Hilary Gavin

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Weekly Facebook Round-Up: Law, order, and personal Insights

By HILARY GAVIN

WELCOME, folks, to my round-up of last week’s Facebook posts -which is once again a day late and is as should be, I suppose, with Sundays quickly becoming my day of rest.

To be honest, I’d not realised how prolific I’d been writing up my own and commenting on shared Facebook posts last week.

Once again, law, order and justice is taking top billing in this weekly round-up as I grapple to make sense of our “mad, mad, mad, mad world” (to nick the title of the zany Sixties comedy caper It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (see official trailer above)).

You can see my recent Facebook posts in full by visiting my commentary group page on Meta where you can scroll them beginning with a Scottish story in the Northern Times.

As I say, I’ve not delved deeply into this story about Carbisdale Castle owner Samantha Kane, but it appears she has been backed in her judicial review after Ardgay and District Community Council dissolved and then reformed without her.

You’d be right to say I know very little about the judiciary in Scotland and but – on the face of it – the community council acted in an underhand and unlawful manner.

Saying that, I like to know the full story in disputes involving council business so I would like to know how Samantha Kane acted in meetings which led to accusations of undemocratic behaviour.

As I say in my Facebook post, I’m not sure if the public can gain access under the FoI to a recording of these community meetings in which Ms Kane was branded childish.

Of course, I’m fully aware that parish councils in England record meetings and I was so glad that I had proof to show police that I’d not been acting in an anti-social manner filming Hunston Parish Council meetings last summer when I’d been branded as such.

I’m going to park this story here for now but I assume Ms Kane’s behaviour didn’t warrant dissolving a community council – however, my question is whether the councillors would have been well within their rights expelling Ms Kane if she had, as I’ve read, been acting like a soccer (football) hooligan during proceedings?

So, on to my other posts. I should say that I’m not going to dwell on them in great detail – but I began the week by examining the powers handed to police in the PACE Act 1984.

By doing so, I shared the Wikipedia write-up on the Semayne Case reported on by Sir Edward Coke in 1604 around the time the Guy Fawkes conspirators were plotting to blow up parliament.

I also posted a rather fetching selfie of myself in my cycling gear which I took beside a memorial in Maerdy, South Wales, dedicated to miners who lost their lives in historical pit disasters.

At the time, I was on a solo tour of South Wales exploring my Welsh heritage in the Rhondda Valleys and in the village of Rhymney.

I’m expanding on this post here because I remember feeling upset in Maerdy when I read the age of the youngest miner who’d died in a mining accident. Of course, I’d forgotten his age but I researched last week when I rediscovered that he’d been 12 years old.

On a personal note, our family lost a relative in a pit disaster in the Rhondda Valleys so I fully understand why my Welsh relatives were keen to uphold health and safety employment laws.

Sadly, we lost an cherished aunt in 2024 but I was glad to see her shortly before she passed away when we nattered about the Rhondda and I was shocked to hear that her husband’s (my uncle) grandfather had been aged SIX on first going down the mines.

This neatly brings me on to Sussex Crimewatch and fly-posting because I cannot for the life of me understand why this Facebook group adopts an overtly political stance but blackballs dissenters.

Moving on, I should say I didn’t only touch on serious matters last week because I mentioned one of my favourite Country singers Dolly Parton and Security bopping along to her at Glastonbury.

I indulged my interest in printing by mentioning a shopkeeper in South Street, Chichester, who has recently installed an old 19th Century newspaper press in his bookshop.

Furthermore, I shared a Facebook post about GP prescribing lifestyle activities rather pills because I think this is a positive step forward and my worries that HMRC shouldn’t allow any of its contractors to outsource our tax records overseas.

On a very personal note, I watched Jess Brown-Fuller speaking in a parliamentary debate in Westminster on endometriosis which I applaud but, as I say, I hope doesn’t become a battle of the sexes.

On this note, I’ll sign off, but I will be researching the statistics on the suicide rate of young lads who feel abandoned by money-driven globalisation.

As I the film title goes, It’s (still) a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World!

Hilary Gavin
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Copyright, March 30th, 2026

Hilary Gavin

Freelance journalist & writer

6 Southover Way

Hunston

CHICHESTER

West Sussex

PO20 1NY

Tel: 07940 444664

Email: grumpywoman@hilarygavin.blog

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