AIBU to think that a mum of two should not be jailed for

[Mitmoo]

taking a pair of shorts that her friend stole in the riots.

She's got six months.

A young man who took £3.50 worth of water from a ransacked shop got six months.

I want justice, I want those who terrified my family even though we were fortunate enough to only view it through the television screen to be punished but I want some kind of proportionality.

Do we remove mum's from their children for six months because she took a pair of shorts from a friend who had been in the riots?

It was wrong of course, she should have shopped the "friend" but six months????

menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1455638_mum-jailed-for-six-months-for-wearing-pair-of-looted-shorts-

FGS he wasn't unarmed, he just hadn't fired at them.

There is existing provision in law for aggravating features (like riot) to be taken into account. This is neither new nor grand standing - it is the application of the current law in light of the full circumstances.

I would not like to see the law ignored because of the type of sentences it is producing.

Each case is being heard individually. Unless you think magistrates are wilfully disregarding relevant parts of the cases, then each person is being treated individually according to their crime (which includes the aggravating feature of the riot). Some are pleading not guilty and will be tried in a different court (including the young man on whom the eviction order has been served).

troisgarcons why would you assume they are being poorly represented by a duty solicitor? That is not how the system works

To be fair lucey we are only just starting to hear of the sort of punishments being handed out.

I dont read the Guardian btw and I am a proper, born and bred, working class pleb. I live in an area affected by this crap.

If you give disproportionate punishments it will not make people think 'oh no I have been really bad and if I do it again I will get into trouble and look what I have done to my family and friends'

They will think 'you see the fucking government dont give a shit about me, its not fair, this is bullshit and when I get out I will show the bastards'

I am sick of this country be run by people who panic at the sight of a pressure group on Facebook or a petition sent online. They react to what they think want them to do. They are so used to being told what to do by Murdoch that they appear to be flailing about looking for someone to show them the way.

Should I stay on holiday? Wait till the papers start asking where I am. Then I will stand up and spout platitudes and attempt to look like I give a toss about what is happening in places I never really need to go to.

I am a Labour voter but for the record I think Blair would have done EXACTLY the same thing.

well its her own problem. she took in the stolen good, only got herself to blame

oh and if you go around with a loaded gun then expect to be shot

I echo what MrsDeVere said.

I was in court last week for riot-related offences and I was completely ashamed of our justice system. The heart of our court system is its independence from the political process. Whatever is going on, whatever the politicians are saying, we are supposed to be able to rely upon our courts to deal scrupulously and appropriately with everyone who comes before them. The procedure they have to follow is set in statute and can only be changed by the appropriate parliamentary action.

Except, apparently, when the government decide to try to hike up their popularity by their "tough handling" of a breakdown in law and order. Then it is apparently acceptable for the courts to entirely disregard the proper procedures and turn fundamental legal principals on their heads.

Some of the things that were going on in the courts last week, in accordance with directions issued from "above" were completely and totally unlawful. Many of these sentences will be challenged and overturned. Bail refusals are already going up to the Crown Court in their droves and they are being overturned. All this is going to cost a bloody fortune apart from anything else.

It is at times like this that we have to be able to rely upon our judicial system to be absolutely straight down the line. Just because the rioters broke the law does not justify the courts doing the same. It also sets an extraordinarily frightening precedent - so every time the goverment fancy messing around in the administration of the law they can just crack on and do it? Without going through any sort of consultation or review process?

Do we really want a judicial system that is run according to the whim of whoever is in power at the time?

It is entirely right and proper that consideration is given, when sentencing and considering the issue of bail, to the wider context against which the offences were committed, but the sentencing exercise still has to be done properly. And it is not being done properly. Not by a very long stretch of the imagination.

I wanted to be proud of the way our courts responded to the crisis. Instead I was utterly ashamed.

MillyR- crime destroys people's quality of life, it isn't just about people dying, the UK is supposed to be a civilised country.

