Mixed Messages: Bailhache vs Bailhache

In last Saturday's Jersey Evening Post, William Bailhache, the Attorney-General, spoke out against honorary police who were off duty doing anything directly about minor misdemeanours, and he cited two examples:

a) a car which swerves occasionally over the white line (and whose driver may by implication have drunk too much)
b) individuals who were only "mildly drunk"

Instead if they were to do anything, it would be to notify the duty centenier, who would deal with it.

This seems to be a piece of lunatic advice, since the car would be long gone, and even the "mild drunk" would have staggered off some distance before anyone could get there.

But how do you define "mildly drunk"?

Answer: from the Bailiff, Sir Philip Bailhache, in Tuesday's Jersey Evening Post, in his role as head of the Judiciary:

There is no such thing as "slightly drunk", and the police should - as a matter of duty - clamp down on any case where they see an individual is drunk.

At least this shows that the two brothers do not confer all the time. It gives out a mixed-message, which makes Jersey's judicial system look both inconsistent and rather foolish, as if no senior legal authorities can agree on how to police drunken behaviour, but having read the two contradictory pieces of advice - given in the JEP within a few days of each other - it does blow any "conspiracy theory" out of the water.

Or perhaps the Tuesday's ruling was an April Fool? Someone certainly appears foolish!