We already have a law which covers this, the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951. What do we need another one for?
"1. Punishment of fraudulent mediums, &c.—
(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, any person who—
(a)with intent to deceive purports to act as a spiritualistic medium or to exercise any powers of telepathy, clairvoyance or other similar powers, or
(b)in purporting to act as a spiritualistic medium or to exercise such powers as aforesaid, uses any fraudulent device,
shall be guilty of an offence.
(2) A person shall not be convicted of an offence under the foregoing subsection unless it is proved that he acted for reward; and for the purposes of this section a person shall be deemed to act for reward if any money is paid, or other valuable thing given, in respect of what he does, whether to him or to any other person.
(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding four months or to both such fine and such imprisonment, or on conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both such fine and such imprisonment.
(4) No proceedings for an offence under this section shall be brought in England or Wales except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
(5) Nothing in subsection (1) of this section shall apply to anything done solely for the purpose of entertainment."
"You of all people should have seen this coming."
LOL
This is the same law that will make it illegal for theatres to display adverts proclaiming
" A TRIUMPH ! Fantastic Ending; deserves awards ! - Sunday Scribe "
As selectivly edited from the Sunday Scribes actual revue.
'A triumph of mediocrity over talent, a dirge so fantastic it deserves an early ending. No awards for this rubbish.'
Lots of work for you there Bystander.
Have fun.
Madame Arcati has a point. What about the Vicar, wrinkle cream makers, people promising 72 virgins and those flogging £20 gadgets to make a car do 77 mpg? In fairness, all should be hauled in for failing to clarify the lack of proof behind their claims. Indeed the vicar and imam are the most egregious offenders, insisting that what they say is indeed scientifical factualisation.
Also crystal healers, Dr McKeith........The list is very, very long
From http://
business.timesonline.co.u...icle3987725.ece
"Andy Millmore's (a partner at the law firm Harbottle & Lewis in London) view is that fortune-tellers will not be the main target. “The double-glazing sellers who go for elderly ladies – it’s in those areas that people would expect the new laws to bite,” he said.
Quite right too. However, how many laws have we seen recently about which the same was said. Once it's there it's used.
We have a spiritualist church just up the road from the court and police station down here - shall I expect the boys in blue to be staking it out shortly?
What a load of ?balls?
"We already have a law which covers this, the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951. What do we need another one for?"
Because this is how things work these days. HMG expresses its disapproval by banning things AGAIN, not necessarily by making the original ban workable or enforceable.
"criminalise (those) who fail to note on their advertisements that their services 'are not subject to scientific proof'
If the above is an accurate paraphrase of the law, I would be knocking on the door of the University of East Anglia. It is now becoming apparent that the 'Anthropic Climate Change' hypothesis falls into this category, and the cost to humanity must already be in the trillions of dollars....
And there was me thinking Helen Duncan was the real deal...tsk!! (Helen was the last woman prosecutied for Witchcraft during WW2.) I have not yet had the opportunity for announcing a dunking on the witch stool in the village pond as a sentence from the bench...but it does have some attractions perhaps as a form of instant 'community penalty'
The Fruadulent Mediums Act 1951 was rarely used but the Act was actually the last survival of the old "Witchcraft" Acts. The last person to be tried for "witchcraft" was Helen Duncan back in the 1940s. It seems that her prosecution had something to do with revealing that a sailor had died on HMS Barham which was sunk by a submarine attack in 1941 but, at the time, the British government had not revealed the loss of the ship.
This link makes quite an interesting read:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/lrb/
...,485358,00.html
as does this
http://www.spiritualist.tv/news/...len-
duncan.html
Parliament is now in the process of implementing the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations which implement a European Directive. These regulations will repeal the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951.
Obviously, the new regs. will be very important to business generally and the Office of Fair Trading have a lot to say about it:
http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and...ting/
protection
Please see also the Essex Spirit Guide who are not at all happy about the change to the law which, they claim, will enable fraud to prosper:
http://www.essexspiritguide.co.u...aspx?a=451&
p=39
It is interesting to note that under the 1951 Act the prosecution had to prove fraud/dishonesty. The new regs. will put a "reverse" burden of proof on the "trader" (here the "medium") to show that he or she did not mislead, coerce or take advantage of any 'vulnerable' consumers.
