Reduced sentence

English had pleaded guilty to kidnap, false imprisonment, sexual assault, assault by penetration and two counts of rape.

Shakes head and walks away

three appeal court justice’s got to consider all of the facts, have done so and agreed what they consider a fair finding under law, common law, home office sentencing guidelines and other factors.

Horrible shite that he clearly is, I dont think Im going to be any better qualified to pass judgement on him based on 3 paragraphs on the BBC website.

Speeding, littering, not paying TV licenses.

Forgeting to tax your car, or forgetting to tell big brother you are not going to take your car out on the roads…. even though they are watching you anyway.

The biggest crime this day and age appears to be being a “racist”

FFS this soft arse society peas me off

bring back the stocks please

http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/

I clearly remember the feeling i had, when in court to see the women whom killed my father by loosing control of her car on the way back from a fishing trip with her husband, through being 3 times over the legal drink drive limit, and spinning across the road and knocking my father of mother off thier motorbike, receive a prison sentence of 18 months, and that was after her defence tried to plead mitigating circumstances!!!!

Still don’t understand what constitutes a serious crime myself

(and still not sure what mitigated circumstances she could plead to justify driving whilst being under the influence of alcohol, and 3 times over the legal limit)

I dont think Im going to be any better qualified to pass judgement on him

No one asked you to pass judgement on him to be fair, merely what constitutes a serious crime nowadays, as apparently this isn’t, (I am of course presuming that they hand out longer sentences than 5 years 4 months, with remission after half of that for serious things……. surely don’t they?)

saladdodger – Member
The biggest crime this day and age appears to be being a “racist”

FFS this soft arse society peas me off

bring back the stocks please

Actually being a hard-ass society and saying no to any prejudice(-race, gender or sexuality) is the way forward.

If you think its fine being a racist to any race white or black then you’re an idiot and belong in the 18th century.

not paying tv licence , car tax, council tax, VAT,

Perhaps I should go abit further being a racist appears to be a bigger crime in this society than being a rapist, beating up old folk, physically hurting innocent folk etc

This society we live in appears to care more about the right of the perpertrator than the victims.

What right have victims got??? none

perhaps words do get lost on the uneducated and what happens we get caught up in this angry society we are in today eh Zaskar

Are you saying that people who are suffering racial abuse are treated better by the law than people of other violent crimes?

I think if you ask any victim of any crime they will no doubt all say they have been treated unfairly.

If you know someone who is raped (and I do and its like you do too) they will feel little support by the law and say the law favours men.

While the person who did the rape must be proven guilty while the angry mob outside are looking for blood without using their brains but their fists without knowing all the facts.

Also if the person who carried out the crime is mentally insane (as was the case in the media recently) should they be tried as a criminal too?

We have to look at both sides of the story and put ourselves in the shoes of each member-the criminal and the victim.

saladdodger – Member

The biggest crime this day and age appears to be being a “racist”

FFS this soft arse society peas me off

bring back the stocks please

We jail more of our population for longer sentences and for less serious offences than most comparable countries bar USA. It is no coincidence that countries who jail more people have more crime – because warehousing jails such as we have where rehabilitation is no longer possible breeds more crime.

It is proven time and time again that jail simply does not work other than by removing people from society for periods of time.

You may want the retribution of throwing people in the tower and throwing the key away – I would rather have less crime.

A more equal society, help, support, and education for the inadequate, rehabilitation rather than retribution reduce crime. Jailing people does not.

For sure we need jails – but our societies approach simply does not work, can never work, and there are proven alternatives that do work.

The vast majority in jail have addictions / mental health problems, are ill educated and simply thick.

Address the causes of crime and reduce crime.

Read the writings of Erwin James and Jonathon Aitken for some insight
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/jonathan-aitken-the-way-we-treat-prisoners-creates-a-conveyor-belt-of-crime-1651743.html

right wing report that actually makes some sense

Ah so we are now moving in the same direction

I take it you agree that the justice system sucks, with alot of interest in the Petty and missing the bigger issues

Punnishment must fit the crime for the sake of the victims otherwise society looses faith in the law and what next, sorry I hate to think

Salad dodger – no way are you and I moving in the same direction

I believe in rehabilitation and redemption. Punishment achieves little and I certainly don’t believe in making sentencing fit victims ideas of what it should be.

Also consider protection.

Jail also protects society against dangerous criminals wrecking havoc on the innocent who are beyond psychological rehabilitation.

The thing is we could fix everything, crime, criminals, rehab, society and look after victims but it is all down to money being available to implement and run the systems.

We’re not willing to put the money in as we don’t have it or spend it on war.

@Stoner -I don’t how you got through it but best wishes too you & your family.

FWIW, I believe that injustices within society are a contributing factor towards crime. I believe that lack of parental education and responsibilty are an even bigger factor. I believe that we have a penal system that acts little as a deterrent and is proven to lead to re offending.

