{"id":578,"date":"2010-08-24T10:55:58","date_gmt":"2010-08-24T09:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=578"},"modified":"2010-08-24T10:55:58","modified_gmt":"2010-08-24T09:55:58","slug":"killing-time-or-wasting-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2010\/08\/24\/killing-time-or-wasting-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Killing Time &#8211; or Wasting It?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-nottinghamshire-11035402\">reported a couple of days ago<\/a> that Ray Gosling was to face charges of wasting police time after having made certain statements on a TV programme about the death of a partner &#8211; statements that the police subsequently investigated and that led to his <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/england\/nottinghamshire\/8519681.stm\">arrest for murder<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n<p>The charge of wasting police time\u00a0worried me a little &#8211; I didn&#8217;t quite see how anything he&#8217;d done amounted to that, not least because the investigation had been launched by, um,\u00a0the police.\u00a0 But I&#8217;m not a lawyer, and certainly not familiar with criminal law, so didn&#8217;t say anything.<\/p>\n<p>However, Jack of Kent is a lawyer, and I&#8217;m gratified to see that he&#8217;s thinking something similar &#8211; except with the benefit of articulacy and expertise.\u00a0 &#8220;The CPS prosecution decision seems counter-intuitive, and indeed it is indeed problematic in a number of ways,&#8221; he suggests, and continues that<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[a]ll round, the prosecution of Mr Gosling appears flawed and contrary to the public interest.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, it seems to be an injustice in the making.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>His <a href=\"http:\/\/jackofkent.blogspot.com\/2010\/08\/ray-gosling-and-waste-of-time.html\">full analysis is here<\/a>; it&#8217;s well worth a read.<!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was reported a couple of days ago that Ray Gosling was to face charges of wasting police time after having made certain statements on a TV programme about the death of a partner &#8211; statements that the police subsequently investigated and that led to his arrest for murder in February. The charge of wasting [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2010\/08\/24\/killing-time-or-wasting-it\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1240,511,591],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogosphere","category-in-the-news","category-life-and-death"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Killing Time - or Wasting It? - Journal of Medical Ethics blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2010\/08\/24\/killing-time-or-wasting-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Killing Time - or Wasting It? - Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was reported a couple of days ago that Ray Gosling was to face charges of wasting police time after having made certain statements on a TV programme about the death of a partner &#8211; statements that the police subsequently investigated and that led to his arrest for murder in February. 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