veiled lawyer exposed media bias

According to a BBC news website today, a veiled lawyer has caused disruption in a Stoke-on-Trent immigration tribunal. The same story in The Times. And, late in the day, one from The Guardian.

Now, a reader who sees this story could be excused for believing that the story runs something like this:

1. Muslim woman becomes lawyer.
2. Given the hysteria recently about Muslim garb, she decides to make a point in a court of law.
3. Legal authorities are outraged at her behaviour.
4. Pesky lawyer appears to have got her own way as there is not a specific ruling preventing wearing of veils, or at the very least has caused a delay in the business of a court of law.
5. Lawyer milks the publicity.

With the expectation that

6. Government bring in law to prevent crazy Muslims from disrupting every court in the land
7. Law society bring in new rules of conduct preventing Muslim women from wearing veils in court
8. The case becomes a cause célèbre for those documenting the islamification of the UK.
9. Further racial disharmony ensues
10. Religious minorities are in effect excluded from any position in public life.

Tut tut says the hanky wringing liberals. Rampaging Muslim Outrage slams the Mail.

But then, what do you know. The lawyer is from Coventry. There is a report about her in today's local daily, the Coventry Telegraph.

Slabnam Mughal walked out of a court after a judge asked her to remove her veil because he couldn't hear what she was saying. She refused and the case had to be adjurned.

So far so predictable. From further down the article:

Her colleagues at the Law Partnership said they had heard nothing like it before. The Law Partnership practice manager said Miss Mughal had regularly attended tribunals in Birmingham and Stoke without having any problems. He added: "Miss Mughal has been doing this job for the last couple of years and she has never ever been asked to remove her veil."

emphasis mine in above.

And one further paragraph.

As she arrived at work she was confronted by reporters. She refused to talk to them, turned on her heels and dashed off.

So the story, if the local paper is to be believed, is not as the nationals are portraying it.

If Miss Mughal has been wearing her veil in court for 'several years', why is it suddenly a problem? Is it actually possible that this woman is not a media leech, but actually believes what she says she believes (shock, horror)?

As the judge cannot hear her words due to a thin piece of material, has the Court Service invested in a £10 hearing test for him on the NHS - given that every other judge she has appeared before seems to think that her diction is entirely audible?

Further, will the judge be requiring men with thick beards to have a shave and people with a lisp to seek comprehension classes before appearing before him? I think the public deserve to know.

As a little hint to Ruth Gledhill and anyone else from the national press who has inadvertantly fallen into the web-cesspool that is this blog, maybe you would do well to learn some lessons in journalism from your colleagues on the Coventry Telegraph.

[edit: decided to be slightly less impolite about the Times. This does not mean I think their story stinks any less.]