The most difficult thing is to explain the difference between the law and the concept of justice. This is an unpleasant task I cannot avoid because the court is not about the truth, but rather “law and evidence,” which doesn’t always produce the truth. Hence the reason the layman will forever proclaim the law an ass.

Skilled lawyers can cross-examine simple but truthful witnesses and make liars out of them in the eyes of the court.

Good lawyers sometimes win bad cases, oftentimes at the expense of the truth. Technical rules of evidence can be easily used to the detriment of the truth. It is an “adversarial system of litigation” and although judges are like referees, they cannot shout “foul” or award penalties to even the score.

Here is a real-life situation to ponder: You’re savagely raped and the rapist is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. You could sue him in civil law for compensation for the physical and psychiatric injuries within six years of the rape but he is a penniless and now imprisoned for life, so there’s no point really in suing him.

He is however, released after 16 years and on the day of his release, buys a lottery ticket and wins $72 million. Your life was destroyed by this multi-millionaire scumbag. You’re virtually penniless and a permanent emotional wreck. Can you sue him?

These are the facts of the celebrated “Lotto Rapist Case,” which is at present before the English courts. The victim is a frail 60-year-old woman who was the victim of a vicious sexual assault. The defendant had done this sort of thing a number of times in the past, and was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment. He did not have a penny to his name, having spent most of his life behind bars, and was not worth suing.

Sixteen years later, he was let out of prison. He bought himself a lottery ticket on the day he was released and won $72 million. He publicly boasted about his wealth. The victim sued him as, for the first time, he had meaningful funds. The problem is there is a six-year time limitation period, and she was way out of time.

The House of Lords had previously emphasised in a case called Stubbings v Webb the lack of discretion to extend the time limit in cases of deliberate assault. Claims for damages arising out of an intentional sexual assault have a non-extendable six-year limitation period from the date of the assault (or the claimant’s eighteenth birthday, if later).

The inflexible approach of the court to the limitation rule has attracted much criticism over the years from the courts and from the Law Commission, but it has withstood all attempts to dislodge it. It has worked great injustice.

A good example is the case of Seymour v Williams where the court decided a daughter’s claim against a father who had subjected her to repeated acts of sexual and physical abuse was statute-barred, but she was at liberty to pursue a claim against her mother for want of care because acts or omissions that constitute negligence are subject to a more generous limitation regime. The court realised that the result was both illogical and surprising and called for the attention of the Law Commission.

The Law Commission recommended a simple change to the law that would leave it to the discretion of the court to decide whether it would be just to extend the limitation period in any given case. The problem is, although the Law Commission’s recommendation was accepted by the government, parliament did not bother to amend the law. This inaction and omission on the part of the English parliament drew strong comment from the court.

In dismissing the victim’s appeal in the Lotto Rapist case, the court noted: “The remedy has now been in Parliament’s hands for nearly five years following a comprehensive law reform study conducted at considerable public expense…justice would be far more simply achieved in claims like this in future if Parliament were to simplify the law along the lines the Commission recommended. In the meantime, the House of Lords itself may be able to remedy some of the very serious deficiencies and incoherencies in the law as it stands today in a way that we cannot.”