Friday 6 December 2019

What's A Report Going To Tell You That Common Sense Isn't?

Joseph Holden appeared at Oxford Crown Court on Friday after pleading guilty to a string of motoring offences in Headington and Cowley Road.
The 25-year-old was caught on April 8 this year and charged with aggravated vehicle theft, driving while disqualified, handling stolen goods and driving with no insurance.
An open and shut case, surely?
An earlier sentencing hearing was adjourned after presiding Judge Peter Ross criticised the 'very poor' quality of a report from the National Probation Service.
Yesterday the same court judge slammed another 'useless' report by the probation service.
We aren't told what, exactly, is wrong with the report. Nor why the judge's dissatisfaction with the probation service should mean that a prolific offender is set free to wreak more havoc...
He ordered that Holden be made subject to a three-month period of deferment before final sentencing is passed.
I expect the judge's car has a good alarm system.

4 comments:

Scrobs. said...

I'm never sure what 'aggravated theft' is...

Who was aggravated, the owner or the criminal? What aggravated one of them was it a flea, a bed bug or maybe a BBC film documentary?

If he was (the crim) aggravated, then why did he go out to nick a car? Surely he could have phoned for his nourishing and fulfilling pizza?

These questions never really get answered, but plod must be a bit fed up with yet another botch by the probation crowd. Maybe the latter hate the idea of Brexit!

Stonyground said...

I've been following these posts about lenient sentences for quite a while now and have come to the conclusion that there really isn't a solution to the problem of people like this tosser. In an ideal world such people would enter the penal system and emerge at the other end as honest and productive law abiding citizens. Every approach has been tried over the years from the Draconian to the supposedly more enlightened approaches. It would appear that the vast majority of these scrotes have the word scrote written through them like a stick of seaside rock. So, what would you do with them Julia? It is a shame that space travel hasn't advanced to the point where we can ship them off to another planet.

Anonymous said...

@S,
I read some time ago, of a tribe in Papua New Guinea, which it's own, unique, form of crime prevention. Apparently, if someone commits a crime, it is not that person who is punished, but someone close them, say a parent, sibling, or child. Taking away the moral and legal aspects, would a car thief steal a car if they knew their mother or wife could end up in jail? Would an Islamist jihadist knife people if they knew that half of their family would be charged with that offence? An interesting concept.
Mind you, my views on crime prevention are a little to the right of Genghis Khan.
Penseivat

JuliaM said...

"I'm never sure what 'aggravated theft' is..."

It's usually with threats of - or actual - violence, isn't it? Penseivat or Jaded would know.

"...and have come to the conclusion that there really isn't a solution to the problem of people like this tosser. "

Not one a 'progressive' society will tolerate, no. I guess civilisation goes have drawbacks.

"Taking away the moral and legal aspects, would a car thief steal a car if they knew their mother or wife could end up in jail? "

Yes. Because these usually aren't masterminds, and they never believe they'll be caught.