No Alarms and No Surprises (2)
October 22, 2007 by inspectorgadget
A man who left a 96-year-old war veteran blind in one eye after attacking him on a packed tram has been given a three-year supervision order.
Stephen Gordon, 44, launched his unprovoked attack on Shah Chaudury in Croydon, south London, in December.
Gordon, who left Croydon Crown Court smiling at reporters, was found guilty of grievous bodily harm after the attack was caught on CCTV.
Steven Gordon beating war-pensioner Shah Chaudury.
The British Transport Police said they were “disappointed” with the sentence.
I don’t really know how else to cover this story; I just wanted anyone who hadn’t seen it elsewhere to know.
On another subject; Bloggsy is back from her holiday by the sea.
BTP are disappointed. I’m also disappointed, but not surprised.
Disgusted
This is the third time I’ve tried to write something. The first time I was sarcastic, the second I bemoaned the fate of modern society, I’m hoping that I can type past my incredulity and anger at this outrage to write a coherent sentance….
Sadly this does not surprise me.
Your own header says it all Boss ‘You couldn’t make it up’!
And yet, our Government spills out the trite phrases of ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’. It makes you sick to the pit of your stomach that a elderly man is assaulted in broad view of a packed tram - witnesses abound - and yet the ’sentence’ (I can’t even bring myself to call it punishment) that is handed out is obscene. The accused in this case probably has some ‘ism’ or other social affliction that will prevent any blame being attached to him for this crime. It makes me worry about the kind of world my son is growing up to inherit.
disappointed being an under statement.
Despair
three quarters of a million readers will see this. Perhaps some of them will say “Something has to be DONE about it….
But what?
Don’t worry too much. The faecal matter has well and truly hit the air conditioning with this one. The Attorney General’s office has already started reviewing this case. Given the potential for further damage to the government’s already poor reputation on law and order, I confidently predict laughing boy will not be grinning quite as broadly next time he leaves court.
But why does it have to hit the papers before a decent sentence is handed down. Having said that it will probably still be a 6 month slap on the wrist.
Maybe if it had been the Judges father who was assaulted…….
What can we say?
You couldn’t make it up, could you!!
FUBAR
First up - this is my favourite blog! This is the first time I’ve posted - am curious - are supervision orders in similar cases a regular occurence? Maybe someone can enlighten me? I’m a bit gobsmacked by there being cctv footage and zero gaol time served. Here in Australia all the states have separate ‘justice’ systems, and there are similar issues of magistrates passing lenient sentences but as a rule of thumb if there is something along the lines of eye witnesses and cctv (and there isnt enough cctv coverage here) and the victim suffers a serious injury - then a custodial sentence is handed down. If the victim is elderly, physically impaired in some way etc, then the custodial sentence tends to be heavier (i.e. longer time served until parole is an issue). Thats not to say there are issues with sentencing…..it’s a constant issue.
You mean he was given more than just an ASBO?
The following restored my faith that as a nation we are not totally done for…
“Police said two school children who were on the tram chased Gordon. They later gave evidence against him.”
Kudos to them. Shame the judge who passed sentence wasn’t of their ilk.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7056325.stm
This sort of thing doesn’t surprise me anymore.
Joe public is so badly let down on so many points by the whole criminal justice thing.
I find at times I sit and wonder why I even bother staying and working as a Police Officer.
That sentence will really teach him not to do it again won’t it ?
Other than using disgraceful and disgusting, words fail me to adequetely describe how bad that ’sentence’ is.
Why can’t bosses come right out and say it - ‘the sentence in this case is f**king boll*x, what the f**k was the Judge thinking of ??’
Further to what I said above:
If as the following suggests, this man is suffering from a mental illness then why isn’t he somewhere where he receives proper treatment and supervision?
“Paranoid schizophrenic Stephen Gordon, from Croydon, was found guilty of attacking the elderly man on a tram between Sandilands and East Croydon on December 14 last year.”
http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.1777277.0.man_escapes_jail_for_blinding_96yearold.php
I am honestly surprised that anyone is surprised!
Its simple supply and demand economics, the prisons are full, they have been full for 10 years! We haven’t built anything like the number of extra prisons we need in any of the last 10 years and therefore the supply doesn’t meet the demand. When demand is high and the supply low the price goes up and price in these terms is a euphemism for severity of offence.
Therefore to actually get a custodial sentence these days simply blinding a 96 year old war veteran minding his own business on a bus in a unprovoked, mindless attack because he couldn’t move out your way fast enough is just simply not enough!
two men were just convicted of an offence the North in which they used a knife to carve a games of noughts and crosses into the back of woman (S18 GBH offence carries life imprisonment) they then Raped (Carries life imprisonment) and violently sexually assaulted the victim (Carries lots of years). Now even if the sentences ran concurrently you would expect a long time in the big house for them, say a couple of decades for starters.
Charles Collins, 45, and Kerry Farebrother, 21, both of Lustre Street, Keighley, admitted charges of wounding, sexual assault and causing actual bodily harm. The pair were sentenced for the attack at Bradford Crown Court today. COLLINS got 9 years and the offences he admitted are clearly lesser than those he committed which is just another example of unofficial and unlawful plea bargaining. So he’ll be out in maybe 6 years!
Farebrother got an indeterminate jail sentence as a result of the dangerous offenders regs which is better but this is only as a result of the fact that he’s clearly a nutter and the political fallout of nutters getting free and killing folk was too high which in turn led to the regs. Now you may think that means he’s in for life, it doesn’t, he’ll have a minimum tariff but his freedom depends on how convincingly he portrays his sanity after that tariff. They do get out though, i know, i have sent some Potential Dangerous Offenders back sentenced, yes you guessed it, for another indeterminate sentence.
Thanks to my Northern chums for telling me about this:
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Sex-attackers-carved-game-into.3401373.jp
IG: Tried to post before but i think it got bugged, so if it duplicates can you delete the duplicate.
What a Creep.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=489093&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
I can’t think of anything to write about this……………………………..
BTP may say they are ‘disappointed’ but I would guess the officers involved were spitting blood at such a pathetic sentence.
If he got 9 years, won’t he be out in 4.5 - as long as he doesn’t screw up big time - and even less for remand time (doesn’t this count double ?)
I do have some sympathy for these people ; there is (round here anyway) an increasing amount of serious crime done by people who are not just bad but very mad, obviously so. We had a case where one serious nutter (long history) was let out despite (i) him saying he was going to kill someone and (ii) his family saying he was going to kill someone.
