About the Club
The Justice, 5th March 2000
The Justice has finally met. The court was called into
session sometime after 2pm, after the Enforcer and Prosecuting
Counsel had scoured college for stragglers, and an elite band of hardened
drinkers had assembled at the Fresher and Firkin, which we converted into
a courthouse for the afternoon.
The timetable was tight; everyone present was to be tried, some had
multiple crimes to answer for. My job, as Enforcer, is to detail the
charges that were brought and the verdicts in each case, along with the
punishments enforced, or still to be enforced.
Dicipline was strictly observed while the court was in session, with
those present being held in contempt of court, with fines in fingers of
beer as appointed by the lord chief justice, for:
- Answering back to The Lord Chief Justice or his Law Lords
- Wearing shoes
- Not wearing shoes
- Receiving mobile calls (one finger per ring)
Lisa Wright is to be singled out particularly for the latter, as
three fingers are still pending for this offence. These will be drunk
before she is permitted to join the next meeting.
Prosectution was by Simon Case, except where otherwise specified. The cases heard, the verdicts and the punishments:
- Falling in the river
- Sleeping with the enemy
- Ineptitude in the handling of
food
- Losing the headship
- Inappropriate use of gold socks
- Starring in American Beauty
- Adultery
- Being a smelly bastard
- Dancing like a filthy slapper
- Wearing a yellow jumper
- Being a tart
- Being ginger
- Drinking a girl's drink
- Termination of an away Formal Hall
- Dodgy kissing technique
- Being unable to speak properly
- Various offences relating to the boat club dinner
- Failure to defend the club's interest
- Meeting conclusion
Case for the prosecution:
RD was tried for falling in the river after jumping over the
burning boat on Saturday night - the vigour with which he cleared the vessel simply being too great to permit stopping in time.
Case for the defence:
None
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
RD was ordered to dunk his head into a basin of water.
The sentence was enforced.
Case for the prosecution:
KH and LW were charged with liasons with oarsmen at LMBC and Caius respectively.
Case for the defence:
There was some degree of doubt
with regard to the latter defendent, but to further assure The Justice of their loyalty to
the members of this club, Miss Wright was required to drink a mouthful of
whiskey passed to her, without the aid of a glass, by Miss Howie.
Verdict:
NOT GUILTY
Case for the prosecution:
It was noticed that Mr Dewire, at a Maggie formal hall, dropped his dinner onto the
Prosecution's carpet, and put ice cream down the back of an innocent
third party's skirt.
Case for the defence:
None
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
RD was required to drink for his crimes.
Case for the prosecution:
More
accurately, the defendent was accused of loosing the Lents plate, within a day of winning it back for the club.
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
MP was sentenced to go and find himself a plate, and
to drink a finger of beer for every minute he took to perform the task.
An impressive three minutes later, he returned with a plate, and so got
away with only three fingers.
Case for the prosecution:
Details of this case are widely enough known not to need restatement
here
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
TR was sentenced to take off a sock, put it
over his glass and drink a fine of three fingers.
Case for the prosecution:
The prosecution brought forward MA as evidence. Upon examination of the evidence, it was decided to extend the charge to include that of being hairy.
Case for the defence:
Early in the proceedings Miss Lisa Wright (LW) was charged with
claiming that there was nothing wrong with being hairy. The case for the
defence then collapsed altogether when it was discovered that Mr Arnold's back is just as
hairy as his chest.
Verdict:
MA: GUILTY; LW: GUILTY
Sentence:
Miss Wright was sentenced to eat a slice of pizza
from Mr Arnold's chest without using her hands.
| Adultery |
the Accused:
Miss Sally Painter (SP) |
|
|
 |
Case for the prosecution:
SP was charged with seducing Miss Howie's husband
(her father).
Case for the defence:
The Lord Chief Justice ruled that
this is just the sort of behaviour that should
be encouraged in freshers.
Verdict:
NOT GUILTY
Additional Notes:
SP was subsequently charged with 'Being able to sing' instead. She was found to be guilty and required to gargle the tune of "I'd rather row for Oxford that St Johns". It was demanded that she subsequently swallowed.
