LG John

Regular readers of my post may have over the years picked up that I have a bit of an axe to grind over the justice system in the UK. I’ve resisted starting a thread/discussion on it until now. But, enough is e-f*cking-nuff!

I recall reading in the papers a few months back about a case of a thug that had badly beaten a 50 year old man and at that time sentencing was deferred for background reports, etc. Today the papers reported again on the case now that it has been concluded and the man sentenced. First we need some context though:

Lets say I go out on the bevy tonight and knock back pints and shots all night with my mates until 5 in the morning (it’s the festival in Edinburgh so clubs are open longer). I wake up groggy at noon tomorrow but come 1300 I feel fairly normal again. I jump into the S2000, drop the top and head out for a hair cut when a women steps out onto the road and I can’t stop. She dies and I’m found to be over the drink drive limit still. You’d agree I’d probably be looking at a few (2-6) years jail time for such a crime. I never meant to hurt someone, I thought I’d be ok but I was negligent to go driving when not sure.

Perhaps instead I’d rather go out for a drive this evening. Again top down, sun shining and vtecing it though the countryside when I come up behind an EVO. He spots me and goes for it and being a red-blooded male I get caught up in the heat of the moment and floor it too. We bomb it down some country roads having a great time when he lifts mid-bend and wraps his EVO around a tree killing him and his passenger. I stop to assist and am jailed for a few years for causing death by dangerous driving. I didn’t mean it, I didn’t cause him to crash, I just got a little carried away and of sorts encouraged him. Notwithstanding, its soap on the shower floor for a few years for me.

Don’t believe me? Think I’d just get community service? Here is a petition site set up by a father who’s son received 5 years for just that …LINK

Seems a little harsh to me but maybe we are getting tough on crime in this country. Provided everything is move up the scale then I guess I can’t see a great problem with this sentence – so is the justice system balanced?

Today’s papers reported on the case of the thug I refer to above and I quote:

Now I ask a favour of you: Stand up; put a pillow on the ground; kick and stamp on it 33 times (count out as you do it); form an appreciation for how brutal and sustained that attack is. Seriously do this - appreciate it in your head. Now tell me this is a fair sentence? I don’t care who you are, if you jump and kick someone’s head 33 times you are trying to kill them. You might be trying to kid yourself that they are just getting a ‘good do-in’ but deep down you know you are killing them. This man intentionally laid into a 50 year old man, jumped up and down on his head 33 times in an attempt to kill him and he received……… 4 years. How can that be reasonable when compared to the case of Stephen Jackson above? How can that be reasonable when compared to the countless cases of people that injure others whilst over the drink-drive limit the next day? A guy at my council is doing around 8 years time for fraud (he nicked £50k!). How on earth can you put a guy away for 4 years for trying to kill someone and another away for twice as long for trying to rip the taxpayers off? I’m just shaking my head as I type this!! I don’t know if I’m angry and just in despair at this country Is there no department/body that has the responsibility of ensuring that punishments/sentencing in this country are balanced relative to each other such that the time fits the crime? If not, why not? The message to the neds/thugs/chavs beating people up and stabbing people in the streets of our cities is simple: You’ll be ok if you beat a random to an inch of his life on your night out but by god don’t have a race on your way home.

As much as this thread is a rant I also think it would be interesting if you peeps post up details of sentences that you think haven’t fitted the crime (i.e. too harsh or too lenient) and then we’ll start to see just how crazy and inconsistent the UK justice system really is

P.S. I use my examples to highlight how light IMHO the 4-year sentence is. I’m not saying that drink driving, etc is acceptable, etc.

NotoriousREV

I don't think anyone will argue with you. The law is an ***, pure and simple.

Iwan

Dunno if you caught Crimewatch the other night? It was the episode where they tell you about the crimes they helped to successfully solve/prosecute. There was a guy on there who was a boxer with a known history of violent unprovoked assaults, one christmas eve he welted some poor innocent (loads of witnesses and CCTV to back this up) bloke in the face for absolutely no reason, bloke dies. Just some decent guy walking his girlfriend back to their car after a night out, now he's dead.

Crimewatch seemed really proud that they'd been instrumental in putting the loon away for - wait for it - 4 years 9 months.

Deliberate assault resulting in the guys death - 4 years 9 months.

As you say, you get longer for thieving. I agree it's a very sad state of affairs.

The Zohan

Sad but true SB.

Well written and well said!

Not sure what the answer is really other than a complete overhaul of the justice system and all of the judges reapplying for thier positions to a panel of 'real' people from across the social spectrum.

Just because we do not have enough prisions does not make a good enough excuse not to jail offenders, gibe them short sentances or let them out early - jail is there to help protect the rest of society as well as being a punishment - and i mean hard labour, learn a trade not just locked up!