No prizes for guessing what happened. Some poor s*d picked at random got “murdered”,
Whose fault is this ? I normally hate the liberal mentality of “its not their fault” (usually applied to chavs and yobs who know exactly what they’re doing) but in the case of people who are seriously mentally ill, how about those who make decisions to release them into the “care” of the community carrying some of the can ?
As for the Paranoid Schizophrenic ; it seems rather obvious to me. If he’s mad he should be put somewhere for the mad ; if he isn’t he should go to jail. (Naive in the current system I know)
Remember that this is going on day after day in courts all over the country but only a few make the headlines.
Some one find out where this scumbag lives, go round to his house and kick the living shit out of him!
Dont worry about getting caught because you wont get sent down!
If the courts wont do the right thing then others might!
And before anyone starts spouting off about peoples rights etc…look at the state of this country and the scum that walks around freely robbing/mugging/stealing/killing etc etc knowing full well that the courts are crap!
These scum (whether mad or bad) need to have consequences…and if they got a good kicking they might think twice about things!
Well if you only get careless driving for killing 4 girls what can you expect. I wonder if the judges themselves regognise the system is so broken?
I am disappointed that England did not win the RWC.
I am disgusted about this and very annoyed. The judge should lose his job.
The attacker is either bad or mad. If he is mad he should get 5years + if he is mad he should locked up for life.
There is nothing you can do about it. The police force are the goverments puppets, so much so that you are banned from excersizing your democratic and “legal” right to vote for the only political party that WILL be tough on crime. You all know who that is.
It sickens me to the pit of my stomach that scum like this is on our streets and this political party in question is considered to be the same by a gullible public, powerful government dictatorship, politicall correctness and a corrupt media system.
I am 38, a father of two with a lovelly wife. I work hard, have NEVER broken the law and yet I am persecuted against for my political beliefs and labelled as the same kind of scum as this violent lunatic criminal.
Wake up people, our Country is being ripped apart by politicall correctness and the labour regime!
Just out of interest, do any policemen here support capital punishment for paedophiles and the most dangerous of criminals? I know I do.
I don’t think capital punishment is the answer. Prison is the answer, but not an air conditioned, all the comforts of home version that criminals enjoy today. Bring back slopping out, the Victorians had the right idea. Capital punishment, too quick, easy way out. Lock them up and keep them there.
For information Abex, I’m certainly not “banned” from voting from whatever party I wish to vote for. That little privilege is between me and the ballot box. There are certain parties that I’m not allowed to be a member of (In fact if I interpret the rules surrounding political activity for a police officer literally I’m not allowed to be a member of **ANY** political party!). But come voting day I exercise the same free will you do. And as a life-long Monster Raving Loony supporter I’m glad of that.
The article linked to by “Random_Comment” suggests that he attacked the elderly gentleman when he couldn’t get past him on the bus.
The question is, did he lash out becauseof his Schizophrenia, or did he just lose his temper? People can be mad and bad.
Consideration should be given to those who are clearly suffering from psychosis at the time of a crime (and therefore don’t really know what they’re doing or understand the consequences), but mental illness can not be used as an excuse for not controlling your temper.
One of my main concerns is that the pendulum of justice / punishment has swung so far to the liberal lenient side that when it begins its return throw it will swing too far in the opposite direction and then the pattern will return.
We really could do with a proper proportionate system that value punishment as much as the lip service they pay to rehabilitation.
Simply put punishment without rehabilitation is only as half as effective as it could be but rehabilitation without punishment is simply not effective at all. Currently our prison system is so over stretched that no one gets proper punishment and rehabilitation is impossible as the system doesn’t have the resources to cope.
“# Abex Says:
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:44 am
Just out of interest, do any policemen here support capital punishment for paedophiles and the most dangerous of criminals? I know I do.”
I personally don’t agree with Capital Punishment as i know the system isn’t perfect and mistakes are made. The thing with capital punishment is that its a bit final and the moment we collectively kill an innocent man we all become de facto murderers in at least a moral sense.
I also disagree with capital punishment on non-ethical grounds as if we have a prison system as tough as it should be i would much prefer said sick b*stard to spend all his life in unpleasant confinement. He / She would then be subject to the study of scientists and such to try and figure them out and catch them earlier.
I also disagree with Capital Punishment on practical grounds as firstly its not the deterrent its made out to be as evidenced by the USA. Secondly Death Row prisoners costs a fortune in court costs due to the automatic right to appeal all the way to the highest court which takes decades and costs huge sums. Finally i disagree with capital punishment on safety grounds as if said sh*t bag is looking at the long drop for his crimes he / she is not going to think twice about gunning down MOPS, my colleagues and me to get away.
As much as I loathe committee’s - perhaps offences of this should be heard before a panel of at least three Judges? As it is, I’m disgusted.
I do not say this in jest, if our once GREAT Country was human form it would now be in an isolation ward receiving intensive treatment to prevent death.
Our GREAT Country has been driven to the point of collapse, I don’t mean financially, I’m talking about integrity, morally and the blurring of what is right and wrong.
Our GREAT Country has now became a Country were it shows no distinction between the battered and bruised and those that commit the crime.
Our GREAT Country has now descended into a situation where it will support the thief, cheat and wrongdoer or those that have fought through War in order to preserve our free society in order that the current policies can prevail.
Our GREAT Country is now Governed by a Government that is dismantling society, undermining every law abiding citizen and undermining those that are there to serve their community, education health police etc.
Until the silent majority stand up and say ‘Enough is enough, nothing will change .
I wonder what would happen to the innocent bystander who could have stopped and held this nutter until the police arrived? Charged with assult, sentenced to two years whilst laughing boy confidently carries on blinding old men?
This type of sentence will eventually (or indeed, quite soon) cause vigilante gangs to form up and take out their own justice, and serious mistakes will be made; at least with capital punishment, we have a fairly good chance of getting the right man!
Well there I was sat down reading yesterday’s Mail and getting all angry at the scum Stephen Gordon and whenI opened the Gadget page there I see this asshole again.
Is that coincidence or what ?
Here we have another…………….no, here we have YET another example of how this fine legal system of ours, values and protects the victims of our society, the criminals.
This ‘person’ should be so ashamed of his actions but is not because all he is concerned about are his own rights and his wellbeing. Any consideration for Shah Chaudery do not exist in his mind. Gordon has no conscience, no guilt and no remorse. His only thought is to his own selfish arse.
Would Gordon have picked on someone capable of defending themselves on an equal footing ?
