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4 yrs for cutting down tree, no jail time for rape

464 replies

Barnbrack · 15/07/2025 19:45

Why are 2 men being given custodial sentences for cutting down a tree when men convicted of rape regularly get suspended sentences.

Is an important tree more important than a random woman! Justice system seems to think so.

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Huggersunite · 18/07/2025 14:58

Avalovelace · 15/07/2025 20:15

The minimum sentence for rape is 4 years and in order for a sentence to be suspended it has to be 2 years or less. So not possible for a rapist to receive a suspended sentence. Juries are still reluctant to find a man not-guilty of rape (*caveat personal experience).

What does that mean? You don’t accept someone you know being found guilty of rape.

Gloriia · 18/07/2025 15:00

CorbyTrouserPress · 18/07/2025 14:47

The view is unimpressive aswell now.

There’s loads of ‘unimpressive’ landmarks in the world, just because you find them unattractive doesn’t mean they are not culturally significant.

You keep ignoring the point that other trees had been cut down previously! The only reason this sole tree looked allegedly so iconic was because they'd lopped others to preserve the unimpressive view. So either trees are <checks notes> historic monuments to be saved or they aren't.

ZamaZama · 18/07/2025 15:05

So only the biggest, the oldest and the most popular are worth preserving?

World heritage as envisaged by Donald Trump.

Gloriia · 18/07/2025 15:44

ZamaZama · 18/07/2025 15:05

So only the biggest, the oldest and the most popular are worth preserving?

World heritage as envisaged by Donald Trump.

Err, no. Doesn't have to be the biggest or popular but it should make sense. Cut a load of trees down to preserve a view then send 2 blokes for prison for cutting the one tree that was left?!

They needed punishing for vandalism yes, but all this historic monument outrage is a bit ott.

What has Trump got to do with this, you do know this happened in Northumberland?

CorbyTrouserPress · 18/07/2025 15:53

Gloriia · 18/07/2025 15:00

You keep ignoring the point that other trees had been cut down previously! The only reason this sole tree looked allegedly so iconic was because they'd lopped others to preserve the unimpressive view. So either trees are <checks notes> historic monuments to be saved or they aren't.

And you keep ignoring the point that I am referring to the damage to Hadrian’s Wall which <checks notes> is a historic monument.

grumpygrape · 18/07/2025 15:59

I’d just like to remind the ‘it’s just a tree’ supporters even the defence team agreed the value of the tree to be at least £150.000.

There are some quite creative ideas here for Community punishments but most are completely unworkable.

dogcatkitten · 18/07/2025 16:01

Barnbrack · 15/07/2025 19:45

Why are 2 men being given custodial sentences for cutting down a tree when men convicted of rape regularly get suspended sentences.

Is an important tree more important than a random woman! Justice system seems to think so.

And criminal damage to Hadrian's wall an extremely important historic site. And it seems the minimum sentence for rape is 4 - 7 years and the maximum is life.

deusexmacintosh · 18/07/2025 17:22

Everanewbie · 17/07/2025 12:16

I am disgusted by this crime and glad that they have received a custodial sentence. But yes, there does seem to be weird inconsistencies with sentences handed down compared to public perception of the seriousness of the offence.

I hate to sound like a ranting taxi driver, but the system seems all out of whack. Its become a right wing cliché, but it does have some truth in it - claim that sex is real on twitter, or moan about the school governors and you'll have a riot squad at your house. Tell the police that you have been burgled or had your phone snatched and you'll get a crime reference number and text later that day to tell you that the case is closed.

Cut down a tree (albeit an iconic and particularly beautiful one) or post an irrational ill judged tweet when drunk and suffering personal trauma, and you're banged up for several years. Yet we're seeing time and time again that thieves with literally hundreds of offenses are being handed suspended sentences.

It appears that there is a political motivation to a lot of these sentences, and I'm sick of it.

Read Orwell and Huxley.

If you want to destroy a population you don't do it through overt means, you do it through slow drip drip of sociopathy. You grind people down through physical suffering, and through physiological warfare.

You tell the population that 2 + 2 = 5. Men with penises are women and should have access to changing rooms and toilets with 7 year old girls.

You tell them that rape is fine. You normalise it by encouraging unrestricted access to hard-core porn, by not punishing misogyny in young men, by putting barriers in the way to report offense, by making the victim give up before it even gets to court and if it does, you give a laughable sentence instead of the 50 years the crime actually deserves.

You tell them that Theft is good. You allow criminals to steal with impunity and rack up 30 offences before you finally give them a proper jail term. You stand idly by as phones are snatched and people are stabbed for their watches, and shrug. You do nothing as shops are shoplifted and ram raided. You give out crime reference numbers and laugh.

