I cannot believe this turd only got four years...

Another shining example of your justice...no, hang on, make that legal system gone mad...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/justice/article1486464.ece


Will somebody (who knows) please explain to me how you play football with someone's head who's unconscious and you only get four years (which probably means out in two for time off etc)

Nick

What's there to wonder, legal system has been deteriorating since the idea of universal human rights has been presented. Now every criminal has "rights" and the court of law has become battlefield of lawyers - who has the better one, wins, never mind the actual crime.

Could be any number of reasons Nick.


- Guilty plea taken into account in sentencing
- Sentencing guidelines designed to push convicts through the system as quickly as possible.
- More to the events than meets the eye
- Dodgy reporting (you should be aware that the Sun is a joke. Their comic books simply makes stuff up and their "broken britain" bollocks is nonsense.

Each case is different. That's as it should be but I know of a great many cases where people convicted of GBH are doing in excess of five years behind bars. I can't comment on the details of the case because I haven't read the court report but there's a pretty full spectrum of sentences handed down and a lot of factors to take into account in sentencing. I also know of a good number of appeals by the crown when they feel sentencing has been too lenient.

Hey, could be worse. We could have plea bargaining which means NOBODY actually gets tried on the basis of the crime they committed, rather they thrash out a deal designed to keep a sinking and corrupt legal system afloat.

In any developed penal system you're going to get outrage. It's the same across europe and the US because the measure of a soceity is how it treats its prisoners. I agree with you by the way.. four years for repeatedly booting someone in the head is a good result for the violent dickhead.. if you believe everything the report says.

Sven,

I hear that a lot. Having someone protecting human rights is NEVER a bad thing. Where the problem lies is not in the people who put up the fight for protection of civil rights but the fact that those who criminals take advantage of ANY opportunity to pull a fast one. They are criminals after all.. why is it a surprise when they try to abuse the system? That doesn't invalidate the system.. it just means that you need careful checks and controls in place to prevent abuse where possible. Incredibly difficult to do while also affording avenues of redress for those with genuine grievances or cause for complaint.

Hardest thing in the world is to retain some humanity when dealing with the inhumane.

p.s. I AM all for protection of human rights... everyones human rights. law abiding and deviant alike. I'm NOT in favour of protection scumbags at the expense of the victims of their deviant behaviour.

Do the jails have to be like hotels with all the amenities? At lest at the EU they're pushing it that way. OK, they can't get outside, but the crooks enjoy more comforts inside than good part of the other population outside at least here, in my country. And when they get out (with a new set of skills, aquired from other inmates, and an attitude), quite a lot soon finds their way back - no place like home, eh? Should it be that way? The way I see it, the jail should be THE worst imaginable place to end up. OK, they may not have to stay there for long, shock treatment is sometimes the best cure, and afterwards go through compulsory psychological treatment, evaluation and rehab. But they have to have that shock first to understand, that jail is NOT a place one is willing to end up twice, if he can help it. As of now, the inmates are having too good a life behind the bars, because of some screwed up understanding of human rights applicable to criminals.

It's like anything else.

Some jails are well equipped and modern some are shit-holes that you wouldn't wish on anyone.

Some are harsh regimes, some are quite cushy. Depends on how you are categorised as a prisoner, which prison you are in, which gov/dep gov/prison service officer is on duty.

I don't have a problem with giving prisoners amenities and keeping them busy. I'd rather they were forced to work for the good of society more than they are but hey, they are revitalising and revising the community service system as well to make that happen more often.

On the whole prisons are shit places to be. Boring and violent environments housing boring and violent people.

My heart doesn't bleed for any prisoner but I do understand the value of give and take in the penal system. The carrot and the stick both have their time and place.

Personally I think prisoners are treat to lightly.

I know standards vary etc and too an extent the carrot and stick approach works, but all these guys sitting in their cells with TV's and consoles... hmm doesn't sound too gruelling to me.

'Work gangs'. Get them out picking up litter or cleaning graffitti or whatever.

The carrot side would be good behaviour allowing time off the work gangs to learn a new skill for after they are released (please god, not lock-smithing..).

I know a couple 'naughty boys' who got sent down from a couple of rougher areas in the NE came out bigger and badder due to getting hold of weights and steroids inside. So now they are just a better class of criminal!

Chris,

Mate, I'm well aware of the Sun's reputation however I was basing what I said off what I saw in the video clip. I don't care how a reporter spun that one...

Nick

Yet another brutal crime where the assailants get less than disserved and our governments seem to do less and less. Than they wonder why some people take the law into their own hands.

Ehh, where's Batman when you need him? Some good ass-whipping sometimes works a lot better than cell-sitting....

Ah well, he's in his keysi class...

