All your views, Carol, are not wrong but we have to remove emotional reactive
thoughts. I made clear my thoughts which are not so subjective as on other
webpages I have had in excess of several hundred responses which seem to take a
positive and supportive consensus view.
You say “All of this talking about the rights and wrongs of how to punish these
criminals is all a matter of opinion” maybe/maybe not – but what you are saying
is certain an opinion and yours so it is a little unfair to criticising opinion
when doing and expressing the same.
God forbid in happening to you (and I would not wish it on anyone), but
consider for a moment of you had no roof over your head or money coming in,
(setting a side for a moment that self-inflicted), and you had to provide for
your children. Like any sound parent you would understandably do whatever it
took to look after them first and put food in their mouths – it would be
survival of the jungle and this is tarnished with too many ramifications to
even try to explore! You would argue that you would not put yourself in this
position but that is the situation with thousands of homeless/rough sleepers on
the streets, (many simply because lost jobs therefore lost income to be able to
continue to pay mortgage/rents, breakdowns, bad landlord, or maternal
disputes), let alone the again perpetrators of these abysmal crimes. Everyone
wants the problems sorted out by the system but no one wants it to occur near
the doorstep! The reality, (and close our eyes to the underlying issues as
much as we may), it is here, and here to stay until we work towards positive
constructive resolution. I could go into the increasing rich/poor divide but
that is an entirely different subject for another debate!
Almost two years ago to the month, by default I was in High Street South late
one night and with some friends went into a late night/early morning
delecatecent for some food and drinks to take home and collectively enjoy.
Whilst in the store two people came in who threw racist verbal abuse at the
owner, and as we were paying for goods, came to the counter and without going
into detail, they became unnecessarily violent threatening to leave the shop
without paying for whatever they had if they had to wait to pay. They then
struck several of the innocent people at the counter with a disabled metal
crutch, (seemingly after discovered was carried for no other reason than to use
as a weapon), and therefore seemingly came into the store for no other reason
than robbery and violence but it was a case of some people got in their way –
right place wrong time. So severe were the injuries that they all ended up in
hospital – neigh I went on after visiting the police station to deal with
statement etc. I was only slightly injured and more concerned for the young
daughter and friend of one of the people with us who were standing behind me to
avoid them becoming hurt. The two perpetrators ran off but caught by police,
denied, but two of us ID the main culprit months later in a photo ID and then
we had to wait a year before it went to Crown Court as only one was charged and
pleaded not guilty so I had to attend as the chief prosecuting witness. On the
morning of the trial realising that the evidence was too overwhelming, elected
to change his plea so now not only caused people a lot of pain, injury and
anxiety, but now wasted thousands of pounds of tax payers money in preparation
for a trial that never happened. Needless to say the Perpetrator went to
prison.
Before the Judge sentenced the Perpetrator, he adjourned to consider and during
this time I submitted to the CPS food for thought to ask the Judge consider so
it was all done rationally and I gather he made refrence to this in sending the
person down.
Whilst no one was being a social worker and mitigating this non-sensical and
unprovoked thugery and violence, it was dealt with rationally and not
eye-for-eye - but it only temporally dealt with the matter. The person will
one day be released and then what? We do need to have mechanisms in place to
deal, yes, severe punishment, but tainted with rehabilitation otherwise we
continue to go on in an ever-vicious circle.
We have to be cautious, (in no way evading the issue), that we do not
intertwine the criminality that has occurred and racism, which is again another
entirely separate subject, otherwise this will be fraught with the potential of
inciting even more avoidable serious problems – pouring petrol on a fire to put
out will never work! There has sadly always been racist issues, as much between
black & asian as any other ethic group and we need to leave this to experienced
people to engage and deal. One of the most damming decisions of the previous
Government administrations was to approve, not only agree to the Ascension 8,
but then to 10 Baltic states, (especially after the fall of the iron curtain),
which has had inevitable consequences and now an island that it further
overcrowded with thousands of people fighting for the same resources, each of
the jobs, against almost impossible competition. All of this is, as I say, an
entirely different subject and one probably you and I are not experienced
enough to objectively comment outside of ‘opinion’.
No one is wanting to undermined your valued thoughts and feelings - It is not a
matter of what we ‘think’ but was is sensible and right for society an
communities long term.