Case for the prosecution:
The prosecution observed that CI had clearly not
changed since mud wrestling with Mr Case the night before.
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
CI
was to turn all his clothes inside out, with a fine of one finger being
levelled for every ten second this took him. Four fingers were drunk.
|
Case 9 |
Prosecution by: Miss Emma Hewson
|
|
|
Case for the prosecution:
ST was charged with "dancing like a filthy slapper" at
the boat club bop. Evidence was heard
from most of the ladies' boat club.
Case for the defence:
The prosecution's evidence was
called into question by acting defence council Simon Case on
the grounds that the witnesses may have consumed some quantity of alcohol
on the night in question.
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
Miss Taylor was required
to demonstrate her dancing technique with Mr Tom "Golden Boy" Rose.
Case for the defence:
GT, having arrived late, objected that his jumper was actually Lemon, and was held in contempt.
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
His sentence was to buy and drink a Lemon Hooch.
Additional Notes:
Returning from the bar with a Lime Bacardi Breezer, GT was held in
contempt again.
|
Case 11 |
Prosecution by: Miss Hewson (EH)
|
|
|
Case for the prosecution:
The Law Lords were grateful to EH who, with
greater experience in such cases, again took over the prosecution.
Pleading guilty and showing no remorse, RN described a series of
formal halls and other similar occasions, all with the same depraved
conclusion.
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
RN was required to demonstrate her love
for the stool in front of her by kissing it for the duration of the next
case.
Case for the defence:
RD vigorously protested his innocence, but the Law Lords
were of the opinion that Strawberry Blonde was not an accurate
description
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
RD was sentenced to drink an orange Bacardi
Breezer.
Case for the prosecution:
The prosecution presented as evidence the bottle of orange Bacardi Breezer which the defendent was in the process of consuming.
Case for the defence:
None
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
Three
fingers.
Case for the prosecution:
GF was charged with informing a Girton porter, at a
formal hall last year, that although he was indeed from Trinity ", at
least I don't f*$k my own mother" and causing the entire Trinity group to
be forcibly ejected from the college.
Any number of witnesses were ready to testify.
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
GF is required to
present to The Justice, at the beginning of the next
meeting, something that he has stolen from a porter.
Case for the prosecution:
Strangely, there was no shortage of evidence (thanks for the research,
girls!)
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
Mr Knight was required to demonstrate the phenomenon with
some help from the chair recently vacated by Miss North.
Case for the prosecution:
JE was called to the stand for the crime of being unable to
speak properly. Asked by the enforcer about his knowledge of frying pans,
particularly chinese ones, he replied that he was indeed familiar with
the "wok". Asked how he proposed to cross the room to be questioned, he
suggested that he might run. This was deemed to be inappropriate to a
courtroom and it was decided that, rather than amble, he should "walk".
The prosecution took over the case, discovering furthermore that Mr Earl
was unable to distinguish the words "talk" and "tock". Apparantly this is
quite common where he comes from.
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
The court sentenced JE only to
walk the walk - to walk once round the room while drinking from his glass
- saving him from having to talk the talk.
Case for the prosecution:
Various charges were considered. The charge of leading
the boatman on was, however, dropped after considering the state she was
obviously in by that stage of the evening, and the fact that Mr Mountain
should really have been there to defend Miss Rickards' interests.
Verdict:
NOT GUILTY
Case for the prosecution:
JM was charged with failure to adequately defend Miss
Rickards, putting a valuable member of First and Third in peril.
Verdict:
GUILTY
Sentence:
It was
decided that his sense of duty should be re-inforced by his punishment,
and he is to carry a knife of his choosing on his person at all times
until the next meeting of The Justice.
Additional Notes:
Should he be challeged by a member
between now and then, and be unable to produce a knife, a fine of one
finger of beer for each instance will be levelled at the start of the
next meeting.
Meeting conclusion
In an interesting legal move, the Enforcer, Prosecuting and Defence
councils and the Clerk of the Court were charged with various offences
before the meeting finally adjourned to The Maypole shortly after five.
All the above, having been fairly tried and sentenced, are now full
members of The Justice.
Jon Glass, Enforcer.