No chance. Gordon is a cowardly piece of filth who decided to take offence and take it out on people where the odds are stacked in their favour. Cowardly scum like Gordon do not deserve to exist. The sentence is laughable, insultingly weak and reflects the deteriorating attitude of the legal system to the real victims.
I hope that someone finds Gordon and has a bit of a chat with him.
Gordon, you think you showed how hard you are by beating up a 94 year old man ?
Well bravo, you must be really proud of yourself.
Court which dealt with this case, you think you showed how effective you are by dishing out such a severe sentence ? Well bravo, you must be really proud of yourselves.
Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime ? I think not.
Yes we should have capital punishment, why keep scum alive who want to cheat, steal and murder and will never be anything other than a burden on society. Lets see laughing drug dealers laughing all the way to the gallows, lets see laughing boy here on his way to the guillotine.
And we call ourselves a first world country, a civilised nation.
The ironic thing is anyone who did have a ‘chat’ with gordon, probably would go down.
We penalise white collar criminals, joe public on driving offences far more severely than the people we need protection from.
Who do I want out on the street with a community punishment? - an identity thief, a lady in her mid 40’s who nicked some cash from her empoyer, or a clearly violent piece of scum capable of murder, as this so easily could have been in other circumstances, because his hat was knocked off??
I think I know.
Let’s look at this correctly. The defendant had severe mental health problems and would, most probably, have no judgement over his actions. However, the Judge erred in giving him supervision even with compulsory psychiatric treatment. The probation service is overworked and in all probablility will not be able to safely monitor him. He will probably also not take any medication and may well harm someone again even fataly. This is care in the community and the fault lies with government.
John, I refer you to my comment made earlier. It is known that he suffers from Schizophrenia, the question is whether his illness was the cause of his actions.
I don’t know the full details of the case; whether he was taking medication at the time; whether he showed any signs of suffering from psychosis either before or after the event, but people with mental illness are capable of being bad people as well.
That’s not to say that I think he was just bad, but there are certain things that sound a bit odd to me in this case. Most people that I know who suffer from mental illness wouldn’t even get on a crowded bus if they were suffering from psychosis. Also it appears that he may have lost his temper because he couldn’t get past the man, rather than attacking the man because he believed he was a spy or something.
Of course, I could be completely wrong. He may have thought the old man deliberately knocked his hat off so that he could read his mind…
I’m just saying the case has to be looked at objectively. Sometimes I would say people with mental illness are too ill to be held accountable, but not always.
In Scotland, the ground is now being prepared to release one Robert Mone. ‘Who he’?, you all enquire in the south. Robert Mone. Responsible for murdering four people, a teacher in 1968 who he stabbed after holding her and her class of children hostage in Dundee. In 1976, he escaped from the state hospital at Carstairs, brutally murdering a nurse, a member of the public and a police officer in the process. As a ‘civilised’ country, we had decided to abolish our death penalty a decade earlier so Mone did not swing, but the public were relieved to know that in his case, life would mean life. He’s now on day release and has a job lined up at a deaf school in Edinburgh when he’s released next year. Unbefuckinglievable.
After further reading and viewing…
I don’t like the way he smiled at the camera. If he was still ill he would feel indignant as he wouldn’t believe he did wrong, and if he was feeling better he would be horrified at the realisation of what he had done. I’m not buying the mental illness thing. Maybe he had a psychotic episode once after smoking too much cannibis…
Lets look at this correctly…………………………….
I didn’t like the way he beat up a 94 year old man who was an easy target, incapable of defending himself or of fighting back.
Schitzophrenic ? Only one of him, maybe and for only part of the time.
Accuse me of pre-judgement here but………..BUT, I have been to court and heard every lame ass excuse there is, blatant lies come from the mouths of the defendants.
The victims appear to have no rights and do not get the main consideration. Itis always, and I mean always, the offender. There is alwayys some excuse put up to remove their responsibility for their actions. The odds are always stacked in the favour of the offender. The way we accept the victim status they give themselves in rediculous and demeans the system. They have no respect for society, the community and the legal system. They fear nothing because there is nothing to fear. They fear nothing because the system is there to protect them and protect their rights.
Vermin like Gordon can commit crimes of their choice in full knowledge that they will face this ‘protection’.
Not only did Shah Chaudury suffer an horrific and unprovoked attack, he would have been subject to character assassination in the attempt to discredit his evidence. He has been attacked on two occasions. Such is the way we protect our victims.
Gordon is not the victim here. Shah Chaudury is the victim. He has been badly let down.
Of course Gordon was smiling when he left court, he is the only one with something to smile about. We have given him the message that itis OK to make unprovoked attacks on 94 year old men. What a brave and upstanding man he is.
Why don’t any of our bosses have the bollocks to say what they really mean?? The sentence wasn’t dissapointing, it was disgusting and insulting, though I’m sure that if they dared to challenge the judiciary like that there would be a few more headlines than this sentence received. Why is everyone in the criminal justice system accountable apart from judges?? We have been rendered paralised because of the level of accountablity we have to adhere to and yet someone who is so completely out of touch with what 99% of the population feel can sleep soundly in their bed because they know nothing will ever happen to them.
Only the Times reported the fact that the man is a paranoid schizophrenic, and that the sentence includes a requirement for him to have mental health treatment. Judges are not fools and work with clear guidelines. Unfortunately the full sentencing reasons and the contents of the reports are not available. I have tried and failed to find them out.
I did find out some other features too but I am not at liberty to write about them, unfortunately.
Trust me, it isn’t as capricious as it looks at first sight.
Bystander says: ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I believe Chief Constables and High Court Judges should be elected to office
every 4 years, If they do not do the job we pay them to do then it’s goodbye, thanks
very much, don’t call us we’ll call you
I also believe life should be life and assisted suicide an option
In my opinion we can throw stones at the Judiciary all we like but its not going to change the fact that they abide by sentencing guidelines which over the past 25 years have got weaker and weaker. Couple that with the fact that the prosecution led by the CPS are never motivated to push for lengthy sentences as their job is done on conviction and you get a situation whereby no one apart from the defendants advocates are bothered about the sentence and they obviously use whatever they can to get it reduced.
Its all down to sentencing guidlines which in turn are governed by economics of crime and punishment. The cost of actually locking folk up is considered too high and therefore to justify avoiding it we have an entire generations worth of well practicsed, well versed and highly capable apologistas who offer any excuse that can be latched onto to avoid sending someone to gaol.
The liberal sentencing guidelines we are afflicted with currently only exist due to an unofficial policy to let them exist as a smoke screen for the economic reality that no government wants to pay the £1000 per week per prisoner it costs more than they absolutely have to. I accept that their may be some idealists about that believe in liberal sentencing policies but they are far to far down the food chain to be of any use or influence other than as a excuse for economic policy.
