Following reports of a private prosecution for rape being brought with the aid of crowdfunding, my brief explainer on private prosecutions is available in the iPaper here. (For the accompanying image of a gavel, I can only apologise.)

Just a quick one. A number of people online were yesterday disturbed by this tweet from court reporting Twitter account @CourtNewsUK, relating to Michael Adebolajo, one of the two murderers of Drummer Lee Rigby:

Senior judge says it will be a ‘great pity’ if Lee Rigby’s killer isn’t given taxpayers’ cash to help him sue the government.

— CourtNewsUK (@CourtNewsUK) October 31, 2017

The story has been picked up by The Mirror, which gasped with similar horror that a “top judge” has “insisted [Adebolajo] should be given taxpayer cash to pay for his court fight against the Ministry of Justice.”

The anger has burned through the night and looks set to smoulder for the rest of the day, Radio 4’s Today programme finding space for a mention among its bulletins. And I understand why. On its face, this appears an instinctively unjust state of affairs. A High Court Judge loftily…