Nick,

I'm with you, don't think I'm not. Thing is in the UK you have assault and homicide. I consider booting someone in the head unreasonably to be attempted murder but that's not a viable charge so down it goes as GBH. Four - Six years being pretty standard for the offence. Fact is that with conviction after a guilty plea was taken into consideration I'd expect to see that kind of sentence being passed down. In fact the judge practically HAS to give him four years or less.

Hell, if the scrote had fought the case he'd probably only have got five or six!

Remember as well that four years is the cut off point for when you are considered a LTP (long term prisoner) and that massively impacts on your parole/license/release timings and your categorisation while inside. The "system" and by system I mean government WANTS people out as soon as possible.. giving them four years or under puts them in a whole other administrative group... more scope for shipping them out quicker.

I could go on.. and on... and on.... and on...

The good news is that he'll probably spend the vast majority of his sentence in a cat B prison. They are the worst places in the system by far.

In what way are Cat B prisons worse than the others?

We get the same sort of attacks here in New Zealand and guys will walk away with Home detention. (Not aloud to leave their house for a period of time).
What a load of rubbish. It’s not a surprise we are getting more people taking the law into there own hands.

Same here, NZsouth. There are cases when persons found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm (not to mention thefts etc.) walk away with conditional discharge only. The USUAL sentence for intended murder is 4-5 years

BN,

Cat B prisons are the "holding" pens. They are generally violent, dirty, oppressive shit-holes. Over-crowded, understaffed and with the least amount of facilities to keep the scrotes occupied.

EVERYONE goes into a cat B prison at first, pending categorisation. So you have EVERY stamp of criminal in the mix. These prisons receive the lowest funding levels because the system considers them "holding" facilities from which the majority of prisoners will be moving towards other categorisations. BUT.... lack of space in prisons means that moving someone out of the Cat B they are initially in takes a shed load of time so they are the most over-crowded prisons in the system. You've got thugs, rapists, murderers, junkies, gangsters all in the mix. The fun bit is that they are also where remanded prisoners are kept... guys who haven't even been found guilty of a crime yet. Incredibly predatory environments.

Cat A you are well looked after. Great facilities and kid glove treatment because you are such a bad bad person they need to keep you sweet! Problem is that numbers in Cat A units are kept so small that there are serious headcases roaming around throughout the Cat B system.

Cat C's, open prisons etc are exactly what they say on the tin. Designed to progress the prisoners.

The money is spent on the Cat A and the Low level prisons because that is where the focus is. The headcases and the people who are looking at release. You can show significant success by keeping those two groups of people moving through the system or securely behind bars.

To make it even more interesting.. all the prisoners that are mentally disturbed and hospitals can't control them.. they are shipped into Cat B's. If you're too big a nut-job to be kept under control in somewhere like Broadmoor. Off to a Cat B you go.. the prison service has no option for refusing to take ANY prisoner who is put into their system.

Thanks for the info Chris,

Sounds like a hellish environment.

...court system is a joke in d.c. (u.s.a) too. it varies from state to state over here. i used to work security and the difference in police response and court-justice response was night and day in: virginia (where i worked)
and d.c. (where i worked)--all for the same store chain catching shoplifters, etc...

also had some family get on the recieving end of blows--in d.c., and it was all a fiasco with charges dropped because my sister was too frightened to testify. the guy she was frightened about got a visit from me (no laws broken), i confiscated his handgun, turned it in (hand guns illegal in d.c.) to the cops--who again did nothing. how's that for stupid justice. supposedly one in three males in d.c. have a stretch in prison/jail/whatever... i've heard it discribed as 'three hots and a cot' as if it were a summer camp for those who have nothing going at the moment. a male right of passage. go in, stay with your group, lift some weights... when you get out you get the, "i just got out" rep. when you have a high profile person getting their house broken into, however, you'd have thought it was 911 all over again.

for me, the biggest annoyance of all is the lack of consistancy anywhere. good cop one day, bad the next...great no nonsense judge one day...etc etc etc...makes one jaded after too much of it. i had a cop argue with me, "are you going to fill out all the paper work i'd have to do?" as a refusal to haul someone off.
i'm a PE teacher now. i got real tired of it. in the end, i'd handle it my own way. just verbally kick people out; no police...i'd take a photo and shout them out the store. on a few occasions my bluff was called and it would get more serious--usually not. it's also a city of alot of hype--which breads alot of cowardess when bluffs are called. another inconsistancy is not knowing who the few who are game to really have a go at you. you meet more timid, all bark types, but there are always several who are like the guys in the vid.

the cops here people sort of treat like peers--not authority, often. "hey dude...stay safe" kinda like. you also get the guys just out of the military, they're more willing to stand up...
my take on my experiences.