It does no one any good, not society nor the guilty.
Mr. Mans Wife. I’ve been at the blunt end of schizophrenics. (no offence meant) I don’t believe for one moment this chap was anything other than wilful. He did what he did because he thought he could, and effectively, he got a away with it.
Why does it cost so much to lock someone up ? Because we give them everything they want in jail.
Scrotes I lock up hate being in a Police cell for the weekend. Normal prison they love, they even tell me this.
I have seen scrotes hand themselves in whilst carrying bags of belongings including playstations etc.
Jail should mean being locked in a pokey wee room for 24 hrs a day. Fed crappy food and perhaps let out in chain gangs to pick up dog shi*te from the footpaths.
I was a serviceman before becoming a cop. I lived in a barracks with worse accomodation than a prisoner and food that was far worse than the fare they get. I had to pay for mine an all.
Start making jails a misery for those locked up. Rehabilitation - forget it. Most of the scrotes inside aren’t interested anyhow. Before anyone bleats about this - you know it’s true.
I am ranting, I have not long finished a long crappy shift !
Andre, I’m not sure what you mean by your comment. Maybe I wasn’t clear either.
What I’m trying to say is that:
1. People with mental illness can be bad too and it wasn’t necessarily the illness that made him attack the poor old man.
2. If it was his illness I would have expected some remorse once he had “come to his senses” and there didn’t appear to be any
3. He may have only ever suffered a psychotic episode due to smoking too much cannibis but his solicitor used it as a “get out of jail free” card.
So I think we agree? But I don’t understand what you mean about being “at the blunt end of Schizophrenics”. I hope you don’t think that people with mental illnesses are all like him and use their illness as an excuse?
I’ve read all the comments here, and the various news stories about this. I do have to say I think Bystander is wrong on this one, and that the sentencing was wrong as well.
Firstly, if anyone has paranoid schizophrenia that in itself makes them a danger to the public. It should not be used to lighten a sentence but instead to decide whether a more appropriate sentence would in fact be longer, not for punishment purposes but to protect the public.
Of course, all this is due to failures in “care in the community” which itself has broken down because the mental institutions have been shut down to save money. Where I used to live in Gloucester, the local mental hospital was in Coney Hill. Aside from a single clock tower, which is a listed building, the hospital no longer exists, it was closed down, sold off and demolished and is now a housing estate.
You have to wonder where, in the sentencing guidelines, ‘detention (indefinitely) at Her Majesty’s pleasure’ falls, because in my view this would be an appropriate sentence. If the defendant claimed in court that his behaviour was down to an illness or mental deficiency, then I would want to take the publics safety into account when sentencing that defendant. It does not look - to me at least - as if this has been the case here.
THERE CAN BE NO EXCUSE (and I’m not ashamed of using capitals here) for this kind of behaviour. Sadly in our society we’re seeing it more and more. I don’t believe in “road rage”, I think it’s a convenient label, a convenient excuse for people allowing themselves to get out of control. Each time lenience is shown to someone who let themselves get out of control, it does not discourage others, and in some cases actually encourages others that this kind of behaviour is somehow acceptable. It is not. The loss of control which leads to the injuring of another person must be punished severely, and his grinning reaction on leaving court hints, to me at least, that he knew what he was doing at the time he committed the assault, and knew that he was likely to get a lesser sentence for relying on his mental past.
While I can appreciate that treatment is better than straightforward imprisonment, I do feel that it would be easier to administer treatment and control the circumstances if it were to be combined with a custodial sentence.
Having read the comments here, mainly I fear from police officers, it seems even more important that we leave sentencing to properly educated and qualified Magistrates and Judges. Police officers are , by the nature of the job they do, biased against offenders. They do not see the pain and anguish which some of these unfortunates suffer during thier lives. Locking offenders away will never address this. I think that Inspector Gadget is making things worse by mentioning that Gordon smiled when leaving the Court. He was probably just relieved that he did not go to jail, something any one of us would feel!
[...] than a prison van? It’s getting unbelievable how bad the situation is in the UK. Both Inspector Gadget and Bystander have blogged about this, one from a police point of view (who definitely [...]
Cheers bystander, what about the pain and anguish they cause their victims? Who’s rights do you think are more important, those of a 97 year old war veteran going about his business, or that of a man who’s willing to assault him to the extent of him losing his eye, his confidence and mobility?
I saw the news and Gordon’s happy grin as he left court, the same court he told that he was acting in self defence against mr Chaudury despite being proven to have attacked him for no reason. What sort of message do you think that sends to other criminals and to the public who you, as well as we police officers, are supposed to protect?
Do you honestly think that Gordon will comply with the inconveiniance of his Supervision Order? I don’t and I can guess what will happen when he doesn’t.
A) The overstretched and demoralised probation service will have neither the time or the inclanation to deal with it.
B) If it does see it’s way into a Magistrates court all he will get as punishment is a stern telling off and be punished by, you guessed it a Supervision Order.
Prison does work!!!!!!! if they’re not on the streets they’re not making other peoples lives miserable.
I find it somewhat disconcerting that Magistrates don;t think the same way and seem more interested in the rights of , lets face it, criminals than the rest of society.
P.S Have you really seen the pain and anguish they suffer? I think not, they and their solicitors will tell you anything to make them seem to be the victims as they know you’ll fall for it every time.
Your average police officer has probably spent more time dealing with the Pain, suffering, and anguish of the mentally ill than any magistrate, at least we’re out therein the community dealing with them.
Rant over.
Bystander !
Are you really suggesting that Magistrates and Judges are more in tune with the
lifestyle and habits of offenders than police officers
Magistrates and Judges see the pain and anguish of offenders and police officers,
who live in their ivory towers, are oblivious to this ‘alleged’ pain and suffering.
And as for the PROPERLY educated Magistrates and Judges remark, is that compared to the dumb uneducated masses that have to live with the decisions made by the
PROPERLY educated Magistrates and Judges.
I cannot speak for everyone but I for one would be deeply ashamed and embarrassed
if I had done what this, as you put it,unfortunate man had done and I would hang my head with shame.
Unfortunate, Unfuckingfortunate you tell that to a homeless soldier sleeping rough
just how unfortunate this scumbag is. Your priorities are so far out of whack I am tempted to believe that you are playing devils advocate on this
and seeing how much you can wind people up, either that or you are a social worker
Absolute disgrace.
