These are dangerous times for the whole world. The threat of nuclear war looms in the Indian subcontinent. The conflict in the Middle East gets more and more bitter and bloody. Osama bin Laden is (presumably) still out there somewhere, and even if he weren't, the threat of terrorism would remain. Meanwhile, siren voices call for the USA to attack half the world in pursuit of al-Qaeda.

Plenty of serious stuff there to interest the news media, you might have thought. But at the weekend, all of that was temporarily forgotten in Britain, as the media focused on the fact that a teenager had been seen drinking heavily and smoking cannabis.

All right, so the youth concerned is Prince Harry, third in line to the UK throne - but still, so what? The allegations suggest that Harry enjoyed a pint or several at the picturesquely-named Rattlebone Inn in Wiltshire, and smoked a spliff or two at parties he held at the royal estate at Highgrove. All of this supposedly happened during two months last summer, when Harry was 16 and his Dad and big brother, Prince Charles and Prince William, were away.

There's something quite touching about that last bit. He had naughty parties while his folks were away. How many of us have done that - but how many get to do it at a royal estate? It is probably as close to normality as you can get if your mother was Princess Diana. Perhaps Harry's a Beatles fan - after all, a lot of people born long after they split love their music - and in that case, perhaps he wanted to emulate his heroes by skinning up on royal premises, just like the Fab Four did in 1965 when they went to Buckingham Palace to collect their MBEs.

Whatever, in most respects, Harry's behaviour was perfectly normal for one of his years.

Most of us, of course, probably just got a bit of a telling off for such youthful escapades. Most of us were able to party with our peers without getting pictures of our favourite local pub in the papers, or getting publicly dragged off to a drug rehabilitation clinic for a day by Dad to be shown 'what this sort of thing leads to'. (Harry thus presumably got a stern lecture about how drugs can drive you crazy from Prince Charles - a man who famously has a habit of talking to plants.)

Personally, if I had a teenage son who didn't show any interest in drink or drugs, I'd wonder what was wrong with him. I'd also want a DNA test done on him to make absolutely sure that he actually was my son, since he certainly wouldn't be taking after me.

But what really grates about all this is the inference that somehow, members of the royal family have a duty to behave better than the rest of us, because we need them to set an example.

Really? How can, say, someone living on welfare benefits possibly identify with the royals? Apart from the fact that we both get paid by the state for doing not very much, what do we have in common? How can I follow their example when I don't have the necessary millions to do the things they do?

I can certainly feel a degree of sympathy for Harry. He's had to cope with a lot. To lose your mother at a young age is bad enough for anyone. To have to grieve in the glare of relentless media scrutiny must make the trauma a great deal worse.

But the media is not going to go away in the 21st century, and to a large extent that makes the old reverence for royalty impossible. We get to know a lot about their human foibles, just like we do with any other major celebrities. They're no longer remote, majestic figures; they're an option for tabloid front pages, like pop stars or sports stars.

Once upon a time, perhaps it was somehow useful to have a family we could all watch, their every move played out in public. But we have 'Big Brother' and any number of TV soaps now. In the 21st century, do we really need the royal show any more?

If so, what for?

Stephen Downing seems to be a very philosophical, forgiving man. On Tuesday, judges at the Court of Appeal in London ruled that his 1973 conviction for the murder of a typist named Wendy Sewell was unsafe.

He spent 27 years in jail for that crime, so you'd think he'd be fairly bitter about it - but apparently not so. He's not seeking the prosecution of the police officers involved in his conviction, despite the fact that one of the judges at the appeal declared that they had been guilty of 'substantial and significant' breaches of the rules regarding the interrogation of suspects when they dealt with Downing all those years ago.

And that certainly seems to have been the case. Downing, 17 at the time of the murder, went to the police himself after (he says) finding the victim in the church yard where he worked. He was interrogated by police for nearly eight hours without being cautioned. During that time he was denied access to a solicitor. Downing suffered from learning difficulties, and had a reading age of 11 but, after eight hours, he signed a statement confessing to having carried out a brutal attack on Ms Sewell. The statement contained a number of factual inaccuracies, and Mr Downing later retracted it, saying it had been written for him by the police. But two days later, Ms Sewell died from her injuries, and the charge became one of murder.

Stephen Downing says that the modern-day police force is 'altogether different' from the one that caused so much of his life to be stolen from him. Certainly, police procedures have changed, and no-one with his educational handicaps would now be interrogated without expert help being provided to make sure that the suspect understood the implications of what was happening. Mr Downing has been keen to stress that the wrongful conviction is 'all in the past', and that he wants to get on with the rest of his life. He will, of course, be entitled to massive compensation to help him to do that.

But I don't think that this case should be forgotten too quickly. One very disturbing aspect of it is that Mr Downing served 10 years more than the minimum term set by the judge at his trial, mainly because he continued to insist that he was innocent.

I appreciate that getting offenders to accept responsibility for their crimes is an important part of the rehabilitation process - but is it really so important that it justifies taking away extra years of someone's life, if that person doesn't appear to be a threat to the public? It is difficult not to suspect that part of the reason for so much emphasis being put on an admission of guilt is that such an admission prevents the kind of embarrassment to the authorities, and hefty compensation payments, that arise from a high-profile, major miscarriage of justice like this one.

Finally, although nothing can give Mr Downing back the years he's lost, at least he is still alive to receive his compensation. It's sobering to consider that, had this case happened in America, it might well have ended with his execution.

Previously in this column, I have lambasted those religious extremists who have attempted to deny children the joys of the wonderful 'Harry Potter' books on the ludicrous grounds that reading them might encourage a serious interest in the occult. It is, therefore, only fair to add that not all members of the clergy take quite such a censorious view of J.K. Rowling's marvellous creation.

Pastor Joris Ridderbos of Haren in Holland has staged a special 'Harry Potter' service for children, for which he donned a wizard's hat, and encouraged his young congregation to come dressed as Harry.

Pastor Ridderbos has explained:
'The story of Harry Potter starts with an alternative reading of the story of the three kings, there is a speaking snake and, like Jesus, Harry Potter was a very obedient boy. But the most important link between the two stories is that no victory is achieved without an effort. As a result from his first meeting with evil, Harry Potter is bearing a mark. And I want to emphasise to the children that every victory has a price. I see the Harry Potter story as a new story that can make the old Bible story much more comprehensible.'

Hmm. The arrival of Harry on the doorstep of his adoptive parents, the Dursleys, could be read as an alternative Nativity, but only if you're willing to accept the idea of the Three Kings arriving on a flying motorbike. There is a speaking snake in the first 'Potter' book, but it's hardly the serpent in the Garden of Eden - Harry sets it free from a zoo. And Harry is hardly obedient. His magical life at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry happens because he disobeys the Dursleys - and once there he often has to outwit authority.

So, while I certainly prefer Pastor Ridderbos' attitude to the Potter chronicles to that of those residents of the US Bible Belt who've been burning the books, I'm not sure that I'd entirely endorse his interpretation.

All that I'm sure of is that I wish there'd been something as witty, wise and ingenious as the Potter books to stimulate my imagination when I was a child. I've just recently read them, as a rather big boy of 41, and I adore them.

Anyone for Quidditch?

Ormondroyd

17.01.02. Front Page

Back Issue Page