My view is that the impact upon the victim should be a significant factor in determining the severity of the crime. Which is why I would always regard breaking into an old lady’s house more seriously than stealing from a supermarket.

But in this case his stealing water from a supermarket was part of a huge disturbance that will have made old ladies the length and breadth of the country more fearful of being out on the streets.

He was part of a riot, not a casual shoplifter.

Are you suggesting that the information in the article is poor and/or misleading ? If so, why are you extensively quoting the article ? I’ll check later to see your answer.

Well, only because you asked…

I’m suggesting that the information in the article is by definition second hand and selective, and that the people actually making the decisions in court might be better placed to make them than you.

What’s your problem?

And I was quoting the article because you did, to show that it doesn’t support your interpretation of events. You seemed in your earlier posts to have been saying that the guy was sent down “just” for lifting the water. I was pointing out that even your source for this info (the article) made it clear that there were several factors involved in the judgement.

Are you suggesting that articles such as the OP’s original link to the Daily Telegraph, represents bad and misleading reporting which doesn’t report the true severity of the crime rightplacerighttime ?

Have you even read it?

Here are some extracts.

He (the magistrate) said Robinson’s previous good character and early plea of guilty to a non-dwelling burglary, as well as the low value of goods stolen, the fact he was in education, and his remorse, were in his favour.

But the judge said: “The aggravating features are the background of serious public disorder and your part in that.”

“The prosecution submit that this defendant has contributed through his actions and criminal conduct to the atmosphere of both chaos and sheer lawlessness.”

In other words, the court has taken many factors into account (not just what was stolen) and come to a judgement.

You might think it sounds a bit harsh, but given that you weren’t in court, maybe you should just step back a bit from the absolute certainty that you seem to be expressing that some hideous travesty of justice has taken place?

Personally, I think that if he has received a slightly OTT sentence, then there might well be a bit of overall good in that “opportunist” participants at future incidents, might decide to take the “opportunity” to stay out of jail rather than the “opportunity” to jump in and become part of the problem.

I’ve got no sympathy whatsoever for the defendant, but 6 (3) months in prison isn’t going to kill him is it? If he’s the sort of upstanding citizen that you’d like to think he is, then maybe it will give him a bit of a kick up the ar$e to do something +ve with his life.

So seriously, what the ****? Either you think some sentences are disproportionately high or some are too low but there’s no way you can think they’re fair.

Or, maybe… the magistrates who are actually in court, actually dealing with the people first hand, actually seeing the evidence being put forward, are better at sentencing than a bunch of pundits on a MTB forum?

Only the ignorant would fail to see through that. Black, white, yellow or whatever – the kid nicked a bottle of £3.50 water.

… during a riot.

Nail ’em up I say.

There are lots of things in life that aren’t “fair”

But at the moment, the courts need to scare the $hit out of all the hangers on who were out on the streets egging on the hardcore and getting in the way, so next time they don’t think it is some sort of carnival and the police can get on with their jobs.

If it costs £20,000 to get the message across then that is cheap.

maybe the guy can spend the 6 months thinking about how to do something +ve with the rest of his life, in which case it might not be a total waste of his time.

How can a team of 9 support a green jersey campaign AND the GC?

This is a major question.

On the highlights yesterday they interviewed Mark Renshaw and he more or less said that he, Cav and Bernie Eissel were a single unit.

So what team could include all of them working to win the sprints without degrading their GC chances?

And out in the beer garden.

Here come the ladies.

Meanwhile, in the blue corner….

Spoiling for a fight.

I own one of those, and disagree that these are real issues.

That’s because you are a short arse. :D

Moot point anyway, because he’s unlikely to be able to get one.

I’ve used the old Polaris (single skin) tent – wasn’t very good as foot was very low and prone to condensation soaking the end of your sleeping bag. Also quite low front door.

I owned a KIMMLite sub kilo which was a similar design but with a high front porch (good for cooking and getting in. Bit heavy/large pack size though

I also owned a Sup AIr, which was a brilliant roomy single skin tent – less prone to condensation problems because of its high volume, but also because it let loads of air through it due to holes above the doors at both ends – so it was chilly – also it had a ludicrously low front door so getting in and out was a right faff.

Currently using a Terra Nova Laser Photon 1 tent for mountain marathons, which is a similar design to the Laser Comp, but a bit smaller and lighter. Sleeps one or two at a squeeze (head to toe) – about .7 kg

The new laser ultra is even smaller and lighter, but I don’t want to spend another £650 just to save another 100 gms.

Terra Nova tents are generally all V good quality and customer service is top. I broke the pole on my Photon (or rather it broke in high winds (manufacturing fault on spigot – not design problem)) and they replaced the whole pole by return of post. If you look around the camp at any mountain marathon these days about 50% + (including almost all elite teams) will be using Terra Nova tents.

Laser comp is probably best compromise for the non-fanatic.

I switched to Mac because they were quiet and looked nice – at the time of the football imac.

Currently using a 27″ imac for the same reasons + amazing screen + never ever having had any virus/malware problems (that I know about) + whenever I have to use a PC (my wife has a laptop for work that I occasionally have to help her with) I hate its clunkyness.

