Letting rapists out early
The Government seems to excel in convincing people they are doing one thing whin in fact they do the opposite. Take last year’s sentencing act which they claimed was a response to the 90% referendum vote for tougher sentences. How many people realised it allowed criminals to get parole after only one third of their sentence now.
The Act has also been so badly put together that not even the Court of Appeal can work out what it means. They have asked Parliament to “rewrite Section 86 more clearly” as they saw `major problems” and could `foresee this subject being a fertile source of difficulty for some time to come, both for sentencing judges, and on appeal”. In the normal diplomatic language of the courts, this means it makes no sense and is contradictory. This is what happens when you use Acts to try and con people that you are doing what they want.
One Appeal judge described a section of the Act as “inept drafting” and “something like the Hampton Maze”.
August 1st, 2003 at 2:30 am
Isn’t the final comment rather unfair on the Maze at Hampton Court Palace? After all it does what it was designed to do and has been the source of much harmless entertainment for three hundred years. None of the above can be said of Section 86.
August 6th, 2003 at 6:23 pm
I found it very illuminating a few weeks ago when looking at pleas in mitigation and submissions on sentencing (will be a lawyer in a few weeks, you see) that one would be best advised to point out to a judge the ACTUAL effect of sentencing, when considered in light of the Sentencing Act. But then, to me the actual sentence given should be the sentence served. Otherwise fools are being made of us all.
August 6th, 2003 at 6:24 pm
Oh, I missed out an ‘and the Parole Act’ in there. Shame on me.