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Follow Up To Olympic Flag Seller Conviction
November 01, 2012 posted by Steve Brownstein
By Jennifer Selway
If I get so much as a parking ticket I panic and assume my details have been forwarded for inclusion on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
The sight of an unexpected official letter makes me slightly sick. What have I done? What have I failed to do? I’m envious of those who don’t seem to care about these little run-ins.
It’s exhausting being so law-abiding.
Which is why I feel sorry for Jay Mosedale, found guilty and fined for selling flags on the streets during the Olympics.
Once sentence had been passed Jay, a 25-year-old architecture graduate, raised her hand and asked the district judge if she now had a criminal record.
She was told she did and Ms Mosedale left Westminster magistrates’ court in tears. Poor girl. I could almost cry myself.
It’s that detail. She raised her hand. That’s what well-behaved people do. Awed by being in a courtroom she did what she thought you did if you wanted to ask a question. It’s what she’d been taught in school. Don’t shout out!
Put your hand up if you need to say something.
Jay always did exactly what was expected of her in school. She worked hard, passed her exams and won a place at the University of Westminster.
She graduated this summer, this golden summer of the London Olympics. Caught up in the excitement and seeing an opportunity to make a few quid (“I thought it would be a fun way to get involved”) Jay sold some flags in central London before she was apprehended.
You can see immediately what a desperate criminal she was, how low she had sunk. You can’t? Well no neither can I.
Her crime was unlicensed street trading. “I in no way knew I was participating in an illegal activity.
"It was simply from naivety,” she says. Yes very naive. We’ll all need permits for breathing soon. But an honest mistake nonetheless.
WHY couldn’t she have been given a warning?
Why couldn’t it have been explained that she was breaking the law? That would have been more than enough.
But instead she was hauled before a magistrate and now has a criminal record that could affect her life in all sorts of ways. And we can all imagine the horror she feels.
It’s a tiny thing in the annals of crime but I bet it’s a huge deal for her. Every day we hear of offenders who don’t turn up in court, wave two fingers at authority and walk away unpunished. But she’s not one of those.
She’s a perfectly decent young woman who made a mistake.
Ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law but in this case it really should be.