"Reverse burdens" have become very fashionable in recent years and go against the traditional "spirit" of English law. Indeed, the great speech of Lord Chancellor Sankey about the duty of the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is now sounding like a ghost from the past!
My crystal ball tells me that any cases will be going to District Judges who, of course, would never dream of consulting a psychic for inspiration!
Nice one Bystander. Maybe the same law could apply to dodgy car dealers too.
JVIP
More easy targets for the police to be busy chasing instead of burglars?
That should be interesting to deal with. Many interesting points raised there - religion (of which the PM is a big supporter, being a protestant and all) will be the biggest offender! Where's the proof that God exists?
I'm just playing devil's advocate (ouch) Oliver, but would a fervant Christian say that you should look around you at the wonders of creation and try and prove that God does NOT exist!
Please see also the Essex Spirit Guide who are not at all happy about the change to the law which, they claim, will enable fraud to prosper
Well, if anyone is qualified to say what effects a law will have in the future, I'd guess mediums have a pretty good claim!
@Richard 75
By my count, we already have three offences covering mediums who are *knowingly* deceiving their customers: along with the offence you refer to under the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1961, there is also fraud by false representation under the Fraud Act 2006, and plain old vanilla theft under the 1968 Act. The crucial point is that each of these offences requires the prosecution to prove mens rea, which I imagine to be very difficult to do in these sorts of cases. The new offence will presumably be one of strict liability (v. offences under the Trades Description Act).
@JVIP: a dodgy car dealer could be charged with any of the above mentioned offences.
I'm against lying in all its forms.
I'm against people of any faith position, spiritualist mediums or American TV evangelists manipulating people to get money out of them.
Lies and greed are the things that need to be provable, I think.
But if someone genuinely believes, in their heart, that the alignment of the stars makes a difference to your life, that is their faith, and we don't need to agree with it to accept their right to believe it.
I'm a Christian and I actually believe in God. I accept that other people don't. I accept that other people think I'm bonkers. Am I bovvered?
I just want to assert, however, that atheism is also a belief.
I love science, but I know that science very often is theory and hypothesis and old certainties get challenged all the time.
I hope this law gets greedy liars and leaves well-meaning believers alone.
mary (mssd6@nospam.com) wrote the following:
You really are a w4nker , aren't you. Magistrate? Anal little control freak with nosaleable skils or talents.
(Accidentally deleted, restored by siteowner)
I suppose politicians are exempt because they expect you to believe that they are lying....'no reasonable expectation', and so on
Presumably those who are convicted can expect a medium-level Community Order
What is Mary on about?
anon 4.22
I could tell you, but as it involves the the use of a crystal ball, I may be prosecuted
Oi
This raises a good point; will there need to be a disclaimer for hypnotherapy, acupuncture, magnets that ‘help’ relieve arthritis pains and all the other alternative therapies and gadgets offering incredible results?
@PCSO
Yes.
Not Long Now,
Interesting point, and without studying the exact wording of the legislation I am unable to say whether it stands or falls.
Wouldn't everyone love to hear more from Mary ? Not.
What's that all about ?
JVIP
It's about Trolling.
And it's normally one of the unfortunate signs of a more successful blog.
This raises a good point; will there need to be a disclaimer for hypnotherapy, acupuncture, magnets that ‘help’ relieve arthritis pains and all the other alternative therapies and gadgets offering incredible results?
Bugger. If I'd hoped to sell large quantities of homoeopathic remedies to someone gullible - let's say, an heir to the throne? - does the burden of proof for efficacy rise in inverse proportion to the dilution?
AnneDroid - "I just want to assert, however, that atheism is also a belief" - no it isn't, it's the absence of a specific belief. I don't explicitly "believe" that there are no little pixies inside my computer doing all it's thinking for it, I just don't have any such belief. Same with God.
I always assumed that not having any specific belief is agnosticism.
