From time to time our readers here leave me in little doubt that the one thing no-one can ever accuse me of is "courting popularity". But something disturbs me today. Something a little out of the ordinary compared to the usual matters I bring to this forum.

And before you read what follows, ask youself how secure is your router, how likely is it that the white van parked up your road last night held a nerd geek sorely in need of a girlfriend, a laptop with a wireless card and cracking software, and a list of things to download to order leaving someone else's arse on the line when the Net Cops trace the IP address.

You see, at some point in the next four years it is quite likely that there will be a trial. In that trial a man born on the 13th of August 1982 and presented to the court as John Smith, John Doe, or some such will be accused of the offence of possesion and making available for distribution various items of pornography contrary to the obscene publications act.

That this charge will be allowed is thanks to the sense shown by the judge who threw out one Mr Steven Arnold's appeal against HIS conviction on the grounds that material he obtained and supplied was not covered under the act because it was held electronically and was not therefore a photograph in the sense of the Act.

It is thanks to the actions and words yesterday of a Mr Justice Bean ;-)  that I can now explain to you that it is a posibility that the man standing before that court will be the same individual who on the 12th of February 1993 extinguished the life of one Jamie Bulger.

Yes, a bloke known officially as Mister Bean has made it posible for every jury in the land facing the already gruesome task of deciding the guilt or innocence of a man now twenty eight years old to be saddled with the underlying thought that the man in the dock is not who he claims to be but is instead the most infamous murderer Britain has known since ... well since the last one.

Was it wise for Mister Bean to lift reporting restrictions on that case and thus allow me to post the above on a public forum having heard John Humphries talk of the man and the case half an hour ago ?

I have grave doubts that it was, for the very simple reason that if any and every future juror faced with an accused man of that age accused of that crime for the next couple of years who heard this morning's Today Programme  does NOT have the thought "Oh SHIT is this that murdering bastard ?" fleeting pass between their ears they are not human. I for one would certainly think it, were i sitting in that jury, and I have to confess to thinking I would have CONSIDERABLE trouble setting that fleting thought aside.

And because of that, I wish to recant an earlier statement in my post here. I am quite firmly of the belief that it is now, thanks to Mister (INjustice) Bean, quite UNLIKELY that there will be a trial.