16 Months For Charlie Gilmour (Student Fees Demo)

[LemonDifficult]

I wasn't very sympathetic to the rioters but 16 months seems a long time to put someone this young away for. Ridiculous. He'll get the fright of his life in the first few weeks and then what? What's the point of all those extra months - at tax payers expense.

I guess he won't do the full term, but still. It seems crazy.

interesting

thanks for that, riven

'Charlie Gilmour is many things, but he's not dangerous, unless you happen to be a bottle of Gordon's Gin. Meanwhile, it seems unlikely that whoever, at the same protest, beat 20-year-old Alfie Meadows until he bled into his brain, will be facing charges; in fact, Alfie himself is now amongst the many young protesters up on charges of violent disorder this summer, presumably for headbutting a police baton.'

'This is British justice. Over the past six months, 200 police officers have been dedicated to hunting down and punishing students and school-age protesters as part of Operation Malone and Operation Brontide. Meanwhile, a senior Metropolitan police officer devoted less than eight hours to reviewing the original News of the World phone-hacking investigation.'

Violent behaviour on our streets affects most people's lives & we like to see the 'violent crime' statistics falling for peace of mind. The police will always prioritise catching violent criminals because it's what we expect them to do. Successfully prosecuting dangerous people like Gilmour and the rest doesn't make a violent policeman's actions any more or less acceptable or phone hacking more or less distasteful.

I went on a student demo when I was 20 and the most outrageous thing I did was blow a whistle.

Maybe the next student demo some of the yobs may think twice about smashing things up, setting tuff on fire, etc as they will know that there is a good chance they will get a substantial custodial sentence if caught.

Gilmore I believe was also in the group that went into one of the big dept stores, Harvey Nicks??? He stole a leg from a shop mannequin and was involved in criminal damage in the shop as well.

I am puzzling over the judge saying he took into account the fact it was VIPs in the car. Thats awful. I would like it to not matter whether its Charles or my old mum on benefits in the car.

Don't see why you'd be puzzled. Randomly damaging a car is one thing. Deliberately targeting a prominent person is another. If it had been your 'old mum on benefits in the car' would they have even bothered? No.

I understand what you are saying Riven but the fact is that we do have to place more emphasis on the protection of VIP's, hence the reason they have bodyguards at taxpayers expense. Therefore it's logical that the law should punish perpetrators harder.

I think we also must put into perspective the comparison's between Gilmour & phone hacking. Yes the phone hacking thing is diabolical but there was no violence. And whilst it turns most people's stomach what happened, no-one was physically hurt or could have been.

Gilmour's actions were violent and all done whilst under the influence of drink & drugs. He physically attacked a car carrying the royals. To be honest I'm amazed the police didn't fire a few shots into the crowd. After all, they weren't to know if the mob would stop at just the car or if the aim was to kill their principals.

It's because of the violence I do think it's right that Gilmour serves more time although as a person I'd rather share a beer with him than Goodman or Mulcaire.

He's a law-breaking piece of scum that needs to be punished. When he comes out he will still have a multi-millionaire dad and not need to have to work for the rest of his life.

''I think we also must put into perspective the comparison's between Gilmour & phone hacking. Yes the phone hacking thing is diabolical but there was no violence. And whilst it turns most people's stomach what happened, no-one was physically hurt or could have been''

well it actually pales in comparison, the corruption and lack of ethics is far more insidious and damaging to a society at large that the actions of a drugged up, over excited spoiled brat imho

ManicMiner puts it well. But niceguy says it best(apart from the sharing a beer, you do know you would have to pay don't you)

he will be out in a week

niceguy - have you missed the Screws involvement in a case of murder? They were hacking the cop investigating one of their private detectives who was accused of murder. They have also employed other convicted murderers. They were also, of course, hacking the phones of murder victims and dead servicemen and women. And of course poor Sean Hoare is now dead - probably of addictions encouraged in the course of his work for the Screws. (Of course he bears personal responsibility, but it's surely shared with the commissioning editor who encouraged him to 'party' with celebs to get showbiz news?)