A fire at a clothes shop which led to a shopping centre being evacuated was started by a child using a cigarette lighter, it has emerged.Consequences for the ‘parents’ of said junior firebug, who by the way was four years old?
Zero:
After consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), no criminal proceedings will be brought, Staffordshire Police said.I bet they’ve learned their lesson…
"The owners of the store are aware of these developments and they have been informed that officers have interviewed the parents of the child involved," the spokesman added.
Get drunk (again) and assault a police officer? No problem:
A female police officer who wasConsequences?
battered by a drunken thug, leaving her face potentially scarred for life has watched her attacker walk free.
Again, zero:
But despite the seriousness of the offence which was caught on CCTV, Ryan Thomas was given a suspended prison sentence, a community service order and a fine.I bet he’s learned his lesson…
Though, judging by the picture of him and his equally scummy wife (who the police thought he was about to assault, hence the intervention) leaving court, probably not.
He pleaded guilty, so I have no doubt there was some filthy horsetrading to get a lesser sentence in return.
ReplyDeleteSave the State effort and bother, walk free from the court. He should have got two years.
Would decent people really care that much if people like this were never seen again?
ReplyDeleteEven prison isn't a deterrent, playstations, studying for degrees, satellite TV...
ReplyDeleteWe need to make prisons hard, get rid of foreign prisoners to make room (why should the taxpayer fund this anyhow) and good realistic sentences.
There's a start without even building new ones!
Then the courts wonder why police officers start tasering people or punching them when they are already restrained.
ReplyDeleteThis is not to excuse the police, but is it any wonder they lose it when the CPS seem to sell them or their investigations out so regularly? Then the CPS carry on with the most inappropriate of prosecutions which should never have gone forward in the first place.
I'm not right impressed with the CPS and wondering if, with the trend towards unified investigation and prosecution authorities (RSPCA, Benefits Fraud Unit, HMRC), we should go back to the old way of having prosecutions brought the police, with them being responsible for their own bad calls?
(That's a genuine question - I can't make up my mind about it.)
Two things I was brought up never, ever to do.
ReplyDelete1) Hit a woman
2) Hit a police officer.
I really am feeling my age these days, and I'm only 43. God knows what people older than me feel when they read things like this.
Actions without consequences is something I've been banging on about for years now.
ReplyDeleteOf course, ALL actions have consequences, but when the individual fails to take responsibility and when the state actually encourages them to abrogate their resonsibility to the state it is the rest of society who suffer the consequences for individual actions.
"Then the courts wonder why police officers start tasering people or punching them when they are already restrained."
ReplyDeleteIt must be hard to be a police officer, with barmy regulations, the media on your back and your dimmer, more authoritarian colleagues besmirching your name left right and centre...
"..when the individual fails to take responsibility and when the state actually encourages them to abrogate their resonsibility to the state it is the rest of society who suffer the consequences.."
Indeed. One way or another, there's always consequences.
We need to ensure the right people suffer them for a change...