Tone’s promise to revise the legal system can’t come fast enough for me. Over the last few days we have learned of a young thug serving a life sentence for cutting the throat of a prison guard he and a friend were holding hostage. The story of his miserable life is full of woe – expelled from several schools for acts of violence and topping that off with a large list of criminal offences because a psychologist claimed he was bright but prone to criminal acts if he didn’t receive the correct sort of schooling. In short, his criminal career has been blamed on a failure of his local council to keep him in schools he kept getting expelled from through physical violence and he won an award for £75,000 in damages. He now has a university degree and has won several prizes for short stories. He expects to be freed from prison soon.
If there is any real justice in this world the prison guard he almost killed will successfully sue the bastard for everything he’s got.

In contrast, we have a police officer jailed for three months over a misdemeanour with a parking ticket issued to a friend. Dismissing him from the service should have been punishment enough although being disciplined and fined, having taken into account his bravery and otherwise exemplary service would have been far more appropriate.
There are serving policemen in various forces guilty of far worse offences and they still have their jobs. Referring to a recent well publicised instance I suppose being a police commissioner allowing the imbibing of illegal substances in his home isn’t quite in the same league as spiking a parking ticket but I suppose that’s where influential friends come in handy. Lying to “victims” of crime and failing to correct the “mistake” (as in “Right” Charlie and the Burrell case) is certainly more serious than the parking ticket episode yet the officers involved are still “on the case”.
The British establishment sneers at countries with corrupt legal and law enforcement systems. We shouldn’t because here in Britain law is spelled SHIT!