welfare queen and curious justice

If ever, there was anyone deserving of the title "Welfare Queen", it's Julie Came.

But to be fair, she did work awfully hard. At her business as a market trader and at deception. She shopped hard, too. And played the London property game, all the while wrongfully claiming over £120,000 (around $200,000) in social security benefits, claiming to live the life of a pauper with her seven children in a tiny little London flat.

Despite her conviction for benefits fraud this week, she escapes a jail sentence because she's a single mother. When handed a posession order for £223 grand, she wrote a check for the full amount.

-o-

Contrast this with the case of Maya Evans*, this week convicted this week at Bow Street Magistrates Court of violating section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. Gosh, it sounds wicked, but what did she actually do?

She read out the names of each and every British soldier killed in Iraq at the Cenotaph (the memorial to war dead, with particular significance for the unidentified fallen of WWI).

But this broke the new law about protesting within a mile and a half of Parliament. A scandalous new law designed to get rid of one man, Brian Haw, who has been staging a protest in Parliament Square for years now. He has grandfathered protection from this law.

I don't agree with much of Brian Haw's position. But, I think his presence is a vivid reminder that England is one of the oldest democracies with a tradition of free speech. Getting rid of him and prosecuting others for peaceful protest is a scandal.

*Maya, too, escapes jail time. Good.