Theres liberal and theres taking the piss

[Garp]

Originally Posted by Le Hoff

Man-slaughter?! What? That's such a sad and anger filling report. I'm disgusted.

By strict legal definitions it is Manslaughter.

Murder is pre-meditated, i.e. they had deliberately set out to kill him.

In this case he was, for want of a much more appropriate phrase, collateral damage, and that makes it Manslaughter.


edit: Slightly altered variant of Matt's message sent to my own MP.

[Will]

I knew / know what manslaughter is, but this borders on it IMO. He actively went to hit him, and then proceeded to taunt him once he was down. It's not the sort of person I want to come out of prison in 2 years time tbh.

[Von Smallhausen]

Originally Posted by Garp

By strict legal definitions it is Manslaughter.

Murder is pre-meditated, i.e. they had deliberately set out to kill him.

In this case he was, for want of a much more appropriate phrase, collateral damage, and that makes it Manslaughter.

Murder by law does not have to be pre-meditated in terms of killing but any prosecutor must be satisfied of an intent to kill or cause GBH. The intent to kill is not an absolute must for a Murder conviction as an intent to cause GBH is sufficient.

Reading the link ......

Witnesses described how 6ft tall Chambers then punched 5ft 1ins tall Mr Barnes. He fell to the pavement, his head hitting with "a hollow noise"

There is the assault, he has hit his head as a result and that could be argued as GBH.

The court heard Chambers shouted: "Get up and have some more. Get up you pussy. I knocked him clean out."

Not only has he assaulted him, caused him to hit his head and spark him and his life, out, he wants him to have some more.

I think the intent is there .......

Murder .. Manslaughter ... I would say that, legally, the definition of Murder has been satisfied, but wheeling and dealing, my client is sorry and a guilty plea for a reduction seems to be the case.

While I could be argued to be slightly biased, I have to ask is the life of a good man worth 2 and a half years ? Is that what is meant by justice ?

I don't give a **** what bullsh*t the brief spun in the court, but that sentence is an absolute affrontery to justice and no deterrent in the slightest to try to curtail such thuggery which is rife amongst young wannabes'.

What should have happened is slamming the bastard with a minimum 10 year sentence to give him plenty of time to think and give the public a break from him as he is clearly a danger to them.

Only one person has benefitted from this and that is the lad convicted because sure as **** the justice system and more importantly the victim and his family have not.

[Will]

It must be tough in your job Von to see this sort of thing happen (i.e. convictions being toned down) - especially with effort you put into it.

[Von Smallhausen]

It is one of the things that drags you down sometimes Will I must say.

I have seen legal briefs' spin a load of bull in court about how much their client is remorseful and is off the drugs and engaging in community activities ....... while I am thinking if I said that in the box I would be committing perjury. Often, that load is swallowed by the bench or the judge and a crap sentence is given out and the accused walks out of court with two fingers up, literally.

It's a game though .... you win some and you lose some.

Don't get me wrong, people who turn away from the crime and drugs I will support and help, and have done before.

[Will]

Originally Posted by Von_Smallhausen

Don't get me wrong, people who turn away from the crime and drugs I will support and help, and have done before.

As we all should. If they are making an active effort to improve themselves and give back the community you can't really hold that against them if they are genuinely trying to reform themselves.

[Garp]

Originally Posted by Von_Smallhausen

Don't get me wrong, people who turn away from the crime and drugs I will support and help, and have done before.

Trying to balance the needs of justice with this are always challenging. You get the hardliners who always see the crime in black and white, who claim that any crime should result in permanent lockup without ever stopping to ask why the crime was commited in the first place. The newspapers do nothing to help on this front; and yet you can't just be liberal wishy-washy and allow people to get away with crimes because they came from a bad background or what have you. If they commit a crime, they should be punished but alongside that they need helped too; otherwise they end up in the same old spiral.
When leaving prison after however long, they're out of touch with the world. They've got no job, few firms are interested in taking on ex-cons, more often than not the only ones to accept them as a human being are the bad crowd. Any wonder re-offending rates are so high?

[Von Smallhausen]

A fair comment Garp, re-offending rates are high and there are underlying reasons for that.

It isn't impossible to get off that road though. You need not look any further than our malc for that. Not only has he changed the way he was and the life he led, he is giving that experience back to people to try to stop them re-offending. I said before, what that man has to offer cannot be bought.

I am no goody two shoes though. I have said before I could easily hae turned to crime when I left school as there were few jobs and one lad I kicked around with went on to serve about 7 years for conspiracy to supply class A drugs and other offences. I often think could that have been me ?

[Von Smallhausen]

Unfortunately, I can't contact my MP about it as I cannot get involved in politics officially. I can sound off here but I can't write a letter to my MP.

It may sound daft but it's in the print when you join.

[Daz]

It's the same for soldiers and the like if I'm not mistaken?