None of these factors however, can be attributed to the crimes commited by the offender in the original post. He commited those crimes because he is obviously wired wrongly and needs to be taken away from society. I’ve no doubt that he probably needs hospital not prison, either way, he needs to be removed until it can be proven that he won’t commit those crimes again.

Absolutely agree with you on that trailmonkey

Speaking out against the Government. Not paying your road tax. Speeding. Littering. Not applying for accurate planning permission. You know, anything that doesn’t involve plod actually doing any bloody work.

Well I reckon its about the 3 R’s myself, Revenge: Removal: and Rehabilitation.

Revenge: Not the most worthy of motives, but I guess you have to pay heed to the Daily Mail contingent.

Removal: Which may well be the need in this case, but clearly there is an argument for removing some people from society.

Rehabilitation: To me this is the most important and the one that receives the least attention. Quite clearly if TJ is right, and certainly I accept the more people in prison, if a little unsure about the longer bit, then its not working when we are operating at a recidivism rate somewhere between 80 and 95%. So in my simplistic view of the world it seems to me that if something’s blatantly not working then its time to do something else… isn’t it?

Having been a victim myself of an assault, (thankfully not sexual), I know that what I wanted most was some form of understanding of why it had happened and to be honest some form of apology. The rest was secondary.

In this particular case, I have a horrible feeling that the poor lass who was the victim is probably feeling a lot like she’s been raped twice right now, and whatever else that cannot possibly be right, surely?

A big consideration is that what most of us actually see or hear in the media is barely half the picture. I feel deeply sorry for Ron Jeremy and I hope never to be in his or his family’s position and, Ron, I also apologise for picking up on your story. However – playing a game of devil’s advocate – I can think of mitigating circumstances to the defendant’s story. Perhaps she had received some bad news and had to get to somewhere quickly and driving – over the limit and against her better judgement – was the only option. Please don’t reply with the facts of the case; I am merely hypothesising.

Back – more or less – to the original post, accidents caused by drink driving are a serious crime but are still often accidents and are not up there with the pre-meditated and intentional hurt and suffering that can be caused by the murders, assaults, rapes etc that we all hear far too much of. Some may argue that getting into a car when knowingly over-the-limit is pre-meditated, but any accident that may result most certainly won’t be. I suspect there are many otherwise “decent” citizens locked up for causing a serious road accident by drink driving. I would also guess that their custodial sentence benefits no one other than the victims wanting retribution and I don’t believe that is what the justice system is here to serve. Guilt and remorse can be the worst punishment of all.

To put this in some personal perspective a friend of mine was brutally assaulted by a drunk and jealous boyfriend. She is now OK but it was a pretty horrible time for her, her family and her friends. Whilst the alcohol may have been the catalyst, the act for which he was tried was NOT accidental so this – in my opinion – is a much more serious crime.

Anything the police can get a tick in a box for without any effort is a serious crime…. anything that means doing something to find out what happened and (God forbid) going to court to prove guilt is a lesser offence.

I have to say that while I usually find myself on the other side from the “string ’em up, fackin judges don’t know nothing, PC gone mad” crowd, I am surprised to see that BBC article. There must be something pretty substantial/exceptional in the substance of the case to make five years appropriate – or else it’s simply a wrong decision.

“Perhaps I should go abit further being a racist appears to be a bigger crime in this society than being a rapist, beating up old folk, physically hurting innocent folk etc”

Yes – just look at the long prison sentences that John Tyndall, Nick Griffin, Jim Davidson and Bernard Manning all got. Oh, wait…

bar ends on risers….

Serious crimes are exactly what you would expect them to be. Crimes of violence and dishonesty attract carefully graded sentences which come out fairly consistently and are subject to an appeals process that allows for monitoring of them.

Picking on one unpleasant crime about which we don’t know a great deal and declaring that it should self-evidently attract a longer sentence than it has is the polar opposite of the process that is actually used to determine sentences.

If any of you can find an example of someone being imprisoned for half a decade for failing to tax their car or pay a TV licence then I will of course revise my view. 🙂

Like I said :

English had pleaded guilty to kidnap, false imprisonment, sexual assault, assault by penetration and two counts of rape.

Please tell me what might be extenuating about that. He kidnapped the woman in a Tescos car park drove her off the Thetford Forest and subjected her to a sustained sex attack. There was no attempt in his defence to represent him as mentally ill. Individually each of those would normally carry a severe sentence. The trial judge described the offences as severe.

There was no attempt in his defence to represent him as mentally ill.

How can that sort of behaviour lead to any other conclusion. Bewildering.

Well, you know, if you say that anyone who commits horrible crimes is mentally ill, then yeah, but I don’t think that is logical or factual.

Meanwhile – understanding the story behind the sentencing isn’t immediately easy because I can’t find any media reports that aren’t the Daily Fail or the Lowestoft Gazette.