Shall we count the ways in which this story by The Mirror is terrible? Yes, let’s. [THREAD]
2. For a start, Worboys was not “given legal aid”. He received not a penny in his hand. The legal aid payment would have been made directly to his solicitors, barristers and any expert witnesses.
3. That headline legal aid figure of £166k includes VAT. The government requires lawyers to charge VAT, which is then paid by us back to the treasury. So you can knock a chunk off that figure.
4. As the report acknowledges halfway through, Worboys’ criminal proceedings took place between 2008/9. Since then, enormous legal aid cuts have removed criminal legal aid from defendants in Crown Court trials. Worboys would not qualify any more. This story is meaningless.
5. As for comparing the non-availability of legal aid for civil proceedings against the (long-obsolete) criminal legal aid, I reheat this thread from last year:
6. Important highlights include this part:
7. I also challenge the reporter to address these basic questions:
8. And these:
9. Why does this type of story, on which The Mirror is a repeat offender, upset me so much? Why waste a train journey trying to dispel the myths, yet again? I depressingly have the answer lined up from tweets past. 
10. The Mirror, self-appointed left-leaning paper of the people, enables through its rhetoric the ideological massacring of one of our most vital public services relied upon predominantly by society’s most vulnerable - the criminal justice system.
11. Savage cuts to legal aid, CPS and courts is one of the primary reasons that the justice system is in utter crisis. Articles like this are the reason the government evades scrutiny for its vandalism.
Shame on The Mirror.
#TheLawIsBroken
[ENDS]
Shame on The Mirror.
#TheLawIsBroken
[ENDS]
