FIRST off, let me make it absolutely clear – to BarrieJohn in particular – that I did not choose to blog this sorry saga because a key player in it has a funny name: Dr Hazel Chowcat.
Chowcat is a magistrate in Yorkshire, and according to this report, she accepted the defence of a 73-year-old Catholic priest who crashed his wheels into the car of a young woman in the car park of St John the Baptist Church in Normanton.
Canon Peter Maguire – Picture Ross Parry Agency
Canon Peter Maguire was double the drink-drive limit and unsteady on his feet when the crash occurred, but he denied a drink-driving charge, maintaining he was not using a public road when the offence was committed.
Chowcat heard the boozehound hit the car of a woman attending a puppy-training club in the church hall on August 30 last year. The priest had been “drinking socially” before attempting to move his car from the car park to his garage. He hit Hindle’s blue Vauxhall Astra with his Fiat Punto.
The car park he was in services the church, the church hall, the church social club and the Presbytery. And although it is used by those attending the church for weddings and funerals and guests at the Parish club it was argued that, at the time, it was only being used by those attending the puppy club and, therefore, was not open to the public.
Hindle told Wakefield Magistrates Court:
Somebody came into the hall at the end of the club and asked who had a blue Astra, I said it was me, and I was told: ‘I think the priest has just hit your car’.
She rushed out to see that her car was slightly damaged, and the priest was:
Unsteady on his feet and a appeared a little bit vacant. I thought he was drunk because of his demeanour, the vagueness and the unsteadiness on his feet. He suggested we could sort anything between ourselves and handed me his card, but at that point I was already speaking to the police.
Charles McRae, prosecuting, argued the car park was a public place because it could be used by anybody who wished to go into the church and that the church was a spiritual place open to all.
But Denis Lofthouse, representing Canon Maguire, said the church operated as a business and the only people allowed in were those who had been invited or were paying, as in the case of Miss Hindle.
The car park could be deemed as open to the public some of the time and not at others. At the time of the accident, it was a private car park.
Delivering her not guilty verdict Chowcat said:
The court finds the car park is not a public place, the people using the car park were members of the puppy club, we regard the puppy club as a closed group because they have to pay a fee to attend.
Hat tip: Glenn
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
January 25th, 2012 at 8:41 pm
Splutter, choke…
You just know barriejohn isn’t gonna believe you for a second, right?
Right, now to read the story.
January 25th, 2012 at 8:48 pm
So, the church car-park isn’t public, which would imply that the church and its grounds are private property, which means they pay taxes…?
Thought not. And here was me thinking ‘bearing false witness’ meant ‘perjury.’ Silly me.
January 25th, 2012 at 9:11 pm
Not as funny as Canon Peter Maguire:
Eager unimportance.
January 25th, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Daz: I keep raising the question of churches and their tax exemption. It’s a very grey area to me. Some denominations, like the Exclusive Brethren and possibly the Jehovah’s Witnesses still (no one seems to know for sure), lock their doors during services to keep out “the ungodly”. I wonder whether they pay the full whack? And should churches be exempt from taxes when they are being used to raise money?
January 25th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
What strikes me about this story is that normal people tend to know the difference between right and wrong. Getting pissed and damaging someone else’s car in a car park, or any where else, puts a moral obligation on you to admit your guilt and pay for the damage.
Not so if you are a good, God fearing Catholic. You don’t have to concern yourself with right and wrong, all you have to worry about is what is legal. If you can avoid your moral obligations by exploiting a hole in the law then technically you can still go to Heaven. If God disagrees you can hire an expensive lawyer to point out to God why he is wrong.
January 25th, 2012 at 9:43 pm
barriejohn
Exactly. They tend to claim its because of their charitable work, when cornered on the matter, but the sensible thing would surely be to give taxes back based on the amount they spend on charity.
January 25th, 2012 at 10:12 pm
Hey Daz, off-topic I know, but I just discovered that Bob Hutton has appeared on Facebook, and he called me “filth” in a private massage.
He wrote: “Hey Barry, you MUST repent of your filth or you will face eternal damnation,” and accused me of being a “hypocrite” here: http://www.facebook.com/events/212823392145531/
Whereupon he got a his arse well-fried.
The lunatic’s profile, sans photo, is here: http://www.facebook.com/profil.....038;ref=ts
He has FOUR friends!
Feel free to give the reptile a piece of your mind!
January 25th, 2012 at 11:31 pm
Barry
Alas, I’ve resisted the Face Book urge so far, so I can’t help. He really is a horrible little oik though, ain’t he. I banned him the other day; after 2 warnings not to use the word ‘pervert’ he just went ahead and used it, because it’s ‘biblically sanctioned’. Muppet.
January 25th, 2012 at 11:59 pm
Well, I’ve read some old tosh but that just about beats everything. How on earth do these people get elected to be a magistrate?
January 26th, 2012 at 2:57 am
Strange laws. I would have assumed that being drunk while driving a vehicle would be an offence whether or not one is driving on a public road. And yes, Stonyground, it’s just another example of Catholic clergy showing their contempt for secular laws. Having gone to enormous bother and expense to keep their child rapists out of the courts, they’re hardly likely to balk at evading drink-driving charges.
January 26th, 2012 at 7:58 am
I am right about the Exclusive Brethren – at least in Australia, where they are very strong, and were successfully prosecuted – and I know that ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses have said the same thing:
http://peebs.net/Municipality/
January 26th, 2012 at 8:00 am
From America:
http://www.bishop-accountabili.....tholic.htm
January 26th, 2012 at 8:05 am
And regarding the Mormons, who bar the ungodly from their “temples”:
http://www.mormonlawyers.com/2.....xempt.html
January 26th, 2012 at 8:20 am
Did people spot this on the NSS Media Round-up yesterday? Are we returning to the Middle Ages?
