A Good Sentence?
Here's one to consider:
One of my clients was recently sentenced for a racially aggravated assault on three members of the London Underground staff, causing two bloody noses and a bit of bleeding. He also damaged one of their jackets. At the same time he was sentenced for failing to attend the court on four separate occasions. Each time he thought he had a good medical reason not to attend, and was at large for only one day. This was his sentence:
9 Months in prison for the assaults + criminal damage (jacket).
11 Months in prison for the failures to attend court.
Here's my opinion: The assaults sentence is arguably lenient. The failure to attend sentence is massively excessive. I'm therefore appealing it to the Royal Courts of Justice. Should be fun eh?
I'd be interested to hear anyone else's opinions, post away!
One of my clients was recently sentenced for a racially aggravated assault on three members of the London Underground staff, causing two bloody noses and a bit of bleeding. He also damaged one of their jackets. At the same time he was sentenced for failing to attend the court on four separate occasions. Each time he thought he had a good medical reason not to attend, and was at large for only one day. This was his sentence:
9 Months in prison for the assaults + criminal damage (jacket).
11 Months in prison for the failures to attend court.
Here's my opinion: The assaults sentence is arguably lenient. The failure to attend sentence is massively excessive. I'm therefore appealing it to the Royal Courts of Justice. Should be fun eh?
I'd be interested to hear anyone else's opinions, post away!
posted by Matt McGrath at 11:07 am
3 Comments:
Expressing opinions seems dangerously unneutral. And refering to one's work seems potentially hazardous to one's career.
The court doesn't have any way to enforce compliance with its rule that people attend hearings, other than to hold people in contempt for failure to appear.
Eleven months is pretty harsh, but it does get the message out that failure to appear will be taken seriously.
I'm not surprised by variable sentencing, however. It seems that for every harsh sentence for something minor, there is a story about a convicted killer getting out of prison after a couple of years to only commit more killings.
Deliberate Chaos
Interesting first point Nick, but I never claimed to be the paradigm of neutrality, I am a mere disciple. As for the second point, my identity is a state secret!
Chris: you argue you point well, and that is what I will face from their Lordships on my appeal. I think, however, that there would be better opportunities to send the message than this one. There are cases out there of people getting 6 months for absconding from the whole country for years!
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