Deterrants should be in place - this case you state sends out a dreadful message to the scum of the country.



Something has to be done to improve things as the law is an *** as REV said.

I am angry and disheartened at how this country is being abused by certian elements.

This has to change.

Fantom

I completely agree Saxo Boy. It really annoys me reading the news when I see things like this.

LG John

Exactly. Many of these thugs are a real danger to society in that they are very likely to re-offend and beat people up again or at the very least intimidate. They need to be punished hard to realise that society will not tolerate such behaviour and society needs them to be safely behind bars whilst they realise that. In cases of people racing and crashing and similar such unintentional crimes the offender is seldom likely to re-offend and in many cases have their concience as punishment enough.

Again I refer to the case of the Selby train crash. Yes the guy was negligent diving when tired and yes what happened was horrific but his sentance was very high for someone that has to live with 170 (from memory) lives on his concience.

hedgehog

I was having a discussion on a simlar topic just the other night. We happened to note, on an episode of Crimewatch, that some thug who turned around, punched a bloke and killed him, and went on his way got 4 years. There were no words spoken, there was no previous contact between the two people, it was just the action of a thug.

Now 4 years isn't long but when you conisder that he might have been on remand and that he will get half his sentence for politically correct behaviour this means that he got a sentence of about one further year in jail.

I'm sure the police officers who followed up the crime don't consider this reasonable and so the finger must point at the judges who hand out such sentences. They live in their posh house, get driven about by police in some instances, get paid a fortune and have probably never seen crime in their lives.

It was suggested that the most useful contribution to our system of justice might be to introduce a system where judges had to get the crap kicked out of them by some thug once per year and then were made to watch while their wife/daughter was raped, their house cleared out and their car vandalised. This might change their perspective when it comes to sentencing. In turn the police might have some encouragement to actually catch real criminals. There are more people in prision for motoring offences in the UK than are in for burglary, says it all really.

LG John

Iwan, that sentance is disgraceful

LG John

Better yet hedgehog. Have nationally agreed maximum & minimum sentances for all crimes and have (in the case of more serious crimes) the jury decide on the sentance by way of a averaged vote - that way the decision does not rest with one man/woman

Mrs WRX

I know 3 people who have killed others (I know who they are, not personally), one killed a lad by throwing him out of the back of a moving van - 3 years, another beat up a 50 year old man and he must have done about 2 years and I saw him in town last month, another was a boxer and went a punched a student on his way home - totally unprovoked, the student was in the wrong place wrong time, fell back and hit his head on the kerb and died the next day, the boxer served 2 years. The boxer and his brother were well known for violence where I live and his brother was a physco, but there is a god, the brother got cancer and died in agony at 25. Well I hope it was painfull. I know, not a nice thing to say but he wasnt a nice person.

logiclee

Yep I agree.

Lets also remember that respected scoobynetter Darren aka DC911 sits in prison because a motorcylist raced him up a dual carraigeway, couldn't make the bend and was killed.
Darren was only placed at the scene by an eye witness whose best friend also had a similar coloured 911.

Even if it was Darren then yes he was driving dangerously but causing death by dangerous driving? I'm not so sure.

The courts see driving offences as more severe than even the most violent crimes.

Lee

Jerome

I also despair at the ridiculous sentencing policy in the UK.

I believe that if you get 5 years, you do 5 years. Instead of time off for good behaviour, you get time added on for bad behaviour. Many crimes should have minimum sentences, e.g. 10 years for aggravated assault. Commit 3 violent crimes and you get life. Life should also mean that you never get freed.

Violent crime is nigh on condoned by the courts. Many thugs also get more kudos if they do some "bird". Maybe they would think twice if they knew they had to spend 10 years with Bubba to get such street cred. The fact that some people would actually boast about prison time is depressing in it's own right.

Suresh

Very articulate and compelling post Saxo Boy. Well done.

The example you give is indeed totally and utterly ridiculous. The judiciary needs to be culled and replaced with more progressive decision makers who are interested more in the rights of the victim that the rights of the criminals.

Suresh

22BUK

This sentencing's more like it...

Appeal Court Case: Callins v. State of Oklahoma 1972

Charles Callins was convicted of the crime of Rape First Degree, after a previous felony conviction; sentenced to a term of One Thousand Five Hundred (1500) Years in the penitentiary. He appeals this sentence.

Verdict of the court: Sentence affirmed.

Brit_in_Japan

Wasn't there a change in the law just a few years ago where cases can be re-evaluated and sentences increased if it's felt the punishment is not sufficent? If so then the public should make their views felt and get the sentence re-assessed.

22BUK

Here's another...

