ALL trials are to take place on place on Twitter in order to save money.
After plans were unveiled for courts to use Skype, the next logical step was for all crimes to be tried on social media using statements of 140 characters or less.
Judge Denys Finch Hatton said: “First the prosecution sets out the case in Twitter-friendly terms, for example, ‘John Smith robbed Swindon HSBC with sawn-off shotgun #guilty’.
“Then the defendant responds, for example. ‘WTF??? Not guilty. Woz @ home watching Bargain Hunt. Girlf can prove it #fitup’.
“Anyone with a Twitter account can then give evidence. It could be a police officer dealing with the case, an eyewitness or a random person with nothing better to do.
“Finally everyone tweets ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’. The results are totted up automatically and if most people vote ‘guilty’ I ask the Twittersphere what the sentence should be, which is usually castration.”
Criminal Roy Hobbs said: “I particularly like the way I can plead not guilty while I’m out committing other crimes.”
However, lawyers said it was wrong to reduce complex cases to a brief Twitter exchange when they could be charging at least a grand a day to get the same outcome.
