I then wrote that “None of those things will happen until ministers, judges/magistrates and rail-regulators themselves start getting stabbed”.

OK, so I didn’t really expect the establishment to do any of those things for us. But I didn’t expect them to reduce the attackers sentence less than a year later!

“Your Local Guardian” on 26th January 2012 tells us the following:

A “dangerous” teenager who stabbed a police officer four times has had his indefinite jail term overturned by top judges.

Alastair Gregson, 19, launched the vicious knife attack on Croydon PC Nigel Albuery as the officer attempted to search him in the street.

The court heard Gregson was on bail for attacking his ex-girlfriend when he stabbed PC Albuery in May last year in Bute Road, Waddon.

He was with a group of youths in the area when the officer and a colleague – who were both in plain clothes – approached and spoke to them.

When PC Albuery attempted to search Gregson, the teenager tried to run away before stabbing the officer four times, in his shoulder, back and arms.

Five days before the incident, Gregson hit his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Kerr, with a brick following a heated argument in the street.

That attack, for which he admitted assault causing actual bodily harm, came just two days after he pleaded guilty to a common assault on Miss Kerr.

Even the snake-oil-salesman trying to get Gregson a shorter sentence accepted he was “dangerous”. But school fees and winter breaks in Bermuda don’t pay for themselves you know!

Appeal beaks Sir John Thomas, Mrs Justice Dobbs and Mr Justice Underhill, we salute you. But probably not in the way you would like.

Gadget Note: Thanks Julia M (who I don’t always agree with!) for the tip.