HOME Mad Ghost's Trial

At a sitting of the Soaptown District Court last week, presided over by Mr Justice Whiskeybottle, the ghost of Dara McDaid was charged with unlawful occupation of flat 1C at Rocky Mewes and of continually harrassing the DoLlar family in contravention of sixty-two acts of law, which counsel for the DoLlars, Precise Pedant (who is also a member of the local Urban Council) recited in full over a period of five hours.   McDaid (desceased), was held in custody by The Shadow, a spiritual bounty hunter, acting for the DoLlars. McDaid tried to disrupt proceedings by howling, but was restrained by The Shadow rattling a necklace of bones and shaking a wand made from what appeared to be rushes and various wild flowers.   The DoLlars claimed that their life was made a living hell by the accused whose cracked voice could be heard reciting gibberish all night long and whose odour of stale whiskey and sweat lingered about the flat in the daytime. Through the agency of Madam Shamsky (Medium), he had been asked to leave, but had declined to do so and, indeed, had become even more violent in recent days, throwing furniture about the flat, and shattering an irreplaceable Ping vase.   Mr Pedant said that the accused had been a failed poet and was now a failed ghost, unable to accept that he was dead. Such a figment of the imagination, he declared, could not be allowed to harass honest living people.   The proceedings were interrupted at this point by an interjection from McDaid. Pedant, he screamed, was a (CENSORED) cretin, whose mother was a (CENSORED) and whose father was a (CENSORED) and whose (CENSORED, CENSORED, CENSORED).   McDaid was again restrained by The Shadow rattling his necklace of bones and muttering harsh incomprehensible words.   Justice Whiskeybottle said McDaid's behaviour was a disgrace and he would not tolerate it in his court.   Counsel for the accused, Horace Hopeful, who had been hired by The Poets Spiral, said that his client had always been a victim of society and his memory had been dishonoured by the building of a monstrosity like Rocky Mewes on the site of his former hovel. McDaid, he said, had been willing to buy the flat from the DoLlars with the aid of The Poets Spiral, but the DoLlars had proved obstinate.   Justice Whiskeybottle said that this was all moonshine and balderdash. Living society, he said, would have to be protected from ghosts like McDaid and to this end he was imposing the severest sentence he could. McDaid, he said, would serve an eternity of hard labour as a Spirit Guide. He was leaving the carrying out of the sentence in the able claws of The Shadow.   Outside the courtroom, The Poets Spiral held a protest at what they described as the complete lack of impartiality in Justice Whiskeybottle's court.   Mr Fiacara O'Ferrule said that, aparently, if you were a ghost, you were not entitled to justice. He added that the fight would go on, until ghosts had the same entitlements as the living.