You repeatedly ignore calls to reform the justice system and bring in 100 year sentences and death penalties for the most disgusting, heinous crimes. Instead you welcome rapists and murderers and pedophiles into the police force and you gaslight victims of crime.

You drive a rape victim to suicide by getting the dwp to sanction her benefit claim because the stoma she needs to wear and the life long trauma inflicted on her by a violent rapist who nearly destroyed her body through blunt trauma means nothing. She needs to stop going to therapy and go back to work now. She's a lazy scrounger. Meanwhile the vile scum who nearly killed her is having a great time on his ps5 in prison.

You allow vulnerable adults with autism and learning disabilities to be abused and exploited by carers at Winterbourne View and hundreds of other care homes and NHS hospitals, and you give the violent abusers 4 months in prison.

You let a vulnerable autistic man drown in a bathtub in an nhs hospital (Connor sparrowhawk) and then you allow the same NHS trust staff/management to blackmail and send threats to his mother when she exposes the rot in the NHS.

You allow an Ethiopian migrant to attempt to rape 2 women and 1 14 year old child in uniform walking on her way home from school in Epping in Essex, then you send in the riot squad to condem the righteous anger of local residents who turn up at the rapists' abode to protest

You remove staff from train stations. You cut police budgets. You cut cctv. You allow drug addicts and anti social scum to ruin neighbourhoods and then blame 'council estate culture' for it. You allow terrorists into the country to blow up arenas and go on rampages at London bridges or blow up tube trains. You make sure people feel on edge and nervous.

You neuter anyone who calls out what is going on.

In short, you do nothing to protect victims or ease their suffering. You do the reverse. You create a hostile society that rewards sociopaths and punishes virtue, like a giant Stamford mouse experiment.

And this is the result.

Moglet4 · 18/07/2025 18:56

Absolutely45 · 18/07/2025 14:27

So numbers increased by over 7 fold, after it was made a WH site.... point made.

15m visit the Pyramids each year.

Stonehenge is original or as much as it possibly can be known to be and is far older than a Roman era wall

Hadrian's wall is a dry stone wall, the tree, around 150years old of which there are millions in the UK.

Sycamores are very fast growing, within 30 or 40 years, they'll be a decent sized one in its place.

Actually, you seem to be missing the point. It was a popular destination long before it became a WH site and very famous. It has a third more visitors than B Palace. It became even more popular after the movie but it well known and well lived long before that.

Tiswa · 18/07/2025 22:08

How about Mark Brockley who just got 5 years for selling pirated champions league subscriptions and making thousands?

Crime doesn’t need violence to have victims

OonaStubbs · 19/07/2025 04:43

I don't understand why so many people think we should go softer on criminals than we already which is already too soft and part of the reason why there is so much crime.

Absolutely45 · 19/07/2025 06:30

OonaStubbs · 19/07/2025 04:43

I don't understand why so many people think we should go softer on criminals than we already which is already too soft and part of the reason why there is so much crime.

Given we jail more, per capita, than almost all other European countries, with lower crime rates, maybe we need to look at who we are jailing, for what and how they are treated.

ATM Prison just makes criminals even worse ones, re offending rates are awful.

But who cares if these two come out worse, you'd have got your revenge.

Tiswa · 19/07/2025 08:15

Absolutely45 · 19/07/2025 06:30

Given we jail more, per capita, than almost all other European countries, with lower crime rates, maybe we need to look at who we are jailing, for what and how they are treated.

ATM Prison just makes criminals even worse ones, re offending rates are awful.

But who cares if these two come out worse, you'd have got your revenge.

Yes but that would mean overhauling the system at a Parliamentary level - it would have to be a general election manifesto pledge I think

Germany/Netherlands are the countries that follows low incarceration rates and rehab and reintegration

And the irony of it all. Average German sentence for rape 2 years and if they had done this in Germany they may well have had a similar sentence

because like it or not Criminal Damage in the 5 figures plus taken seriosuly

Absolutely45 · 19/07/2025 18:48

Tiswa · 19/07/2025 08:15

Yes but that would mean overhauling the system at a Parliamentary level - it would have to be a general election manifesto pledge I think

Germany/Netherlands are the countries that follows low incarceration rates and rehab and reintegration

And the irony of it all. Average German sentence for rape 2 years and if they had done this in Germany they may well have had a similar sentence

because like it or not Criminal Damage in the 5 figures plus taken seriosuly

Properly funding the probation service and having enough security in Prisons to prevent them becoming Drugs R- US would not need a new law.

Sentencing guidelines are changed all the time.

BTW, 2 years for rape is ridiculously low, as is our 1 or 2% prosecution rate but thats not really the subject of this thread.

imho 4 years for felling a tree, is madness but we wont agree, so you'll be pleased to know, i'll leave this thread.

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