I know of at least five houses that have started off involved in the storage of stolen goods and the family has moved on to more serious offences which have led to deaths. The rioting has taken up all of the polices time, in that time, there will have been the movement of drugs and guns, thanks to the rioters. That would not have gone undetected without them.

I have posted about this as i think that some of the riots were organised deliberately, people need to be given the message that if it happens again, keep off the streets or go to jail.

'I think that the damage done by looters in other cities outside of London cannot be underestimated, not in financial terms but from the blocking of any useful debates on the cause of some of the problems eg gangs.'

I think that some of the later rioting in London could be added on to this as well.

The problem is that the first night of rioting, which was closer to an outburst of rage than the later shopping spree looting, burnt people out of their homes. The 'businesses' burnt weren't a string of chain stores. A lot of them were owned by the family who lived in the flat above them. It was an attack by some of that undeniably underprivileged and marginalised community on other parts of that community.

For this interested in the IPCC statement about the possibility of error - there's a separate thread here.

Add message | Report | Message poster troisgarcons Sat 13-Aug-11 12:24:53
I'd also wager that most of these people are accepting magistrates court by pleading guilty instead of going to crown court on a non-guilty plea. They will be poorly represented by the duty solicitor. Crown court would throw out most of these cases.

Sorry, but this is utter bollocks. There have been a large number of guilty pleas in the mags court, but these are mainly people who are so spectacularly bang to rights that a Crown Court judge would throw the book at them for wasting court time. They are going for maximum credit by pleading early.

Furthermore, the courts have been told to refuse bail to looters. So if you elect Crown Court trial then you are sitting in custody for 4 weeks waiting for a committal hearing and then probably another 6-8 before you get before the Crown Court to enter your plea. By the time you are sentenced you have probably done longer than you would have done if you had pleaded.

And finally, for about the million and tenth time, the duty solicitors are not some sort of sub-breed of solicitors who are kept locked up and only trotted out to dish out rubbish advice to poor, unrepresented defendants. The duty solicitors are a rota of every solicitor in a particular area as long as they have passed the duty exams. So you will get exactly the same advice from the duty solicitor at court as if you walked into their office and applied for legal aid, or even paid privately.

I co-defended alongside a duty solicitor in a looting case last week and I can assure you that her client was scrupulously represented.

Do those of you who feel it was unduly harsh think that people who looted during riots should receive the same sentence as someone who slipped something under their coat in Tesco on a Saturady afternoon and walked out the door? Do you not think that context makes a difference?

Puffin - no, I don't. I think the context has to be considered. But not to the exclusion of all other considerations.

What is going on at the moment is making a mockery of justice.

A gun was found 'near the scene' - not on him. Report isn't detailed enough to say he lobbed it out of the taxi window. Or not.

The police watchdog has admitted it may have wrongly led journalists to believe that police shooting victim Mark Duggan fired at officers before he was killed.

Mr Duggan's death in Tottenham, north London, on August 4, was the trigger for the first of four nights of riots that spread from the capital across England.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) confirmed today that it may have 'inadvertently' given reporters misleading information in the early stages of the investigation.

It was initially reported that Mr Duggan, 29, shot at police. But ballistic tests later found that a bullet which lodged itself in one officer's radio was police issue.

The IPCC said in a statement today: 'Analysis of media coverage and queries raised on Twitter have alerted us to the possibility that we may have inadvertently given misleading information to journalists when responding to very early media queries following the shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police Service officers on the evening of August 4.

'However, having reviewed the information the IPCC received and gave out during the very early hours of the unfolding incident, before any documentation had been received, it seems possible that we may have verbally led journalists to believe that shots were exchanged, as this was consistent with early information we received that an officer had been shot and taken to hospital.

'Any reference to an exchange of shots was not correct and did not feature in any of our formal statements, although an officer was taken to hospital after the incident.'

Mr Duggan was a passenger in a minicab which was apparently stopped by police near Tottenham Hale Tube station.

