For anyone who gazes longingly at the Saudi Arabian criminal justice system and regrets that people are no longer put to death in public in Britain (or at all), Twitter was the place to be this afternoon.
The minute-by-minute reporting from inside Southwark Crown Court in London was an example of instant social media at its most riveting while also highlighting its quite brutal streak.
From the arrival of Chris Huhne for sentencing, carrying an overnight bag as many tweets noted and irreverently commented upon, to Mr Justice Sweeney's pronouncement of eight-month jail sentences for perverting the course of justice, each moment of the drama rocketed around the world in 140 characters or fewer.
I have probably spent as much time on the press benches of courts - magistrates', county, crown, high, appeal and shariah (once) in the UK, not to mention a few in France, the Irish Republic, Belgium, Germany, Gibraltar, Spain and even Libya (multilingual apologies for any omissions) - as I have done watching Sunderland football club. The mixture of pain and pleasure applies equally.
But while I think I was quite a good court reporter, I never had to do what my successors must now, tweet merrily away for the impatient electronic age. The people who do it are the latter-day equivalents of the reporter rushing out to send running copy, as we called it, from any available public or private phone to copytakers sitting back in the office.
The new breed makes mistakes we would have been sharply rebuked for: calling judgments verdicts, getting lawyers' names wrong, using lazy cliches (such and such cannot be said ''for legal reasons' when there is usually just one that could easily be specified). But the vast Twitter audience does at least ensure that bollockings on some of these points follow, albeit in a different form than having an angry news editor bawling down the phone.
On the outcome of the case, I have no strong feelings. The offence invariably carries an immediate custodial term so the sentences on Huhne and his former wife, Vicky Pryce, are unremarkable.
It was the judge's conclusion that there was little to choose between them.
He gave Huhne a 10 per cent discount for pleading guilty, which probably translates with imperfect mathematics as one month off, and presumably made a similar allowance when dealing with his former wife.
Having forced her case to trial, with a defence of marital coercion that the judge clearly disbelieved, she might therefore have expected a nine-month sentence. But before sending her down for the same period as Huhne, which will reduce in each case to four months or even less provided they behave themselves, he did say her ex-husband had played a slightly greater role in the original plot for her to take his speeding penalty points.
But back to Twitter. The drawn-out nature of the process, with the prosecution's summary and submissions in favour of the pair being made to fork out tens of thousands of pounds (which would hardly break them) followed by protracted mitigation, meant that tweeters were kept in suspense.
What ensued was a stream of messages that I likened elsewhere to the worst you would imagine from spectators at public executions at Tyburn or the Place de la Concorde.
There was certainly humour. As the couple sat, a little apart and ignoring each other for three hours in the dock, @beaubodor asked: "Is this what they call a trial separation?" Many people made jokes about Pryce coming to a deal to serve Huhne's time, and it was quite funny the first time.
But there was also something else going on, nasty and even thuggish. There were unpleasant references to Huhne's "choice of women" that were bad enough but, worse still, crude mentions of what he might experience in jail. My instinct is that heads should roll at HM Prison Service if it cannot protect any inmate from assault; one tweeter saw it differently, gloating: "This time tomorrow Huhne will have an arse like a roadside cafe sauce bottle top."
Following the tweets as I, like so many others, awaited the actual sentencing, was not edifying. I hate to think their senders represent society, while fearing that they probably do.
So I switched to news sources, one at Twitter - Peter Walker of The Guardian - and the Sky News "team". Both covered the proceedings well, Walker edging it on speed, fullness of quotes and the flashes of colour that so enhance the genre. He also beat Sky to both sentences. But he didn't beat one other tweeting reporter.
Step forward Claire Glancy, described at her Twitter account as a "freelance reporter covering @lionsofficial tour for @msnsport. Currently on 6 Nations duty for @rugbyworldmag & @pavideo. I do like other sports too - promise! London/Bellaghy/Dublin." Today she was pressed into service on news duty - and she not only had the Huhne sentence a minute ahead of the admirable Walker but had time to include him in her tweet.
And I bet others will claim to have beaten her.
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