Bystander - your particular brand of ‘free thinking’, liberalism, political correctness or what ever it’s called is an absolute farce. May I suggest you go on a ride along with your local Police for a week, see the pain and suffering at first hand. Better still, join the specials and do something about it.
So what if these offenders feel anguish and suffering. An old phrase springs to mind “They’re not sorry for what they did, they’re sorry for being caught.”
Bystander,
As a member of the public reading this blog, your comments have disturbed me more than anything else I have read on this or any police blog.
Am I ‘properly educated’ to have an opinion on this? who knows, but I have one never the less.
Bystander, the magistrate, has of course, the experience of long service on the bench and can offer a differing perspective. The role of the courts in sentencing is that it does good for society, that test is hard .However, has justice been seen to be done here? hardly , lets hope as a person sick in the mind his freedom does not give him the space to kill, as did the madman who stabbed to death (one knife broke in the young female mental health workers chest , he went to find another to continue ) as reported in the press yesterday . Then perhaps we can all ruminate together on the cracking idea not to lock him up.
Of course this requires us to
“Leave sentencing to properly educated and qualified Magistrates and Judges”
Tell that to the subsequent victims at the hands of mad (don’t bother posting about the hierarchy of mentalists) people who are released and kill others
Just can’t believe whats going on, when will someone do something about this nonsense that is ruining this country, bystander to put it bluntly ur an ill informed, pompous **at
Bystander’s comments seem to have “upset” some of the posters here. He was referring to educated in respect of the law and in sentencing principles not how many O levels you have. It is somewhat tiresome to hear “generalisation” e.g. “all judges are out of touch” or indeed for some to think they are qualified to talk about mental heath issues. One thing you learn in judicial training is not to stereotype people and to look at matters on a case to case basis. Most of Gadget’s posts are heartfelt and interesting and he is clearly a caring officer. However, sometimes and without access to all the facts e.g. the pre sentence report, evidence etc, there is a tendancy to prejudge matters. In police work, like other areas, there is no black and white but grey areas.
Im absolutely appaled by the sentence handed out to this thug who has demolished an elderly gentlemans life.
The magistares court I attend on a regular basis is a factory where justice is not one of the products produced.
A SO for such a nasty attack is totally inadequate and no matter how much pc garbage bystander spouts will not change that fact.
John
how do you know what Bystander was refering to when he wrote “educated”
If he had meant experienced then surely he would have wrote experienced
We can only go by the evidence placed in front of us
There is only one person that can say with 100% certainty that bystanders comment
was anything other than what was written
Bystander couldn’t be that stupid, could he John
By the way John didn’t mean what he said about “most of Gadgets posts are heartfelt and interesting” he meant they were commonsense.
John; you made me wonder if I was guilty of applying stereotypes to magistrates; so to test this I have just reached off the library shelf, a folder of back copies of the journal ‘Magistrate; essential reading for magistrates.’ Volume 63, number 4, April 2007, has features on ‘Justice in the media, should sentencers be worried about public support’ juxtaposed with ‘Online Communities’ the influence of blogers (featuring ‘Bystander’)
However flicking through the magazines it quickly became apparent that the companies who advertise in this journal, have made their own assessment about ‘profile of magistrates’
The adverts are predominantly (exclusively so, in some issues) for; time share apartments, motor insurance, three piece morning suits, personalised stationary, visiting cards and golf holidays in Spain. It appears (to me) that the advertisers are selling to a niche market that is perhaps poor representation of society in general.
are the totally in competent C.P.S. noy going to appeal this travesty of justice? trotting ou the ald sating” you weren’t in COURT T”TO HERE ALL THE EVIDEVCE IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. T the facts speak for themselves
Bystander, although i feel your comments were made with purely good intentions, I however feel they bely an innocence if not an apparent naivety about how the system works.
You suggest that sentencing should be left to properly trained and educated judges and magistrates and I agree but that is not what has happened in this case or any other. The sentence was a result of the sentencing guidelines which effectively robs Judges and magistrates of any advantage their experience, education and training offer them. In earlier posts i have mentioned the last 25 years of multi party liberalism and the underling actual economic reasons so i wont go into that again.
I would like to mention magistrates though as they are special in that they are just average people, no more qualified in law than any other MOP. A Magistrates opinions on crime and punishment vary as much as societies and i have met liberal idealists and hang em high JP’s in equal measure. The selection process weeds out some of the extremes but they all uniformally agree that their ability to pass sentence in line with the statute is completely hampered by the sentencing guidelines regardless of whether they wish to punish people through custody or otherwise. Although the liberal idealists tend to have the upper hand at the moment.
I also think you completely fail to understand the perspective of Police Officers on the subject of the mentally ill be they victim, suspect or witness. Police, with the exception of the few mental healthy workers left, have probably the greatest and most varied contact with these people. We see their pain, suffering, treatment, relapses etc on a daily basis and become quite intimately aware of peoples problems far better than any one would ever give us credit for. You of course wont know this if your not a Police Officer as you would probably and foolishly believe that these people are dealt with by the NHS, Social Services or similar, particularly if you happen to work for one of those agencies.
For the record i do not believe that the sh*t bag in this case was mentally ill, i think he may once have been which enables him to use it as an excuse at any time in the future. An excuse which sentencing guidelines are all to ready to latch onto to avoid custody. Even if he was suffering a psychotic episode at the time then i still would recommend custody as he is proven danger to society. He did after all DESTROY The sight of the victim in one eye! I saw the footage of the guy leaving court and yes he smiled, long hard and in smug self congratulatory way and i trust my ability to read body language sufficiently to be satisfied about my opinions.
Simply put he got away with it because the sentencing guidelines let him! Which annoys me no end, it seems that the only people who usually talk on this subject are liberal idealists or right wing nationalist scary nutters and i am not in favour of either of those options. All we ever hear is vote for me/them as they will be tough on crime and their is post above somewhere saying just that. This is not a party political issue non of the major parties have got a common sense approach and non of the minor parties are remotely electable as they are mainly a bunch of unsavoury scary nasty nutters.
“smoking gun” - we are all educated to a greater or lesser degree so it do it doesn’t take much working out what Bystander is referring to. If I wanted to say that Gadget’s views were commonsense I would have done so thank you.
“uphilldowndale” I cannot see what your connection with advertising in the Magistrates Magazine has to do with this. Newspapers carry loads of adverts for weird stuff but that doesn’t make it’s readers weird! Incidentally what adverts appear in the Federation Magazine or Police Review?
