CRIMINAL proceedings against public figures are always fraught with danger. The overriding principal of justice has to be fairness. Juries must look at the defendants and the evidence presented before them with absolute objectivity and without prejudice.

Such a principal is much more difficult to adopt when defendants and their alleged offences have been widely publicised in advance of their trial.

This was the dilemma surrounding the trial of Leeds United footballers Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate.

However, no one should be seen to be above the law. It would have been wrong to not pursue proceedings against them simply because they were famous and they were personalities a potential juror could identify.

It was vital, for the footballers and for the alleged victim, that justice prevailed and the facts were considered carefully and scrupulously in a court of law.

It is to the eternal credit of our system of justice that the trial was able to proceed towards a conclusion.

It is a matter of great concern that after a ten-week hearing, with the jury considering its verdicts, and court costs estimated at £8m, that the trial has collapsed.

Through no fault of theirs, justice has been snatched from the accused and the alleged victim at the very end of ten weeks of painstaking efforts to retain a sense of fairness.

The long and the short of it

IN a modern world where all our children know only metrication, we have to accept that the days of pounds, ounces, inches and yards are numbered.

The British culture and national identity will not be destroyed by the slow death of imperial measurements.

There is no harm in having both systems in place during a long period of transition, to allow the old weights and measures to pass away gracefully from natural causes.

At the outset of proceedings against him, we said we saw no purpose in pursuing Steven Thoburn through the courts. Following yesterday's verdict against him we can see no reason to change our mind.

It was one of those occasions where the authorities would have been wise to turn a blind eye, and let the march of time take its course.