James Buchanan, defending, accepted that his client had shown no remorse at the time but had since written a letter to the court.
Do you suppose he had to compose it himself, from scratch? Or do barristers have templates that they hand out to their clients, complete with all the necessary buzzwords?
Saunders drove a short distance to Davies Close, where he opened the petrol cap, pushed in a rag and set fire to it with a lighter.
The blaze destroyed the car, seriously damaged two other vehicles and some council property, at the cost of £10,000.
So, why was the charge of arson 'left to lie on file'? Does no-one get the book thrown at them any more, no matter what they do?
I'm sadly shaking my head in disbelief at this one.
ReplyDelete"Does no-one get the book thrown at them any more, no matter what they do? "
ReplyDeleteIt depends who they are, how much money is in it and how many people can be knocked out with one book.
See here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9236667/Pirate-Bay-must-be-blocked-High-Court-tells-ISPs.html
You are to be physically prevented from LOOKING at this website. Not ..downloading stuff from it which is illegal...just LOOKING at it which is legal.
Yet another precedent is being set. The death knell sounds yet again for UK Civil Liberty.
My comment's disappeared...possibly deleted because O/T ? If I broke a blog rule or offended in some way Julia I apologise. I wasn't thinking past expressing a bit of outrage at the subject :S
ReplyDeleteI'd be well hacked off if it was my car.
ReplyDeleteI've not deleted any comments. Am just having a quick read of them all now on the train home!
ReplyDelete*mystified*
Found it! It got marked as spam - god knows why! Maybe the combination of a link plus block caps?
ReplyDelete*shrugs*
Released from spam queue now.
Ooooh...first ever spat with a spam filter ! Ta for saving me haha
ReplyDeleteFor some reason this reminded me of something I read in a book once about the penalties for arson a few hundred years ago in Scotland. Basically arsonists were burned alive, those who set fire to granaries were also burned, but not burned quick.
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming that at a time when famine was a constantly looming threat, burning granaries was considered to be more serious than anything else.
"Yet another precedent is being set."
ReplyDeleteAnd it relates to the Internet, which they've long wanted to control.
"I'd be well hacked off if it was my car."
Me too!
"I'm assuming that at a time when famine was a constantly looming threat, burning granaries was considered to be more serious than anything else."
Quite so - a significant factor in the Egyptian worship of cats, as important vermin control.
The Police may arrest someone for an offence but it is up to the Crown Proscution Service (CPS - also called the Criminal Protection Society or Couldn't Prosecute Satan, amongst others) to decide if a charge will be made and what the charge will be. Like all Government funded organisations, the CPS has targets to meet - number of successful prosecutions - and budgetary restraints. What happens is that the offender is charged with the original offence, but the (usually legal aid paid) defence solicitor will say that their client will plead not guilty to the original offence - thus causing a costly trial - but will plead guilty to a lesser offence. CPS agrees with this. The result is that the CPS is happy because the box for successful prosecution is ticked, alongside the one for keeping within budget; the defence brief is happy because their client received a lesser punishment; the offender is happy because they committed a serious crime and more or less got away with it; the Bench is happy because Justice was dispensed on the facts put before them. The only ones who are not happy are the victims, but they don't really count. They never do!
ReplyDeletePenseivat