[Closed] Our so-called 'justice' system...

Kill a cyclist with a reckless and stupid overtaking manoeuvre and you get 8 months.

Next time I need to bump someone off, I know how I'm doing it.

wow, I thought the idiot who went onto the pitch would get time, as quite frankly it shows a flagrant disregard to the safety of players who contribute £m's to the economy but 6 months for swimming in front of a few toffs in a floating coffin is ridiculous.....

[i]Next time I need to bump someone off, I know how I'm doing it. [/i]

What approach did you take last time?

Next time?... 😯 the bike industry really is kill or be killed eh..

Next time?... the bike industry really is kill or be killed eh..

Football is entertainment for plebs. Ruin their afternoon and nobody in authority gives a toss, really. This guy gets four months for an assault, even though he's apparently well known to the police, and has a ton of previous!

However... if one should be in some doubt about ones place, and has the bare-faced effrontery to interrupt the Saturday afternoon braying, champagne-quaffing of our lords and masters, then you're really for it now, sunshine!!!!

Next time I need to bump someone off,

tell us more 🙂 You're hiding behind a made up forum name so you can speak in strictest confidence 😆

Football is entertainment for plebs

Can we change our national sport, would we need to vote on it?

Can we change our national sport, would we need to vote on it?

Attendance figures already work as an effective "voting" system.

There are apparent inconsistencies in our justice and sentencing guidelines. Jaysus. Who'd a thunk it?

What Binners said

I think , on balance, they probably both deserve time but the assault is clearly Far Far worse.

I would have less of a problem if the boat race protester wasn't one OF those braying toffs.

How long inside did that halfwit get for being obnoxious on Facebook, again?

Next time?... the bike industry really is kill or be killed eh..

You're too young to remember the great "high pivot or low pivot" wars that plagued the world in the early '90s - or the nasty skirmishes over telescopic vs. leading link.

The URT war man! If you wern't there you don't know...

I don't remember the UST war much - around that time I got a head injury when a Tomacist took offense to something I said about how Cyclocross had had drop bars off road for decades.

This smacks of making an example to football thugs, i.e. you run on the pitch and slap someone then you're going down.

Do the same on the street and you'll get your wrists tickled.

While I do think that there is some degree of disproportionality, I think part of the reason the swimmer bloke got a longer sentence is because he showed no remorse and has said he would do it again. Apparently he was smiling in the court too, which probably doesn't go down to well.

Footballer bloke does have a lot of previous form, so you have to question how genuine he is, but he apparently showed remorse and contacted the Police & Sky TV about his actions. He said 'it was a disgrace & I'm embarrassed by my actions'.

But what actual harm did the swimmer do?

footballer hitter had had 3/4 of a bottle of Vodka, 10-12 pints of cider and some cans of lager.

Frankly, they should be congratualting him on his ability to hold his drink, not improsining him.

[note] I tend to fall asleep on thse sofa after having more than about 2 pints of lager so I'm easily impressed.

i'm really busy at work at the moment so can't be bothered to look up any facts however if football bloke pleaded guilty and identified himself to the police as the offender and boat race bloke pleaded not guilty then football bloke did worse than boatrace bloke. One normally gets a 33% discount on sentence for pleading guilty at the earliest stage 50% can be given where but for your actions in comming forward you would never have been identified. So football blokes startingpoint before credit for plea was 6 to 8 months imprisonment.

You're too young to remember

One normally gets a 33% discount on sentence for pleading guilty at the earliest stage

that was quick work in sending the 'assailant' down-- almost 'riot' like speed!

junkyard was he/can he be identified from the film ?

We give the discount to disuade people from playing the percentage game by pleading not guilty to put off the evil day or hope that the cps police cock up or that the magistrate jury is fooled into aquiting them . The system has decided that a reward of a sentence discount is an efficient way of avoiding unnecessary and expensive trials.

Where the crime is nailed on the judge may withhold credit but usually does not.

and [s]hit[/s] someone

Not that it makes any difference, he deserved punishment, but I doubt a clown like that will be bothered, he'll wear the time like a badge of pride.

A lifetime ban on attending ANY football matches (properly served) will be better punishment.

Does anyone think that Goalie went down a bit... well... 'easy'?

He's a footballer - what did you expect?

One normally gets a 33% discount on sentence for pleading guilty at the earliest stage

even when you are on film committing the offence ?
why do we give a discount for admitting it when it is obvious to everyone you have done it

Evidence establishes guilt. Someone isn't more guilty or less guilty on the strength of how compelling the evidence is. Tarrifs for crimes are variable and that variation is about the individual being sentenced (contrition and admitance of guilt is part of that) and the effect the sentence will have on them individually and the effect it will have on the people around them - where someone has children and dependants for instance they are innocent but they are inadvertantly sentenced too.

We're prone as a nation to get very knee-jerky about sentencing because the press and media very deliberately troll us by not giving the public the full dialogue of the sentence, only the tarrif.

In amongst an awful lot of guff in David Camerons speech yesterday (including his use of some 'facts' that had shenangans called on months ago) was one bit of interesting stuff - a plan for the judges sentencing of major cases to be televised so that the full process of mitigation is aired, and perhaps as a result we can start talking about crimes and sentencing as if we were all grownups.

So in the case of an admission of guilt..... you do that at the beginning of a trial -and therefore negate the expense of full trial and the inconvenience and frustration it causes to all the witness and victims involved...... that admission is both an act of contrition and a public spirited act and both those actions are reflected in the sentence. If someone shows no contrition, pleads guilty in the face of overwhelming evidence, forces a full trial a great expense, makes the process as long winded and upsetting as possible for the witness and victims, and their crime was shown to be heavily premediated (planning to disrupt an international televised event to make a poor point) rather than spur of the moment idiocy (kicking a football player) then the sentence will reflect that too - which is why two very similar events can can yield very different sentences.

that admission is both an act of contrition and a public spirited act

I suspect many are doing this simply for the reduction

Thanks for the explanation though I can sort of see why ish

They are not similar events, one was a disruption, the other assault. You are also overplaying the importance of the boat race, it has even less significance outside of England than it does in England outside the halls of oxbridge, it means nothing to anybody outside a very small clique.

IS it ? In all cases?

not in all cases - thats why the judge puts quite a bit of time and effort into setting a sentence. How perceptive or informed or cynical any particular judge is will skew that process too though. But - not all the information that the judge makes his sentencing decisions on is available to the jury or the public as part of the trial. There will be information he has about the defendant, his past, his family, his employment that would wrongly bias a fair trial but which rightly bias a sentence.

it means nothing to anybody outside a very small clique.

would you include in that small clique anyone who placed a bet of a fair result?