Actually, if we really want to be pedantic…

“The RAF is a useless bunch of professionals.”

But that doesn’t quite scan right either – something to do with RAF (singular) and bunch (plural).

Maybe…

“”The RAF is an organisation composed of a bunch of useless professionals.”

OK Go!’s vid too. I’m not sure what was first

Actually if you look at about 2:30 on the camera vid I think you have your answer.

Actually, got the tread title wrong. What I should have put was:

I’d be surprised if ANYONE who isn’t either too young to have warm feelings for Mouse Trap, or has already spent way too much of their life practising being unimpressed by viral marketing doesn’t like this…

What a return on my investment!!!!

10 seconds posting the camera vid for nearly 4 minutes of OK Go.

I’d seen the thing they did with the treadmills, but their machine was fantastic.

Their music is a bit dull but their art is great.

You haven’t had time to watch it.

There’s a very good cheese shop in Cartmel.

If you’re in N Lakes pop into Cranston’s Cumbrian Food Hall in Penrith which has local produce and also a cafe.

Wilf’s Cafe[/url] at Stavely also V good.

And when we’re in that neck of the woods we like to take our kids to the Ice Cream Farm[/url] near Penrith – also open to adults.

So is the next revelation going to be skulduggery by someone working for one of the networks?

Hard to imagine the the Royals wouldn’t have reset their pin numbers (or rather had them reset for them).

Used to use Danish Oil on our Iroko worktop which worked fine – just reapply to any worn bits as and when.

I think if you use LInseed oil, then it needs to be boiled linseed, otherwise it will be sticky.

Well, I’ll add that to my list of things I’m glad I tried once.

Quite liked whizzing round when I was on my own but I didn’t like getting too close to the other riders and the top of those banks is a long way up.

Managed to not stop pedalling.

Think I’ll stick to the MTB though.

Here it is BTW

Website

He made an awful judgement in a tricky situation. But with 140 cars amongst 180 riders, I don’t think it’s fair to expect that perfect judgement will always be made. There’s a pic of a saxo bank team car that’s obviously been rear-ended. Personally, I think it’s a miracle that the crowd in the mountains don’t cause more accidents.

I agree that it’s miraculous how few incidents like this there are, but you would have thought that they might have shown extra care and attention in trying to get past the lead break?!

I used to run a bike guiding business about 20 years ago.

Used to charge £10 for half a day including bike hire, which seemed like a lot at the time.

On the days that I made £200 it was great, but on the days (most days) that I made £0 it wasn’t.

Didn’t do it for very long.

And here it is with Dutch (Belgian?) commentary – which I think adds something;

Whoops post in wrong thread!

Here’s the crash

£29,995 for an 10 km walk – WTF?

Oh yeah, about the “Arab press” thing…

What language do you think Al Jazeerah reports in?

Is it “Muslimic”?

Or perhaps “Middle Eastic”?

Oh no, wait a minute…

Biased BBC reporting of the march?

Sensitive about your BBC aren’t some of you, Rightplace.

What?????

What is that supposed to mean? What do you think my “agenda” is. My only relationship to the BBC is when I occasionally watch a programme on the iPlayer, listen to the radio or look at the BBC news website.

Are you wearing your tin-foil hat?

All I’m sensitive to is the fact that you are talking complete and utter rubbish.

Personally I was dead against the war, so if the BBC was as you said, why would I be defending it?

I only dipped into this particular discussion because of the breathtaking scale of your wrongness. It seems unfair to let you continue that way without trying to help.

You’ll note that there is absolutely no doubt expressed by the journalist about Saddam having WMDs. There is no mention of Hans Blix or his team. There is no mention of the increasing cooperation being shown and the unlimited acces to sites being accorded by mid February. The BBC consistently reported the WMD threat and gave little if no credibility to the results being presented by Hans Blix. That’s why the BBC was propaganda and TF1 and Eins Extra can be congratulated on balanced reporting.

FFS Edukator, you are being unusually obtuse about this.

Took me about a minute to find this report by the BBC from 3 days after the one you posted highlighting all of the work done by Blix and throwing lots of doubt on the existance of WMD.

Another BBC report

You seem to have backed yourself into a corner and are unwilling to see the wood for the trees.

Nothing to do with this then?

French media reaction to DSK

The BBC is blantant government propaganda, Ernie.

Rubbish. I think the way Blair lied to us about going to war was outrageous, but in no way was the BBC supportive of it.

But just as an aside, do you remember there being any sort of question over the behaviour of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in the French media prior to his recent arrest? (or even after?)

ATP – that’s for company cars though – maybe different.

Personally I think the whole thing is BS – but if anyone does really know, please step forward.

It’s not worthy of a slot on Crimewatch imo

But I think the bigger picture of many of these sorts of assault is.

There are several similar incidents on film – a nice montage + Feds talking about how it IS taken seriously would be a welcome development.

Not a member of roadcc, but has anyone suggested handing it over to Crimewatch – would make a good feature given that there is footage.

In which case, what do you think they do with all the receipts?