Atheists by contrast, pace Dawkins et al, have a firm belief that there is no such thing as a deity.
Despite the fact that we cannot explain 99% of what we know (which is in itself not of course in itself an argument for theism) they persist in their belief that everything comes from science. And they are as vigorous campaigners for their beliefs as any mullah.
Theirs in short is as much a faith-based belief, and behaves as such, as anything held by the Archbish of Cantab.
Hm, had a customer in court this morning who said that his clairvoyant had told him to plead not guilty...the judge at the Crown court will I suspect LOVE that one!!
Biker
I learn so much on this site. I've never heard of trolling before so looked it up here.
http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html
JVIP
Biker,
I assume that the Dawkins et al belief is not that "everything comes from science" but that there is a rational / scientific explanation for every observable event, whether or not we know it yet.
I am surprised at your assertion that "we cannot explain 99% of what we know" is a 'fact' - who is 'we' in this context? I hope not yourself and your colleagues on the bench?
I suppose whether or not that assertion is worrying depends on exactly what the fellow means by 'explain'. Even if we had laws of physics that could accurately predict absolutely everything in the universe (something which physics itself now says is impossible), there would still be those who argued that, without knowing 'why' the laws are like that, we haven't explained anything.
Since there exists controversy about the level of harm done by passive smoking, are the government's 'Smoking seriously harms you and others around you' labels on cigarettes now criminal? Exactly what counts as 'scientific proof', and what advertisements are affected?
Oh goody. Let's see this used on the people who still, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, *still* think "Cameras cut crashes".
Ahhh. From Fraudulent mediums (media?) to speed cameras in only 35 comments.
Surely a record?
Thanks for that TM!
GJCP - you are a naughty little motorist.
"..Since there exists controversy about the level of harm done by passive smoking.."
It's worse than that. Unsurprisingly, there is absolutely no scientific definition of 'passive smoking' and consequently absolutely no scientific evidence to show that it does any harm at all. What studies there have been show that there is no effect, and any stats showing that there is are fabricated.
If you are talking 'scientific evidence' there is, funnily enough, little dispassionate evidence to show that smoking actually causes any harm to the smoker - what evidence there is is statistical, and try as they might, no one has yet come up with an unambiguous mechanism for smoking causing cancer, etc. It's a smelly hobby, and objectionable in an enclosed space, but it doesn't have a proveably dangerous bodily effect in the same way that, say, alcohol does. In fact, many 'generally believed' truths look pretty dodgy if you investigate them scientifically - climate change, for instance.
So one might wonder about the reasoning behind this law. I have recently heard it claimed that 80% of our laws are now driven by EU directives, and nothing to do with any requirement, real or imaginary, that this country has. Do you think that this could be another such?
If so, that raises an interesting issue for Bystander. He has sworn to uphold the 'Law of the Land'. From a simplistic point of view, of course, whatever Parliament enacts is the 'law of the land', but as we get more and more directives from Brussels, badly drafted and applied without sense, more people might begin to question whether these really are the laws of Britain...?
I thought agnosticism was tantamount to "I'm not sure, so I'll hedge my bets just in case", whereas atheism is a dead cert belief that there is no G(g)od(s).
I wonder if the legislation has been drafted because a certain someone may have visited Gypsy Rose Lee and she told hime what an excellent Prime Minister he would make.
We had a claivoyant in the dock last week. She claimed to be a medium but everyone could see she was an extra large.
When found guilty she said that she saw that coming.
@Dodgy Geezer
1. The ACS II study provided clear evidence of a correlation between environmental exposure to tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease. The risk is probably not that great, but it's misleading to say that there is "absolutely no scientific evidence to show that it does any harm at all".
2. Chemicals contained in tobacco smoke can be proven to be capable of damaging DNA and inhibiting cell repair.
3. The directive has been transposed by means of a statutory instrument, so the EU issue is technically irrelevant in this case. In response to your point though, it was established long ago that Community law is the "Law of the Land".
Biker,
I think you are somewhat confused about what science claims to do.
