Wednesday 11 November 2009

Instant? Sure!

Justice? Not so much:

The top prosecutor has demanded an end to the use of police cautions to deal with thousands of serious assaults every year amid concern that the justice system is failing to rein in violent offenders.

Keir Starmer, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, is seeking a review of so-called “instant justice”, with up to 40,000 assults each year now dealt with by on-the-spot cautions.

These include a 15-year-old boy who was cautioned for rape and a man who was cautioned for smashing a beer glass into a landlady’s face at a pub


You might feel that a caution for rape is a ludicrously trivial penalty. I couldn't possibly comment.

3 comments:

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

I don't consider it a ludicrously trivial penalty, because it isn't a penalty at all.

microdave said...

If a caution for rape is acceptable (to the powers that be), then why does someone else get arrested & DNA swabbed for telling a council official to "Fuck Off"???

formertory said...

What you don't know is the detail of the rape allegation. It could only have been an allegation as it clearly didn't go to Court.

If Plod thought they mightn't / wouldn't get a conviction, then a box is left unticked on a return to the Home Office. Better to frighten the poor bastard into accepting a caution (box ticked, hearty backslapping all round).

Arresting the 67 year old retiree for swearing also achieved a box-tick. That's what counts. Not justice or common sense.

wv: yoppo. Well, close.