<strong>A non-police issue handgun, converted from a blank-firing pistol to one that shoots live rounds, was recovered close to the scene of his death.</strong>

The bullet lodged in the police radio is a 'jacketed round', a police-issue bullet consistent with being fired from a Metropolitan Police Heckler and Koch MP5, the IPCC said.

An inquest into Mr Duggan's death, which opened at North London Coroner's Court in High Barnet on Tuesday, heard the father of four died from a single gunshot wound to the chest

Mitmoo, removing these poor excuses for parents from their children will be the best thing that has ever happened to them

She knew the circumstances of how the shorts where stolen, they weren't shop lifted, they where taken under extreme conditions.
It's nice to know the OP was terrified though her TV, many of us live here. I was fortunate enough not to live above a shop here, but when I went to my local shop less than 5 min away had to comfort my 2 yr old son as our friendly local shop was being boarded up. This has affected every single group of shops for miles around me. We heard some neighbours walking past cheering that they were going rioting. Maybe some of you would feel differently if you had watched your communality being burnt on TV?

I agree. I wasn't aware of what is going on in regard to bail.

'Furthermore, the courts have been told to refuse bail to looters. So if you elect Crown Court trial then you are sitting in custody for 4 weeks waiting for a committal hearing and then probably another 6-8 before you get before the Crown Court to enter your plea. By the time you are sentenced you have probably done longer than you would have done if you had pleaded.'

I have always opposed anything that removes a defendant's right to go to the Crown Court and get a 'proper' trial, and in the interests of cost savings these rights have been seriously curtailed over the years. I can see that there will be serious pressure from above in the interests of making sure the 'looters' are seen to be dealt with swiftly and effectively. I can also imagine that the sheer volume of cases has caused a not exactly speedy system to become intolerably congested, so getting people to plead guilty is very handy.

I don't oppose longer sentences but that is shameful.

Thanks TroisGarcons. I knew that he hadn't fired but thought that the gun was found on his person IYSWIM.

evenlessnarkypuffin Ditto! Every one has the right to be tried by jury.

Oh and if all solicitors were equitable in ability etc - as said, the millionaires daughter would be using a duty one.

Scaredy-People sometimes make jokes to relieve tension. A group that i was taking out had to be canceled, these were SEN DC's, i made the joke to a couple of them, that i know well, that i had seen them with a microwave in one hand and a 42" telly in the other, shouting at the CTTV, because they were frightened and it made light of what was happening. This was 'up north' not in London, though.

evenlessnarkypuffin The Guardian omits any mention of a non-police issue gun sad shrug A lot of sloppy reporting and misinformation stirred this up.

maypole you reckon?

You really think the care system is set up for an influx of sibling groups and older children/teens?

They wont be able to stay in their schools because they will be shipped off to Kent if they are lucky and scattered even further afield if they are not.

I can pretty much catagorically state that it will NOT be the best thing that could ever happen to them.

Women in prison
I know this isn't evidence of being researched properly Quimby but I'm hungover and not about to search through the plentiful documents supporting what I said

also interesting

In England and Wales, the number of women in prison has increased by more than 200% in the past 10 years versus a 50% increase in the
number of men in prison during the same period (Prison Reform Trust, 2006).
More stuff from Prison reform trust

Putting women in prison doesn't work...we are imprisoning more men that women for similar crimes...we are punishing women and children unfairly, I believe.

Same rights go for a 'dad of 2' then or for a parent of however many. The punishments have to come, there's no way around it. Parents need to teach their chilren not to steal and lead by example. I feel very sorry for this woman's children. :(

Stupid scummy bitch handled stolen goods.
Stupid scummy bitch got caught.
Stupid scummy bitch got sent to prison for a reasonable stretch.
End.

I don't give a flying fuck whether she's got kids or not. Having children doesn't mean you can commit crimes with impunity. It's not a 'get out of jail free card.'

(And yes, anyone who took part in the appalling violent disorder, either directly or indirectly, is scum regardless of their socio-economic status, be they students, bankers, single mothers, teachers, athletes, game keepers or retired fucking librarians.)