My new hero

does anyone else think that sentencing levels in this country are getting a little out of whack?

7 years for corporate fraud?

but carrying a knife has a maximum sentence of 4 years – 50% of those jailed received only 3 year sentences.

just saying like….

Yeah god forbid we start punishing middle class crime instead of just the scummers eh?

Im rather referring to the relative perception of fear and retribution of crime against the person and crime against property.

'course being a socialist, grumm, you would have property ownership up there with paedophilia no?

Anyway you're making rather fast assumptions about the "class" of the accountant arent you?

I think the four year old is pretty heroic if only for the cross dressing finale 🙂

You can get 7 for death by dangerous driving!

I agree with grumm – I doubt whether a couple of East End villains getting 7 years for breaking into a bank and stealing £3.8 million would have raised many eyebrows with you Stoner.

And I don't have a problem with maximum sentence of 4 years for carrying a knife – in my youth I sometimes carried a knife (depending on where I was) I can't say that I would want to justify it now, but it seemed like a sensible precaution at the time. However, I don't think I would have deserved 7 years if I had been stopped and searched.

and given your, shall we say, "vintage" GG, I wouldnt expect you to have faced a 7yr penalty in the days of your youth. Society changes though, and the prevalence of knife carrying (with a view to using it) has increased and should be seriously dissuaded.

TBH I dont think 7 yrs would be appropriate for a bank blag – assuming no guards, staff or customers were threatened or hurt. As soon as it steps up to that, then it becomes armed robbery and, rightly so, is treated very seriously in sentencing by the courts.

You can get 7 for death by dangerous driving

You can get 14 for that.

I get the feeling you're worried about something Stoner. Anything you need to get off your chest before the knock on the door? Mitigation? That barn conversion just costing too much? 😀

I wouldnt expect you to have faced a 7yr penalty in the days of your youth.

Oh yes of course Stoner………..it was all hippy love and flowers and stuff.

Or perhaps ………….. the media, in the form of tabloid rags such as the Sun and the Mail, hadn't got round to cranking up mass hysteria over the knife crime 'epidemic'. Maybe they were too obsessed with mods and rockers fighting, or football hooligans, or muggings.

Yes …… "muggings" that's the one I remember best. Throughout the 70s, according to the press, you couldn't walk more than a few hundred metres down an urban street without getting mugged. And of course all muggers were black. So the police, sensitive to the needs of society, launched Operation Swamp 81, which culminated in the Brixton Riots. Strangely enough, although the Brixton Riots resulted in the hated "sus" law being scrapped, muggings seemed to drop out of the headlines soon after that……..obviously the press found other 'topics' to sink their teeth into.

Here's an interesting article :

Is knife crime really increasing?

Quote :

Doug Sharp, professor of criminal justice at Birmingham City University, said, "In terms of the prevalence of knife crime, we do know anecdotally and from research in respect of young people and gangs in certain parts of the UK, knives have been a problem for many, many years.

"The use of knives and their use by violent men goes back to the turn of the 20th Century."

BBC Home Editor Mark Easton said that in Manchester and Liverpool, according to hospital figures, gunshot wounds were a bigger problem than stabbings.

He said no child in the whole of south-east of England – outside London – was treated for stab wounds in hospital last year, and juvenile violence seemed to be a predominantly urban problem.

Prof Sharp said 20 years ago people in Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool would not have found about about knife crimes in London – and vice versa.

"News took longer to get into the public domain and tended to have different focus," he said.

Im glad you went off to do all that googling for me Gus. I just would never have thought of doing it too and filtering out all the data I didnt want to disclose either 🙂

Anyway then, ignoring the comparative argument for the moment, what do you think of the absolute penalty then Gus?

DD – I wont get caught 😉

Im glad you went off to do all that googling for me Gus.

Well I'm glad that you appreciated it …… as you can imagine, it took me a good hour or so to do.

"I just would never have thought of ….. filtering out all the data"

You should try it – highlight the stuff you feel is important……..you know……..to make a "point"

Of course it's also quite important to provide a link, like I have, so that the whole article can be read "unfiltered".

I could see 7 years being justified if he'd wasted the money.