To think that Adam White should have never been sent to prison and we're way too soft on career criminals!

[Unicornenthusiast]

I watched 24 Hours in Police Custody on catch up. A father and husband, a completely law abiding tax payer was chasing after two career criminals who had tried to burgle his garage, where he kept thousands of £ worth of tools he needed for work.

Adam White and the two thugs were in an RTC, the thugs were injured and Adam was sentenced to 22 months in prison for GBH. He lost his life savings, his job and his wife had an abortion because she wouldn't have been able to support a new baby and their two existing children whilst he was in prison.

The two thugs received community service...

Here's a link to the full story www.lbc.co.uk/news/adam-white-24-hours-in-police-custody-backlash-fund-raised-crooks-avoid-jail/

Yes he probably shouldn't have chased after the thugs, but he didn't actually intend to harm anyone. Violent domestic abusers and career criminals seem to escape prison sentences all the time, yet a hardworking father had a custodial sentence to set an example.

I feel so sorry for Adam and his wife, especially since they had to make the heartbreaking decision to end her pregnancy due to all this.

They didn’t actually break in though did they AFAIK. So maybe going equipped?

what a thread, Im yet to watch this - thanks for raising an interesting question

The criminal duo are now suing Adam’s car insurers for £1million because of the injuries they sustained after being ran off the road - including a fractured skull, bleeding on the brain and broken bones

Wonder what your position would be, @Unicornenthusiast, if the people who sustained those injuries weren't the gruesome twosome INSIDE the car, but some innocent pedestrians on the pavement who got hit by the car when Adam forced it off the road?

You can't just give everyone a max🙄

@Butchyrestingface

That's an interesting question.

The gruesome twosome weren't actually in a car, they were riding a stolen motorbike without helmets.

I do think that chasing after the burglars was the wrong choice, clearly. I don't think Adam really thought about what he was doing, he just acted instinctively. In the police bodycam footage he seemed very shaken and concerned immediately after the crash and he definitely didn't wake up that morning thinking that he was going to cause an injury to someone. I do think the two thugs bare a lot of responsibility, they were riding a stolen motorbike without licence or insurance and they were not wearing helmets.

Had an innocent bystander been injured both the thugs and Adam should have been held responsible, you would have to look at what's in the public interest.

I've had a chance to watch this now. The two thieves were playing the system - claiming not remember things they'd discussed their memory of on camera with others. One claimed to be too badly injured to be interviewed after the incident but Police found him as the passenger in a vehicle driven by the other scrote. That vehicle was on false number plates and wasn't registered to either of them.
If an "example" had to be made of Mr White for his actions, when will it be time for the thieving scrotes to be shown that society in general won't tolerate their actions? Or is it, as it appears to many of us, that the justice system can only punish honest people who have something to lose.

The justice system has operated to protect the thieves - shown a warning that people can't act in response to their actions. The decent people have had to move house, presumably because the system can't (or won't) protect them from reprisals by scum. It all looks a bit one-sided.

The whole thing just shows how out of touch the CPS are with the public. I really hope this sparks a review and reform of it in its entirety or we will definitely see more vigilantism. I don’t think many would question Adam getting some form of sentence if the other two had actually received decent sentences themselves. Especially given Adam’s willingness to help with investigations and clear remorse versus their indignant silence and continued offending. No wonder people are reluctant to interact with the police.

It reflects poorly on the police, but in truth a lot of them have the same frustrations with the CPS.

I personally feel that minimum sentences should double each time a person is convicted of a crime - I genuinely don’t care if that means someone ends up with 25 years for petty theft if they’ve done it that many times.

Both the scrotes pleaded guilty to attempted burglary.

The 2 who attempted to burgle his home were disgusting but it in no way means he should be allowed to deliberately run them off the motorbike with his big powerful car, he has no right to take the law into his hands. They were stealing, but he deliberately tried to injure them that does not compare.

Sentences don't seem wrong based on the facts. White should have been advised to plead guilty.

One man convicted by jury of "causing serious injury by dangerous driving" after pleading not guilty.
Two other men convicted of (non-violent) "attempted burglary" after pleading guilty.

As usual, what is wrong with the UK's justice system is that February to September is 22 months.

We are ridiculously soft on criminals in this country. There should be no "human rights" for criminals, if you want rights, they come with responsibilities.

Society should be run for the benefit of law-abiders, and criminals dealt with in the most efficient way to keep law-abiders safe and protected from crime.

@Florenz agree. So logically, chasing after the 2 criminals with a 2 ton weapon (Large 4 x 4) with intent to harm is worthy of punishment too ? If he'd inadvertently hit a pedestrian would that be ok ?
What happened to the neighbour's pick up he trashed ? Some criminal damage going on there no ?

Ok, attempted burglary, which will obviously carry a lower sentence than burglary and a guilty plea which automatically means a lighter sentence.

I would have no problem with the two burglars being sent to prison but it can’t be acceptable for someone to run them off the road for their crime. They were on a motorbike. It’s pure chance that they’re not paralysed or dead. If you’ve witnessed a motorbike accident and seen the violence with which a body is sent flying through the air you’ll never forget it. For those who seem to think it’s acceptable because they were criminals, think about all the other road users. Driving recklessly, chasing a motorbike, it was pure chance that no one else was hurt. You can’t have people doing that.

