Mr Justice Bufton-Tufton was about to pass sentence in the case of a particularly heinous murder when he was crestfallen to receive a memo from the Law Society, calling on judges to leave out the 'preachy, self-righteous bit' to save time.
'The Criminal Justice system is hopelessly backed up, and we’re very conscious that justice delayed is justice denied,' ran the memo. 'Obviously we need to give barristers sufficient time to present evidence, cross-examine witnesses and so forth. And the jury must of course be allowed all the time they need to reach a fair verdict.'
The memo concludes that the only area in which they can legitimately look for time savings is the self-indulgent speeches judges make. The new guidelines call for them simply to pass sentence on the defendant 'without getting all Mills and Boon about it.'
'It’s such a pity,” said Bufton-Tufton. 'I’d written an absolute corker for this case. 'You seem a particularly cold-hearted and callous individual… the innocent young life you took… the broken hearts of her loved ones… the hole in their lives that will never be filled…’. Would have had the jury in tears, I guarantee it.
'And now they want me just to say ‘You will go to prison for 15 years.’ I mean, where’s the passion? Where’s the drama? Makes me wonder why I bothered becoming a judge in the first place.
“Thank god I still have my second job writing romantic fiction under the name Evangeline Devereaux… hang on, you’re not going to print that bit, are you?'
Picture credit: Wix AI (Judge in a wig - hilarious)