Bystander, if you represent the educated bleeding heart Liberals then I’M VERY happy the remain an uneducated police officer. It must be wonderful wearing rose tinted glasses in that ivory tower of yours.
Bystander is entitled to his/her view the same as everyone else who has taken the time to read the post and the subsequent comments.
I do not agree but still respect the freedom of expression this blog allows. Where ever there is a view expressed there will somewhere be an alternative view.
Having been in this ’system’ for a considerably long time I get frustrated and angry at my perception that the people who claim to PROTECT THE PUBLIC and insist that they are TOUGH ON CRIME regularly and consistently fail to protect and be tough. These are just words that have no real intent or basis for the role they are intended.
There are any number of fanciful ways of not delivering and it seems that any effort or excuse is rolled out to justify inaction and failure to protect the public.
If there were no legal process to deal with GORDON he would have been found and a suitable punishment administered. Shah Chaudury is a victim of crime. He is also someone’s father, husband or other family member. They are all victims as well for they would have seen and felt his pain also. They may have been consulted for a view on the sentence. They may even have agreed. I do not for one minute think this was the case.
The public, namely Shah Chaudury, was not protected from Gordon. If Gordon was allegedly as mad as itis claimed then he should be under the care and protection of a suitable medical facility. But he couldn’t possibly be as almost all have closed down for the development of the care in the community processes and because there are a thousand and one organisations who shout the the rights of people like Gordon.
If Shah Chaudery were my father I would not be impressed with the process that let GORDON out without a punishment and I would try to correct this mistake. The problem is that our system rewards the offender yet makes an example of those who are deemed to make their own justice because the system is sterile and inactive.
I think you’ll find that police officers too often see exactly what these ‘unfortunates’ have been exposed to in their lives. The difference is, it doesn’t mean it justifies their actions (with the exception of very rare occassions).
The point about the victims rights being put behind those of the offender is exactly right.
Those with mental illness do need support and help, but those with mental illness who represent a danger to the public, need that support and help whilst the rest of us are protected from them. Too many times care in the community has failed, due to, I’m sure, well meaning but inadequate sentencing.
Surely, criminals rights have to come second to that of the victim.
I have been an SC for 10 years aswell as hold down my day job. I do not consider myself bias towards offenders compared to any other member of the public. Maybe its about time the public had a clear say in what the sentencing guidelines for criminals should be.
I think we’d see very clearly what they are willing to tollerate and what they are not. After all, is it not the public that we should all be accountable to?
I do not think that more prisons alone are the answer, but they clearly need to be built so that judges are not pressured not to send people to prison because of overcrowding.
As I said before, we’re too willing to send non violent white collar criminals to prison as a ‘deterrent’ whilst allowing violent offenders a community punishment. How can that be right. (I realise incidentally, there have to be exceptions)
We as a society need to send out a message that there is no excuse for this behaviour and we will not tollerate it. Surely the judiciary should represent the will of the people?
Bystander, I always read your comments with interest and enjoy your perspective. But I fear you have it entirely wrong on this occassion. There can be no mitigation for his actions that allow him to remain free.
In terms of gadgets comment about him smiling, he only mentioned what actually happened, are we now suggesting censoring the truth so as not to make the offender appear in a worse light??
Clearly this is emotive, but I would suggest that if you put all the facts in front of the public and asked a cross section to select a sentence, it would not be one in the community.
Whisper Wolf says: “if anyone has paranoid schizophrenia that in itself makes them a danger to the public”
No, it doesn’t. And that’s why I feel angry when a BAD person tries to blame mental illness for doing such a disgraceful thing - people start assuming that mental illness = violent person.
Each year over 250,000 people are admitted into psychiatric hospitals with many more patients living in the community. 50 murders a year are commited by people with mental health problems. One article I read stated that this equals to 1 in 20 murders being commited by people with mental health problems. That’s 95% of murders commited by “sane” people.
But Mr Mans wife.. you self prove the point, yes, sane people commit the majority of murders, the vicarious nature of the crime means we can never guess when and where it may happen, however with regard to mental health patients ought we not to have a better idea about the likely future conduct of such people? And as such if they commit crimes of shocking violence should not the general public expect that their rights and freedoms be protected? Since a mental health patient can’t, we should, as I said in my earlier post there can be plenty more hand wringing if this person goes on to commit more or worse crimes.
I understand your bad person /blame point by the way
The point has been missed again, as usual, by the learned (and educated - in the law of course) magistrate. The law is in a right state, and whether or not the offender is mentally ill isn’t the point. The point is that it is awful that this 96 year old man has suffered in the many ways he is now suffering because of the actions of this other man, who is now out and about again. There have been too many tragic examples where innocent people have been maimed and killed because of the actions of unsupervised and untreated (mentally) ill people. Let’s not lose sight of this please. I don’t go near Bystanders blog as I am sick and tired of the hand wringing that is displayed and i have no interest in debating the fascinating (well to him anyway) points of law. For too long the ‘issue’ of how to deal with mentally disordered offenders has been ignored or fudged; as has the issue of what to do with the very many dangerous (and not diagnosed as mentally disordered) offenders out there, the downright and plain evil gangsters. The law is an ass!
I am assuming this guy was only charged with s.20 GBH, which carries a fairly low maximum sentence (just 5 years - the same as ABH). The sentence meted out here is in line with the golden rule of sentencing - that before you even begin you should halve the maximum and pretend that is your new maximum. Where the maximum is Life, you should begin at around 12 years. It’s only fair.
If anyone’s interested, you can download the sentencing guidelines online. It’s an eye-opener and you can quite easily see how an Armed Robber (can carry life) can walk out with about 20 days in custody before you’ve even taken into account a lenient judge.
Sorry that I have not the perseverance to have read all the comments. However what leapt out at me from the story, the initial post by IG, and the half of the comments that I have read so far, is the colour issue. Had the assailant been white, there would have been no problem with the assailant getting a suitable sentence. However, being of Afro-Caribbean origins, the assailant is clearly a victim of some sort, and suitable mitigation has been made on his behalf. I think that paraphrases Bystander’s remarks.
To me, this is not a sentencing issue, it is a much greater political correctness issue. Until we get that sorted, stupidities such as this, that make me ashamed to be British, will continue.
Fred
I have no idea where your coming from on this, i have read all the posts as well as making several and unless i have missed something i don’t remember any references to race/colour/ethnicty.
You say you haven’t read all the posts but “half of the comments” that you have read mention the colour issue.
I would ask you to qualify your post please because as far as i know this is discussion about sentencing criteria not race relations and the only political correctness issue is one of a debate on mental health provisions.
