If you die in jail, few will shed a tear

At last a Judge has handed out a sensible and fully justified sentence for murder, and in his summing up said:
"The starting point is 40 years. If you die in jail, few will shed a tear and many will say it will be more than deserved."
The case at Swansea Crown Court concerned two drug addicts who were paid as hit-men by a so-called "businessman" to kill a "customer" who owed him money. But, filled with drugs, they went to the wrong house and killed the wrong person, a 17 year old boy.

Judge Justice Royce should be congratulated on passing the 40 year sentence, although something inside me tells me that it will probably be overturned on appeal and reduced on the grounds that it is against the criminals' human rights to imprison them for such a period without hope of release.
As they are both drug addicts, I would like to think that they have no access to drugs, but again I seem to remember that in another case, this was ruled to be against a criminal's human rights.

Nevertheless, short of bringing back an earlier Welsh judge, Judge Jeffreys, from his grave, we now have a judge who is prepared to hand out sentences which are real punishment and which will also prevent re-offending. Hopefully, as the judge suggests, they will die in jail, although why we should keep them there at public expense until they die, rather than hanging them, is beyond my comprehension.
The case is reported here in the Daily Mail.

The report tells us that the "businessman" who employed the killers cannot be named "for legal reasons".  Presumably he is awaiting trial on an appropriate charge, and one can but hope he gets a similar sentence.

Judge shows common sense

Judge uses Common Sense - Nationwide Protests - Judge overruled by Straw's Supreme Court

Well, not exactly, but the first has happened and I expect the second to take place any time now.

Today the Daily Telegraph revealed that an Employment Tribunal Judge had stated "An individual's race or colour is a fact of life. It does not follow that alluding to such matters to or in the presence of the individual concerned necessarily involves racism or less favourable treatment of the individual."  An employee was claiming damages for wrongful dismissal, having been sacked on the grounds that the banter between him and a coloured worker was racist and that he had added to the offence by being a member of the BNP. (Since when was being a member of the BNP a sacking matter?)
The Judge ruled that he had been wrongfully dismissed, the comments were normal workplace banter and that there was no evidence that the sacked worker belonged to the BNP. The Judge awarded him damages against Lambeth Council.
Incidentally, the original disciplinary hearing was chaired by a council official  whose title is Head of Resilience. What on earth can this mean? (see below)

The question now is "When will the protests start?". Surely the Race Relations Industry can't allow such a decision to stand as it would undermine the whole purpose of their existence. What would politicians do without the right to make unfounded racist allegations against an opponent when they have no logical arguments against what he is saying. These days the words "Racism" or "Racist" are used by anyone in order  to try to smear a person against whom they have a grudge.

And if protests do start, no doubt Lambeth Council will use Council Tax payers' money to fund appeals all the way to the Straw's "Supreme Court" in spite of their initial statement that they will accept the ruling.

Of course, the obvious question to ask is why everybody except the English seem to be getting so sensitive; it's not only the coloureds, but also the Scots and the Irish, where members of both groups have recently made claims of racism on the basis of normal workplace banter. Personally, I don't believe that they are more sensitive and that it is more likely these people are the modern fortune hunters; making complaints in the hope of hitting the compensation jackpot.

Before I retired, I had a Barbadian working for me. When I came back from my summer holiday he would joke that my tan had a long way to go to reach his standard; I'd make a comment when he returned along the lines that I was sure he was lighter than when he went. No doubt similar comments were exchanged with others and no-one minded the least. When he retired he went back to Barbados because of racism here; not he assured me racism from the whites, but from the more recently arrived coloureds who used such phrases as a "whitey's friend" and who suggested that he should have accused our employer of racism as he hadn't been promoted to a higher grade and that he should take more advantage of his colour.

Yes there has been the odd cases of severe racial harassment, but I remain convinced that probably 99% of the cases are being brought in the hope of getting money out of someone.


 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Resilience:

1. The ability to recover quickly from illness, change, or misfortune; buoyancy.

2. The property of a material that enables it to resume its original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or compressed; elasticity.