papers for the Wiltshire 2020 Police and Crime Commissioner elections” (2020 because the elections were postponed for twelve months because of Covid restrictions).
A clear cut case surely? Seed said he was eligible to stand as PCC, he signed a legal declaration to say so, he stood as a candidate saying so but was then removed because - er, he wasn’t eligible after all. Hardly debatable,
After much delay, his case was (finally) due to be heard at Oxford Crown Court next month…
…only (again) Seed won’t now be going to court because the CPS has suddenly dropped the case, a spokesperson saying only, “We have a duty to keep cases under continuing review and, following a further review, we concluded that there was insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction."
I am not a member of the CPS. I’m not a lawyer. I am though - like most people I’m sure - all too aware that making a false declaration (ie lying) on eg a tax return, a bank loan application, a passport, the official census, or about our voting eligibility is illegal and can result in prosecution. If I were to make a false declaration and get caught I’d expect to get charged. If I were caught making that false declaration in a fully-audited, high profile, well-scrutinised election…? Well, a ‘yeah, you got me officer’ moment if ever there was one…
Seed, however, has always maintained that he was given poor advice by his local Conservative Party when he ran for PCC, saying he was assured that a historic driving offence wouldn’t rule him out. Is that a valid excuse when you’re running for the role of Police and Crime Commissioner? He couldn’t have checked properly, just to be 100% certain? I would have done. Whatever his (in my opinion pisspoor and fundamentally weak) excuses though, there is no doubt that he signed the papers and stood in the elections. How much evidence does the CPS need?
More, seems to be the answer.
I can’t possibly second-guess why the CPS - after such careful consideration back in September remember - should now decide - weeks before the court appearance- that there is ‘insufficient evidence’, but it doesn’t sit well. I doubt whether anyone would be daft enough to accuse the CPS of blatant bias [EDIT: a waffly generalisation of the type I normally am careful to avoid and for which I’ve been rightly called out for - see the comments below], but anyone of a certain age might well be tempted to ask in a Mrs Merton styled question, “Well, CPS, just what was it about the well-connected, fox hunting Tory councillor Jonathan Seed that made you think you had insufficient evidence to convict…?”
Hmm…
I recently sat through a farcical and undemocratic take-down by Conservative politicians of two online petitions to curb fox hunting. The scandal of collusion between Dorset MP Chris Loder and his PCC in suppressing an investigation into a young White-tailed Eagle killed on a local shooting estate uncovered by Raptor Persecution UK this week will strike many as typical rather than unusual. This government is provably corrupt in the way it looks after its own. Whether or not the CPS was influenced by the government’s casual approach to the law none of us can truly know at this stage, but the decision doesn’t help counter a persistent narrative of ‘one rule for some’ etc.
You know, had the CPS thrown its hands up with a cry of, ‘Look, **** it, what chance that an establishment figure with influential support and a lawyer prepared to argue that his/her client might be a bit of a dick but hasn’t really done any harm, would be convicted?”, instead of claiming ‘insufficient evidence’ I might have had some weary sympathy. After all, the entire country is run by a serial liar and a band of second-raters who have made ‘getting away with it’ the norm. But where would that leave us? We can’t simply roll over as if being lied to and cheated by government is somehow acceptable just because that’s been the pattern for so long, We and our precious wildlife deserve far better.
And I think they and we will get it. The environment of cronyism, collusion, and cover-ups maintained by the current government won’t last much longer. Johnson and his cabinet of liars have been fatally holed by Partygate and - fearful of what now looks like an inevitable election defeat for many of them - by a sizeable minority of his own MPs.
Right now, Seed may well be 'pleased and relieved' that the charges were dropped, but he should understand that it will just make many of us work all the harder to make sure he and his ilk don’t get to treat the country or the public like bloody idiots again for a long, long time.