On June 30th 2003, John C. Marquez, age 36, of Sapulpa, Oklahoma was sentenced to life in prison by Creek County Associate District Judge April Sellers White. Marquez received the life sentence as the result of a Creek County jury's verdict and sentencing recommendation following his conviction for "spitting on a government employee", Sapulpa Police Officer Charles Gadd. Under Oklahoma Statutes the punishment range for the offense is from 2 years to life.

The "spitting" attack occurred in July of 2002 when Officer Gadd was dispatched to a local trailer park in response to a domestic disturbance complaint. In the process of arresting Marquez, Officer Gadd was spat upon. Medical testing conducted over the course of nine months following the incident revealed that neither man had any communicable disease.

Adrian F

These stories make me so angry i try to avoid reading them.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

For once it seems that there is a well written rant that most people agree with.

I think the reason that the sentences are not higher is simply that prisons are overfilling. You can give people who perpetrate fraud large sentences because there are not many of them, and they are hard to catch.

When it comes to violent offences, there are too many people caught to be put away for this length of time

Emmigration is what we need

The Zohan

SB
I think this post is waisted on just SN, may i suggest you subit it to the British press for a wider coverage as IMHO it deserves it.


Paul

mart360

Take on the establishment, and you will be made an example of, hence the fraud case gets a higher punishement.

our pc gov cares not one jot for human life, human rights however and it will buttf*ck you into the next century..

this government has so diluted the system, that we ARE heading toward anarchy, why??? because the man in power i,snt in power, the woman who sits opposite him, calls the shots..

if that guy had courage, conviction(scuse the pun) or *****, he,d have scrapped the human rights crap years ago, and given the cps a bloody good shakedown..

as it stands, you stand more chance of beinhg criminalised for speeding or motoring offences than for any other,

ps it also helps if you are ethnic, or have a gender specific disorder!!!

unfortunatly we are beconing an ethnic majority, with no voice!!


Mark my words, should one of the current crimes happen to a member of hmg, then it would be an overnight clampdown.

just remember billy liars election gambit "tough on the causes of crime"

and billys quote a few weeks ago, "there is nothing more we can do"

when thy come to write the journals in a few decades time,

B li*r the man who signlehandedly destroyed the united kingdom, reduced a once proud country to a doss house of europe,

NL the way forward (if your in the cabinet that is)!!


remember two legs bad four legs good

Mart

LG John

Reading the replys with interest I'm very encouraged to see that I'm not crazy and I'm not the only one angered by this. I half expected a 'saxo-bashing' session with people citing examples that prove the justice system is fair and consistent. It's worrying that there is such support for my view here yet nobody in the real world seems to take any note or do anything to address it.

My big concern in life is with violent crime. I do not believe as a modern society we should have to tolerate unprovoked violence against innocents - yet we do? I'm not saying that falling asleep at the wheel, drink driving, racing, speeding, stealing, fraud, etc are not crimes but in the context of violent crime they are far less harmful to the general society.

matt85

Lets not forget the scumbag solicitors who defend all this pondlife to line there own pockets with a bit of overtime here and there.

Maybe when the ****** who they successfully defended robs their house/rapes their daughter/stabs them for drug money, they may regret their selfish actions.

The legal system in this country has so many flaws it would be substantially quicker and easier to point out what is actually right and fair with it all.

Matt

AsifScoob

Mart,

You talk such utter ****e! Can you not avoid posting up your complete bollox on what is otherwise a good thread?

Since when do ethnic people get let off crimes due to their skin colour? How do you explain the disproportionate number of non white people in UK jails?

In terms of having no voice, in your case that would be a good thing. However you dont seem to have any problem 'expressing yourself', so show me an example of where you have 'no voice'

Grow up.

Asif

warrenm2

Interesting point Asif. If theres no prejudice, it must mean that coloured people are more likely to be criminals

AsifScoob

Fair point, but dont ask me, I'm not an expert.

Some people will tell you that the answer is in your question though.

HTH

Asif

Brit_in_Japan

Mart360,
Saxo Boy's post was about the apparently contradictions in the justice system related to punishments for crimes. Yet you bring race into the issue. Why is that?

You infer that ethnic minorities or people with a "gender specific disorder" (whatever the hell that is) are somehow treated more leniantly by criminal justics system. What is your evidence for that?

