Hurrah! A Charitable Foundation I Can Finally Get Behind!

Restaurant owner Mr Uddin, who is planning to set up a charitable foundation in his son’s memory to help fight knife crime, told the Standard: “The level of knife crime in London is frightening. The judges need to send a strong message to people knife crime is a serious offence.

“I don’t think 13 years for murder does that. The 16 year-old that killed the teacher (Ann Maguire) was given 20 years. Why such a difference in the sentences? They were both pre-meditated murder.

“I will never get my son back. No sentence would have done that. But I don’t want this to happen again, for another family to be ripped apart like ours. Harsher sentencing would help.”

Indeed so! But don’t expect to be feted in the left-wing press like other youth violence campaigns if you’re going to demand that the little darlings be sentenced to longer in prison, rather than to ‘more hugs’.

Mrs Uddin added: “He (Drake) sent a letter to the judge showing remorse, but I don’t believe him for a single moment. He has never apologised to us. He just did it to get a reduction in his sentence and that’s what he got.”

Mrs Uddin is clearly smarter than most of the judiciary, but then, yeah, faint praise indeed…

Some, however, are waking up:

The family’s comments came after one of Britain’s most senior judges said on Friday severe prison sentences were the only way to save the lives of innocent people caught up in street violence in London.

Lady Justice Hallett said: “Boys keep dying yet still their associates routinely carry knives and other lethal weapons. The residents of the streets of east London have to survive incidents of this kind, terrified by what they see.

“The only way in which the courts can play their part in trying to discourage this kind of behaviour and prevent further tragic loss of young life is by marking the gravity of the offending with severe sentences.”

Hear hear! More like this, please!