MAIL COMMENT: Is British justice fit for purpose?

Eight British-born Muslims were arrested and charged with plotting to blow up airliners over the Atlantic.

Overnight, tough new baggage restrictions and body searches were imposed at all UK airports.

On trial: An artist's impression of five suspects at Woolwich Crown Court

And two years on, passengers are still banned from carrying liquids aboard flights in containers larger than 100ml.

Yet, if this huge inconvenience to millions has saved a single life, it has been worth it – and, in the view of this paper, still is.

But what of the suspects? After an investigation and two-year trial costing more than £20million, the British justice system has at last reached its conclusions.

Of the eight defendants, one has been acquitted entirely. In the cases of another four (all of whom, extraordinarily, had made Al Qaeda-style suicide videos), the jury has been unable to reach verdicts.

Only three have been convicted, and only of plotting to explode liquid bombs. Crucially, the jury was unconvinced there was a specific plot to blow up airliners.

This is a deeply unsatisfactory outcome for prosecutors, who claimed this was the strongest such case they had ever brought.

As Max Hastings argues on this page, we are entitled to ask some pretty searching questions about what went wrong.

Some say former Home Secretary John Reid prejudiced the case with his reckless remarks after the arrests.

Others say that by capturing a key suspect in Pakistan, the U.S. forced the police to act before they were ready.

Others, again, claim the court’s deliberations were interrupted too often to enable the jury to follow it properly.

All that is clear, through the fog of excuses, is that evidence was presented, at huge expense of time and money, which a British jury found inadequate.

Are our standards of proof too high to protect the public from terrorists? Is our jury system at fault?

Have too many of us, battered by repeated warnings from the authorities, been inured to the seriousness of the terrorist threat from within? Or are the police just making terrifying claims which they cannot support?

We need convincing answers.

There is something wrong with a society that cannot successfully prosecute and punish those it accuses of seeking to destroy it.

Failure beyond spin

Now we’ve heard it all. Last year, Britain’s health rationing body spent more money on spin than on doing its job of evaluating drugs for the NHS.

Incredibly, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence squandered £4.5million on press officers, marketing executives and consultants – money that could have given 5,000 Alzheimer’s sufferers the £2.50-a-day drugs that NICE has denied them.

But the irony cuts deeper still. Can you believe NICE gave £25,000 to a top public relations firm – to defend its pennypinching ban on Alzheimer’s drugs?

What a wonderful insight into the values of a body that decides whether countless Britons live or die.

Textbook bungling

Desperate for cash, the Government sells its remaining stake in defence research firm QinetiQ for a knockdown £257million in a depressed market.

So ends a saga of incompetence that has robbed taxpayers of countless millions, while vastly enriching a handful of former civil servants.

Somebody should write a history of this Government’s handling of QinetiQ – as a textbook for whelk-stall owners on how not to run their business.