Good Vibrations

This story parodies the illogical and wholly unreasonable aspects of the way the law works. How its quest for ‘justice’ often leads to injustice, and how its rigid and inflexible approach to ‘due process’ makes a mockery of fairness, and hands down bizarre judgements. The insistence that everything must be resolved in court under the public gaze, creates ridiculous situations that do nothing to dignify the rightness of the justice system. On the contrary, it shames it. Just such a story is that of Edmund Lincoln. It’s the fourth time ram raiders have wrecked Edmund Lincoln’s nationally famous audio and HI-Fi business, and he’s facing ruin. Exorbitant and restricted insurance, and the totally inept police investigations, mean he has little chance of recovering anything lost or receiving adequate recompense. After the fourth break in his senior manager Mark Stepleford, painfully restores the business but another disaster strikes when a psychotic customer is thought to be shoplifting. He is challenged and draws a knife to fend off the shop staff. Mark, realising the man is completely out of control, stabs him with a needle test probe. The man is dead on arrival at the hospital. Mark and the two sales staff are arrested on charges of manslaughter. But notwithstanding the Crown Prosecution’s insistence on due process, the jury refuses to convict. For a while life and business return to normal but then they are notified that their rather limited insurance is being withdrawn. It means that the whole trading operation is now severely compromised. To protect the shop in the absence of insurance Mark designs a hyper–powerful sonic system that creates a deep sense of fear in intruders. He adds an extremely powerful low frequency sound field that causes the intruder real physical distress. Just after Christmas, during the shop’s week long shutdown, they are called by the police. The shop has been hit. They are horrified to learn that on inspection the police have found five dead bodies in the shop – all of them having suffered agonising deaths. Edmund Lincoln is arrested for murder. He is outraged – thus begins his fight against the CPS and the whole apparatus of the legal process.