Nobody (as far as I know) believes that everything, or indeed anything "comes from science". Science is not a means by which things exist, it is a method by which people study the world around them in an attempt to find out how and why it works as it does.
Steve.
Dodgy Geezer:
I would consider statistical evidence to be a form 'scientific evidence', and I expect the law would also. You don't need to know the mechanism by which something harms you in order to scientifically know that it harms you, surely?
Henry Crun:
I think atheism means believing there is no God, and agnosticism means not being certain in your religious beliefs. Richard Dawkins (I think) describes himself, in principle, as an agnostic atheist, since he believes there is no God (making him an atheist), but accepts that he cannot prove this and hence there is a possiblity (however tiny) that he is wrong (making him agnostic). Generally atheists are in fact nominally agnostic as well - it's only the devoutly religious who aren't agnostic at all.
I've forgotten how all this relates to fraudulent mediums, now.
I fear that space constraints will prevent me from covering the several topics below in as much detail as I would like. Apologies for any vagueness which brevity may introduce, and for the overall length. Bystander, I hope you will allow such a long post, given I need to respond to four positions...
Anon,
1) I would consider statistical evidence to be a form 'scientific evidence'..... You don't need to know the mechanism by which something harms you in order to scientifically know that it harms you...
Statistics is a much misunderstood subject. People think it 'proves' things. It does NOT. It is a technique for examining bulk data to look for trends. Sometimes, these trends tell people where to look for mechanisms. But the key point to understand is that ANY trend can be looked for. I can examine some aspect of data I think might be linked to Bystander's character, and give an opinion on the probability of his being law-abiding, according to the rules I have specified. But equally, I could come up with a probability of his being a master criminal. The actual figure will depend entirely on how I manipulate the data. So the strength of the 'evidence' depends crucially on statistical manipulation, which requires an expert to consider the validity of, and, in my contention, is frequently sufficiently badly done to merit the title of 'lying'. Please see http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/big...k/
big_liars.htm.
Statistics, therefore may point to a problem, as I could make it point (to an extent!) to Bystander's criminality. But if you can then find no mechanism, or practical evidence to back up your hypothesis, you may have to retract your original hypothesis and conclude that Bystander may not be a criminal after all..?
Jon,
2a)"The ACS II study provided clear evidence of a correlation..."
Please remember that corelation is NOT causation.
The ACS II (CPS-II) study did NOT provide evidence of correlation to any credible degree. To assemble the CPS-II, the ACS had about 70,000 untrained volunteers ask their friends, family and friends personal health questions The data collected was never validated for accuracy. Self-reported data is not all that reliable and the problem is compounded by amateur data collectors. But far worse are the actual RRs (to the usual 95% CI). Only one is 1.33, the others are 1.1 or below. James E Enstrom May 17, 2003 British Medical Journal (
http://www.epi-perspectives.com/...nt/4/1/11)
gives a reference to the relevent table, and is a paper well worth a read on its own. You will note that the authors of the CPS-II study concluded that their findings "do not show consistent dose-response trends and are possibly subject to confounding by unmeasured risk factors." This meant, for instance, that females exposed to 21-39 cigs/day actually had a LOWER cancer risk than those in none-smoking households! For those who are not well aquainted with Confidence Intervals and Relative Risks, this reference may be useful: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/RR.htm. It gives references indicating that RRs in excess of 3, ideally 5 or more, should be sought. CPS-II (and all the data dredges which use its data) do not perform to this level.
2b) "Chemicals contained in tobacco smoke can be proven to be capable of damaging.."
In vivo, or in vitrio? Without a precise reference I am working in the dark, but I would commend Paracelsus's maxim to you.
2c) "..it was established long ago that Community law is the "Law of the Land"."
I fear you may have mistaken the intent of my words. Rouseau's view of the 'social contract' is what I was getting at here. He felt that the state was comprised of ALL the people acting together in their own best interests - when any government usurped that power, the social contract would be broken; and not only would the citizens no longer be compelled to obey, they would also have an obligation to rebel. So what Parliament defines as 'the law' and what might actually be 'the law' can be two different things....
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