This

Yuck the most he should have got was a suspended sentence. He was law abiding previously until provoked by two career criminal scumbags who will carry on thieving.

Chasing after criminals in order to protect your home, family and property is perfectly OK, yes. If he'd hit a pedestrian, charge the criminals as they are the causation. Same as if someone causes an accident and a non-fault driver hits an unoccupied, parked vehicle. It doesn't go against the non-fault driver, it goes against the fault driver, even though they didn't make contact with the parked vehicle.

If he had of caused death or injury to a innocent party due to his driving would you still feel the same?

You mean if the criminals had caused death or injury to an innocent party? Yes, absolutely. Look at how many deaths or injuries are caused by criminals now. What do we do? Send them to "prisons" where they get free food, no rent, no mortgage, no bills, free playstation, and who pays for it all? The same law-abiders who are put at risk of criminals in the first place. It's an absolute joke.

He got locked up for GBH but wasn’t the charge one of causing serious injury by dangerous driving? Which is what he did. He took a gamble pleading not guilty as there was quite a lot of evidence.

I don't think the main issue here is the fact Adam White got a sentence for what he did - although I think it was heavy considering the circumstances, but, he could have killed or injured himself or anyone else on the roads or pavement and as impulsive as the decision was, he does need to face the concequences of that.

I think the main issue is the lack of action against the career criminals who have previously committed so many crimes, and who were free to commit more, who were fleeing the scene of an attempted crime, on a stolen motorcycle (another crime) with no tax, insurance or helmets (more crimes) and who now stand to make money in compensate for the whole incident. And who were then apparently caught in another untaxed and uninsured car (yet more crime). And yet they're free to continue with this? What are they suing for? Loss of earnings from the burglaries they couldn't commit because they were injured?!

The main issue here, as with so many others, is that this man and his family have had their lives completely ruined and they will likely never recover from that, where as the career criminals stand to come out of this better than before. That's all kinds of wrong and why people are so pissed off about it.

If he had caught these thieves and handed them to police, Adam might have saved his friends and neighbours from being robbed.

Theft of work tools is a major loss that can bankrupt a tradesperson. An ordinary builder, plumber or electrician can easily have thousands of pounds worth of tools, which they need to earn their living.

Profit margins may be so tight that some can’t afford insurance, and others are badly hit by rising insurance premiums if the make a claim. It’s a widespread crime because it’s guaranteed profitable at very little risk. People who call themselves “honest” buy stolen tools at boot sales, even with identifying marks visible or obviously scraped off.

Even if the thieves are caught, the penalties are low.

I can’t help wondering if that’s due to class bias in the legal system: the victims are ordinary working-class people. They don’t really matter.

I have just watched this programme and found it very sad. Of course he shouldn’t have chased the bulgulars and it’s tragic any harm came to them; if he’d had 5 minutes to think I strongly suspect he wouldn’t have taken this action, but he acted on impulse and it’s a completely natural impulse to protect your family. He would have been high on adrenaline and it was a fight or flight response.
Whilst this could apply in a number of crimes which are not pre-meditated, I think there are clear extenuating and mitigating factors here. He is not a vigilante but a victim who acted unwisely but spontaneously when he was a victim of crime . He poses no risk to others and I cannot see why it was in the public interest for the CPS to persue this.
I have some personal experience of something vaguely similar, albeit thankfully with no one injured. Several years ago we awoke to find burglars in our house. My husband ran out and confronted them on our driveway as they drove our car away ( packed with our possessions). He had no intention of harming them, and it was his safety that was most at risk, and he wouldn’t have taken the risk if he hadn’t acted in the heat of the moment when our family felt threatened ( like Mr White we had two young children in the house and the need to protect them is overwhelming). Of course he couldn’t have stopped them driving away, but he acted on instinct to do something to try and protect us.
A month later our car was found after it crashed in a hit and run. One of the drivers fled, the other was a known recidivist and was tagged after a recent release from prison. Amongst other things, a large Bowie knife and rope was found in the back, but despite a positive ID parade apparently there was not enough evidence to link them to our burgularly and they were not charged. We remain psychologically scarred.
I am a complete pacifist and am abhorrent to any form of retaliation, but I don’t believe any violence was intended here . It’s easy to be judgmental if you haven’t experienced something like this and human psychology tells us that many of us would instinctively act in this way if under extreme threat. Studies have shown that about 20% of people take decisive action in an emergency, about 25% of us become hysterical and the rest of us freeze and don’t know what to do and/ or follow everyone else. It’s the 20% who take action who are most likely to survive a disaster. Admittedly the action here was not well thought through , but little is during an emergency, and that does not make a crime.

Difficult topic.

He probably did go too far. But the trouble is that burglary appears to have been effectively decriminalized in the UK. It's inevitable that people are going to start taking the law into their own hands at some point. Why on earth haven't the criminals been put in jail for a long time?

The saddest part of this is that the victim and his partner felt so pressured that they chose to have an abortion.

I was very shocked that he got 22 months in jail. It should have been a suspended sentence.

Had he not given chase, the culprits would have gotten away and the police involvement would have been minimal.