From Steve Hall.
THE character assassination of Deputy Shona Pitman performed by Collette Crill in her letter (2 July) sadly typifies the blinkered deference of the Bailiff’s apologists.

The platitudinous panegyric proffered by the writer with hyperbole piled upon hyperbole would probably embarrass the object of her unstinting praise. Mrs Crill’s letter is riddled with ironies which clearly elude her.

Deputy Pitman did win an election, a democratic process to which the Bailiff has not been subjected. We do not enjoy a visit to the cinema ‘by kind permission of the Deputy.’ What a ludicrous anachronistic arrogance this is – that when it comes to cinematic viewing we are safeguarded from moral harm by a person who has placed as secondary the sexual, psychological and physical abuse of the most vulnerable in Jersey to the ‘scandal’ of the democratic expression of criticism by journalists of a corrupt or complacent establishment.

The deference displayed by Mrs Crill is both demeaning and dangerous, a quasi-idolatry that has no place in a modern progressive society, which many observers agree, in terms of social equity, Jersey has yet to become. So let the shrill quill of Crill be still until she will fill your columns with more that the ill-considered heaping of laurels* on one who enjoys a dubious privilege.
*Laurel: a glossy evergreen which when dried produces the bayleaf.
Flat 3 Pique en Bois,
Rue de la Mare Ballam,
St John.