I also notice that you seem to have missed the fact that the victim is called Shah Chaudury and the image from the bus tends to suggest he is not white either. In fact as far as i am aware no white people were involved, or mentioned in the reporting of this matter.
Feel free to correct me, quote some other comments or something but as far as I am aware the argument that’s taking place here is NOT about RACE / ETHNICTY / COLOUR. If i am wrong ill be wrong but i just dont think i am which leads me to question why you seek to redirect such a valuable debate to an unrelated subject!
I would also take issue with your “paraphrasing” of Bystanders remarks which i read again to be sure. I may or may not not agree with some of things he is saying but i wont try to put words in his mouth. I find NOTHING in any of his posts on this topic that would lead me to believe that Bystander made any direct or inferred reference to the defendants or anyone else ethnicity. This again leads me to question your post and its motives and refers to the earlier post my concerns that people seek to politicise blogs for their own ends.
Fred please explain how you came to believe this had anything to with the Defendants ethnic origins as i just cant see its got anything to do with it at all. I wait to be corrected and whilst i do i hope the actual debate that has nothing to with Race / Colour / Ethinicty etc will continue whilst / if you prepare a response.
Nearly there Fred, methinks. Thing that comes to mind is ‘pre-sentencing reports’ the mention of which seems curiously absent in the news. There’s a social service assessment in there somewhere. Which is unlikely to be made public.
If it was my grandfather who he’d attacked, i’d be out looking for him and he’d be very very very very worried. I’d give him far worse than the court gave him and far worse than they could give to me for doing it………….
Lets hope someone sees him in the queue for the tram next time and nudges him under the front wheels…It’s the one under we want a call to!
Some of the comments on here have made me think that it’s only a matter of time before the general public decide to start taking things into their own hands in a big way. And you know what? I could fully understand that.
As a serving police officer I just wish I was backed up by the criminal justice system. We have the powers that we need to change the country completely but if I ever manage to get anything past CPS and if my offender ever gets found guilty at court then they just get a slap on the wrists and let out - as evidenced perfectly here by this travesty.
The thing that really makes me mad is that if someone else on that bus had stepped in and put the guy on his arse as he so fully deserved then he’d have probably received a stiffer sentence than the original offender!
Makes me sick and so very tired of it all.
Been awhile since I have had a chance to get near your blog Gadget or make comment. As for this topic. I think enough has already been said. Its just sickening.
So I’m going to try and lighten it a bit as I think we have had our fill of low life leeches right now!
Now I dont make a habit of posting links or such on your blog Gadget but this one is just too good not too! So I apologise and bear with me
Hampshire police thought it would be a good idea to advertise on the rear of a bus.
Their planning did not take into account the position of the exhaust pipe.
Hence the following was the result……….
http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/671/buscopbs8.jpg
The post at 6.30 am in my name today is a forgery. I neither wrote nor sent it. Someone is so frightened of my stance as an independent and impartial member of the judiciary that they felt the need to attempt to misreprtesent my views. Well, I suppose that’s a compliment of sorts.
Or someone might just be taking the piss you silly old fool……………..
JOCKtheCOP,
I’ve looked at the image you’ve posted. And your point is?
Cotlake
I think Jock was pointing out how the advert on the bus went pear shaped because
the position of the exhaustpipe gives the impression that the blokes john thomas
is hanging out of his trousers
I imagine it took the signwriter all day to get that just right
Forgive me if I am wrong but are we now as a society using mental health issues as an excuse. One has to ask how far these illnesses are actually causing issues such as crime and how far they are used to serve as an excuse not to prosecute or punish. I was assaulted a few years ago by a man who clearly had some kind of mental issue, I never found out if it was illness or handicap (or insert politically correct term of own choice). Along with myself this man assaulted two other girls all of us being under the age of eighteen, all of us alone and all of us petrified of what he was doing. Despite making statements to the affect that he has acted in a way that made us feel sexually violated despite repeatedly asking him to stop and despite the fact that I was getting flashbacks and was unable to hug my own boyfriend for some time. This man was never prosecuted, instead he was told, in nice baby language that “you shouldn’t go around touching girls that you don’t know, especially if they tell you to stop it”. At the time I was inconsolable, worried not for myself but for the next girl, the policewoman who handled the case told me that he was known to exagerate his handicap when approaching young girls as he knew they would be more reluctant to run away from him so he clearly had an awareness that what he was doing was wrong, or at the very least likely to be met with a bad reaction. How long would it be before stroking a petrified teenagers neck wasn’t good enough for him, how long before he needed something more? i was told that the man could not be held responsible as he didn’t understand that it was wrong. I have always wondered whether it was simply a matter of not wanting to bother with a prosecutiion. Sorry if this seems a bit incoherent, I get ranty talking about it. I just get so angry hearing about yet another person who is let off or given a soft punishment for a crime that they clearly committed. If indeed they are so very ill that they don’t know what they are doing they should receive treatment enforced by law.
Ancillary issue: Why was a 96 year old man STANDING on a bus? No one offered him a seat?
That’s a good point, tiggy.
And, to “Mr Man’s Wife”, I don’t disagree with you on the fatality figures, but you would have to admit that paranoid schizophrenic people who do not take their medicine are a more likely demographic to commit assaults. I stand by what I say about public safety, and find it a little odd that something has to be serious enough for a life to be lost before we bother collecting statistics about it.
“Tough on Crime, tough on the causes of crime” my arse. If the guy is a just a nasty bastard he should have been locked up for the safety of the public, if he’s mentally ill he should have been taken in for assessment and appropriate treatment for the safety of hte public. He should not have been booted back out onto the streets with the impression that attacking vulnerable old men on trains was ok. If that was my grandad who’d been attacked I’d be getting my rugby playing cousins together and going round to teach this scrote what the criminal justice system won’t.
@ notellin,
I clearly did not make the point that I had intended, for which I apologise.
I agree that there has been no mention of race, except where I raised it. I find that amazing.
My assertion is that the “justice” system in this country is not colour blind. I noted that the assailant was of Afro-Caribbean origin. In the prevailing political correctness of this age, that MUST make him a VICTIM. Therefore he has an excuse for his actions. Mental health doubts merely add to it. It is therefore inevitable that he will be given a light sentence.
Of course the fact that his victim was a South Asian will imply racial discord to the dispassionate observer, but “black” on “black” crime does not occur in the realm of the politically correct, therefore it is not a crime and should not be sentenced as such.