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/.....minster.do
January 26th, 2012 at 8:58 am
Barriejohn, I did see the article about Parish Councils yesterday – a very dangerous development. One can only imagine the petty minded bigots agenda: such old classics as not hanging out your washing on Sundays, chaining up swings in playgrounds……
January 26th, 2012 at 9:16 am
Perhaps it’s as well Maguire was let off. Otherwise we might have had another persecuted christian on our hands.
January 26th, 2012 at 9:38 am
OT just arrived back from a nile cruise where I was reading Hitch 22.Fellow passenger stops by and asks “Excuse me, is that book you’re reading a cross between hitchhikers guide and catch 22″? Sigh.
January 26th, 2012 at 9:40 am
Caption required:
http://i44.tinypic.com/rmtvdy.jpg
January 26th, 2012 at 9:46 am
Seems the parish council thing boils down to the unfairness of having to pay for parking like everyone else.
January 26th, 2012 at 9:51 am
There is no criminal offence in Britain of being drunk in charge of a vehicle on private land. Maybe this reads oddly to Americans, but as a British reader it strikes me that this was quite plainly a misconceived prosecution and a correct judgment. The accident did not take place on the public highway and is therefore a civil rather than a criminal matter. The priest is clearly liable for private damages, but has not committed a criminal offence.
Also a priest being drunk is not thought of as especially odd. The (Anglican) Bishop of Southwark is well known for an incident a few years ago in which he was “tired and emotional”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/eng.....192265.stm He wasn’t mugged – he fell over and left his bag in a taxi.
January 26th, 2012 at 11:13 am
So we have a precedent here: churches are now legally businesses. How went their claim that priests have no employment rights because they are working for a supernatural entity? That’s clearly not the case, now.
January 26th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
That parking thing reminded me of this. Seems they just plain don’t like being treated equally.
January 26th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
We’re having the same row here, Daz. I couldn’t find a link to the story, but I did come across this, taken up by our old friends at the Daily Mail!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-park.html
January 26th, 2012 at 2:21 pm
barriejohn
It’s always reassuring to know the Daily Fail disagrees with you, isn’t it.
More on the one I linked to, at the Get Surry site. Great comment:
January 26th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
The judge is right, why was public momey wasted on this court case?
politcally correct anal-retentive progressive Bobbies who don’t know the law and even when they do, don’t enforce it if the prep is code word “asian”.
January 26th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Ivan & D. Austin
I’d contend that the Church is public property, being publicly funded, and therefore so is the church car park. Therefore the magistrate was wrong. He was drink-driving in a public space.
January 26th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
‘Ere little boy, wanna see some puppies, ..sounds a bit dodgey to me , especialy with a catholic priest in the mix.
January 26th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Caption “Hello sonny, fancy bashing the bishop?”
January 26th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Yeah, ivan, I think the point was that the magistrate decided on a response designed to let the priest off. You simply can’t have some parking space that’s private one minute and public the next. It’s either public or private with appropriate signage stating what it is.
The effect of the judgement means that she has culpably freed an alcoholic driver with no guarantee he won’t do it again. And I’ll be staggered to say the least, if anyone believes he was merely moving his car around in the car park.
January 26th, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Daz, the church isn’t public property, it may be not be taxed but
it is not owned by the crown. If sold the money doesn’t go to the
crown. That is the law.
You can get as loaded as you like and drive up and down your driveway,
which is what happened here.
As for being over double the drink drive limit, what is that, two beers?, frankly the guy screwed up moving his car, and unfortunately
dinged a freaking bitch who went off the deep end.
This dismal article is much ado about nothing, except to call a priest names like “boozehound” which the article does not offer
any proof of. Its sole reason for being written,the guy is a priest.
If he was a farmer, it would have been posted and we wouldn`t have not wasted the 20 seconds of our limited lives reading it.
January 26th, 2012 at 5:26 pm
I tend to agree with you, D. Austin: this does seem, in itself, to be a bit of a non-story. However, I assume that he is the Canon Peter Maguire who is co-signatory to the following letter:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/com.....spect.html
January 26th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
If he had been a farmer, he wouldn’t have spent the last 50 years moralising and publicly telling people what to do. As for the church not being public property – depending on its antecedents, it may well have been funded by the theft of 10% of the parishioners income as compulsory tithes or money/goods exacted from peasants by an aristocrat. That regardless, it will have been untaxed since the day it was built and the said drunk will have lived in a house free of rates all his working life. Maybe not owned by the public, then, but paid for by them.
January 26th, 2012 at 6:35 pm
the church operated as a business and the only people allowed in were those who had been invited or were paying,
That’s a bit puzzling. Presumably attending church services is neither invitation only nor charged for. So is the car-park sometimes private, sometimes public?
I wonder if his insurance will pay up. Probably, as the amount seems to be trivial, but I would have thought that driving while over the limit would invalidate cover.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:38 am
I don’t know about British law but here in Australia any area that is accessible to the public such as shopping centre car parks is considered a public road.
Going by the prosecutors statement the law is the same in Britain,if it’s open to the public the road laws apply.
January 27th, 2012 at 10:11 am
The issue is discussed here:
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/fo.....tm?t=63772
It seems as if the police are saying: “When I say it is a public road it is a public road”!
January 27th, 2012 at 10:13 am
More here:
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/fo.....tm?t=24786
It gets curiouser and curiouser.
January 28th, 2012 at 3:55 am
Hindle speaking,”. . .I said it was me, . . .”
If an American be so bold as to correct a Brit’s English,
one should say, “I said it was I.” (dammit)
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Chowcat is so “Dickensian”. (Nice word)