Dear Sir,

Having read the article on the front page of The Royal Gazette, headlined “Father walks free after slapping man who killed his daughter”, a thought popped into my head.

Judge Simmons is reported in the article as saying she had a duty to protect the dignity of the judicial process.

This terrible crime happened just outside the bathroom, not in the courtroom itself — and, yes, the power of the judicial process extends to include not only outside that august room, but actually inside that very sanctum.

But what dignity was lost? A man, a father, a grieving soul, had lost his daughter and he reacted when finding himself face to face with the man responsible for her death, with a slap.

And the dignity of the judicial process feels threatened by that?

It must have. This man, this sad and perhaps angry father, spend a night in jail because he slapped a man — let’s repeat that — he slapped a man, on an august spot, not in the courtroom itself, who killed his daughter while intoxicated with a vehicle that was not supposed to be on the road and drove away from the scene of the accident.

How is that a threat to the dignity of the judicial process?

Oh, and yes, I do believe some dignity has been lost, but that loss has nothing to do with what a grieving father did.

MARK EMMERSON