My corollary is that had the assailant been a white male, then the sentence would inevitably have been greater, and that there would not have been the discussion that there has on this blog. Because only white males are deemed by the political correctness industry to be capable of nasty racist crimes.
I refuse to believe any assertion by others that the police are not infested by political correctness. After all the stupidity of implementing the politically correct agenda is one of the abiding themes of IG’s posts. From one extreme (the “institutional racism” of the Stephen Lawrence affair) the “justice industry” has lurched to the other extreme. This case proves it.
Or someone might just be taking the piss you silly old fool……………..
The above posting by “Joe Public” misses the point. If people are posting pretending to be others what is the point of the whole blog thing? It is good to have an interesting debate but when idiots try and be smart then it ruins it for all!
Having read through all of the posts i still find myself wondering what the hell Fred was on about bringing race to the issue, he’s the only person who actually mentioned it.
I just wonder how long it is going to be before properly organised vigilantes appear? Some communites like to keep everything ‘in house’ anyway, but just how long before a group of not so feeble ’silent majority’ get together and decide that enough is enough?
I also wonder where I would stand on the matter, having seen that communities defending themselves with physical force can and does work, I don’t think it will be too long before I happen to find a drug dealer or burglar with his kneecaps drilled or shot out.
RE: Fred
Fred I respect that fact that you now admit that you were the only person to raise the race issue in the record breaking 90+ other comments made on this subject, despite your initial claims to the contrary. However I personally don’t believe that this has anything to with Race and I believe to suggest that it does, dilutes, misdirects and compromises discussion to no good end.
I would therefore conclude by stating, as clearly as I am able, that I, respectfully, COMPLETELY disagree with your point.
However as Voltaire reminds us:
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
Actually Whisper Wolf, I would have to disagree. You imply that all people suffering from Schizophrenia are dangerous without medication which is simply untrue. People with mental health problems are more likely to be a danger to themselves with 1,300 of them committing suicide a year compared to the 50 or so who murder.
I agree with you that it is a sorry state of affairs when something has to be as serious as murder for the statistics to be recorded - but on the other hand the statistics must be out there somewhere as police officers spend so much of their time filling in paper work. What can I say, apart from the internet is over rated and I struggled to find the few statistics I quoted.
But back to the original point: of those 50 who murder, some of them could be just bad anyway and using their illness as an excuse. Others will definitely be murders that could have been prevented as sufferers do not swing from “sane” to “mental” in an instant (contrary to popular belief) and the deterioration in their health would be obvious to others.
Of course, this leads us back to the issue of “care in the community” which is sadly lacking. (Or even care in the hospital ward, but don’t get me started on that one)
But in conclusion: people with Schizophrenia are no more likely to murder than anyone else. I know, I know, the man with the knives… what about all those other notorious killers in history with no record of mental illness? “Sane” people can be more dangerous because they are capable of acting “normal” and hiding their crimes, thus enabling them to continue.
Let me tell you, despite the fact that murders by people with mental health problems are not on the increase, the number of people who think they are has increased. Lack of information, misinformation, and too much sensationalism.
Guv - I thought you should be made aware of this: http://belfastpeeler.blogspot.com/
Just sent BP a message, don’t know if it gets posted due to obvious circumstances. I sincerely hope they don’t shaft him for it.
BP could be history, we will have to wait and see.
I was thinking about this situation last night (it has bugged me) and it occured to me that the suspect who punched sir alex Fergusson in the groin received one year for the attack. No injuries were sustained, it was just a pissed idiot in Paddington station who walked up to him and punched him in the cock. highly amusing I’m sure. I don’t know whether he was charged with common assault or ABH (unlikely) but my point is that he received a year in prison for punching someone in the groin, the victim hasn’t lost the use of his cock, he hasn’t had a bollock removed, he was just embarrassed and a little pissed off that someone would have the nerve to walk up to him in a packed train station and punch him in the cock.
I wonder which of the following reasons lead to the sentence?
He has the title ‘Sir’ in front of his name and is therefore considerably more important than a war veteran
He is a public figure and the incident got lots of press coverage and so they couldn’t just sweep if away unlike the now half blinded grandfather that no one gave a shit about
He is rather rich and has access to some extremely well paid solicitors and QC’s who would have made the post media reporting extremely uncomfortable for the judiciary
The suspect did not at anytime in his life suggest that he had the urge to eat his own faeces and kill swans and have sex with his sister.
Further to a comment made above [Theendisnigh, 2007-10-23 @ 1445]
Some years ago, when I was much younger, at night on the London Underground, I intervened to stop an assault similar to the one that Widget has just posted about, but with four assailants against a rather frail elderly victim. In fact, it wasn’t as “simple” as an assault: it was to have been a robbery, committed with considerable gratuitous violence.
I made sure (using force that I considered reasonable and necessary in the circumstances) that the offenders promptly desisted and could not leave the scene of their crime until after Police arrived.
When the Police arrived, I was arrested
and eventually charged with various offences
including a variety of assaults on the four perpetrators.
That was notwithstanding quite serious and very apparent injuries to the real victim. Police believed what the four perpetrators told them, instead of believing the victim and me (and of course there was no-one else at scene, by the time the Police actually arrived).
Thank God for British Magistrates!
They believed me.
But sadly, for some technical reason, the real criminals were never prosecuted for their original offence.
MJP
What a disgrace.
They should have charged the old man with racism!
TO ALL POLICE OFFICERS: mainstream parties are NOT your friend. Unfortunately, you are now having carry out the fascist laws of a government that is the enemy of everyone but its own. Want to turn back the clock to real policing where you didn’t have to repress free-speech, execute the misnomer of political “correctness” and meet Marxist Equal Opportunity quotas? You know what to do.
Want to avenge this outrage? Vote for a patriotic party at the next General Election.
YOUR CALL.
The lack of a custoial sentance is disgusting. That man faught for this country and it has let him down, badly!!!
However, it is not suprising in the slightest. How many old people freeze to death in their homes every year because they cannot afford to put the heating on? Compare this to how well junkies and prisoners are kept in this country and something just does not add up.
The 1998 human rights act, is the biggest hinderance to the criminal justice system and puts the rights of individuals above the right of society to be protected from those individuals.
AngryDave - you are clearly a scholar of the Human Rights Act. Perhaps you can tell me (a) which of the rights enumerated by the act, did not exist in any other form of statue or case law prior to its enactment (b) which right has hindered the criminal justice system in this case?
If you disagree with the sentence, fine - I respect your right to make your point. Please do not however, make yourself sound like a Daily Mail reading moron and treat the HRA in the same totem and fetish way that they do.