A couple of years out of date now but this report states that:-
- people of Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani are more likely to be victims of crime
- suspects for the murder of black people are least likely to be identified
- people from minority ethnic communities are more likely to be remanded in custody
- arrest rates for black people are around 6x the rate for white people
- arrest rates for asians are about 2x the rate for white people
- black people are less likely to receive cautions for offences
- likelyhood (%) of being acquitted in Magistrate/Crown court are (white/black/asian):
Magistrate 40/48/58
Crown 30/36/45
- Asian and black offenders have lower reconviction rates than white offenders within 2 years of release

These are just a few of the statistics. What does it prove? Well for a start I hope it shows that it's not a simple issue to just say group X or Y are treated more leniantly by the criminal justice system. Different parts of the system appear to be "favouring" different people. The acquital rates for black and asian are higher than for whites. But then again, the arrest rates are higher too. Black people receive fewer cautions. Could it be that the police/CPS are more likely to prosecute ethnic minorities for similar crimes? Or maybe there is less evidence, but they go to court anyway? Asian people suffer more crime than anyone else, so I think it would be safe to say they wouldn't want the courts to be lenient to any criminals, so long as the system is fair.

Also it's dangerous to slice up the statistics based solely on race. You might equally decide to slice up the figures based on a socio-economic basis, average incomes, one parent families etc. That might paint a picture which looks quite different.

Back on subject, we get to hear the verdicts in the papers, but we do not hear the detailed evidence so we don't have the full facts to make an informed judgement. Undoubtedly there are sentences which are way different from the norm, but unless we want to remove the judges discretion to award different sentences based on circumstances, there will not be a uniform set of punishments for crimes. Judges are human beings making subjective decisions, therefore we will get anomolies. The person convicted has the right to appeal the sentence if they think it is too harsh. Similarly the Home Secretary can appeal to have a sentence incresed if it is believed too lenient. So there are checks and balances in the system for the worst extremes. I won't make any comment on the cases referenced as I do not have the full facts.

Leslie

Is it the law, or is it more the people who are administrating it at the moment?

Les

LG John

Brit in Japan, I of course take your point on board. It's very hard to make informed judgements on sentancing when we are not there presented with the whole facts. Nevertheless, I often feel we know enough to know that a sentance is very wrong. Taking the thug I refer to in post 1: Even assuming the thug had been minding his own business when the 50 year old guy punched him he still cannot justify jumping on his head 33 times (33!!!!!!). That goes way, way, way beyond self-defence. I know guys can get angry and maybe if he knocked the boy out, booted him 1-2 times, spat on him and walk off I could accept that he was just giving him a do-in. But 33 times? Nah, jumping on anyones head 33 times is 'attempted murder'. How can it not be? If found guilty of attempted murder and actual bodily harm surely he'd have done down for a lot more than 4 years and if not surely to god cases of attempted murder should carry a greater sentance.

As I see it there should be little difference between attempted murder and actual murder and much more weighting in the law needs to be given to intent. Whether you are successful in murdering someone or not if its clear that was your aim/intention you are a very dangerous individual to have in society and must be strongly punished. On the flipside, 18 year old kids that get involved in careless RTA's that lead to a death are being punished too hard IMHO. There is not the intention to harm in these cases and there is not a great risk of re-offending (few kids are quick to do silly things in a car with a death of their mate to live with).

The great problem with the UK system as I see it is that its based on outcome more than intention. The outcome of an event is determined by many circumstantial factors (wrong place at wrong time, wind, road conditions, sharpness of the edge of a kerb, etc, etc). The circumstances (or 'luck') can seldom be repeated exactly the same way. The intent in an event is determined by the individual and can be repeated over and over again by that individual. If someone intends harm or a crime they are a danger and if they clearly attempted to carry out that crime but were (in their eyes) unfortunate that the outcome didn't match their intention they are a real danger.

The proof in the pudding is the Selby train crash. The guy fell asleep at the wheel having been driving too long and having been up half the night. He was negligent we all agree. However, he had absolutely no intention of causing harm to himself or anyone - he was going about his buisness. But circumstances conspired against him and his negligence led to a serious of unfortunate events that caused the death of many people. Yet our system is obsessed with making him pay for the outcome and he goes down for a long time? Why? What will he learn in a jail that he won't learn crying himself to sleep at night over what happened in his home?

Consider this:

Person A: 25yo male, professional, no criminal history: out on the booze and gets punched by a random yob - he defends himself but lands a punch that puts the boy down and he hits his head and dies from a head injury.

Person B: 25yo male, unemployed, history of small, and in cases violent crimes, known to the local police: out on the booze/drugs and starts on another bloke - he lays into him until he's down and then starts to jump up and down on his face and chest. He's hauled away but the victim survives with fairly minor injury's.

Who goes away for longer? I'd bet my car its Person A every single time But who is the real danger to society? Who is the one that needs to be punished? Anyone of us could find ourselves being person A so easily but very few that read this board can identify with themselves as person B. I just can't understand why the outcome in this example determines the punishment when its clear that the intentions were so wildly different.

Madness

warrenm2

**** Scoobynet user caught in coherent post shocker! *****

The Zohan

oops!