By Isle of Wight Observer
Judges often get a bad rap, so well-done Mr Justice Fancourt, who last week said Prince Harry’s hacking case against the Sun newspaper was ‘improbable, lacked credibility’ and more crucially, ‘witnesses’. Those of us sick and tired of Harry and Megan’s ‘truth’ were delighted they were given short shrift. Will they now finally ‘move on’ and start earning a living?
Higher praise is due for Judge Jeremy Johnson, who last week sentenced the cold-blooded killer of police sergeant Matt Ratana to a whole life order. The contemptible murderer concealed a firearm when arrested. On arrival at the police custody suite, when Sgt Ratana tried to search him, he was shot and killed for his trouble. In court, the shameless defence argued the accused man had suffered an ‘autistic meltdown’ as a result of being arrested, oh, and he was bullied at school. I wasn’t in court, but whatever the man’s history, no-one made him carry that gun, and no-one made him use it on a police officer doing his duty. Sadly, not all judges get it right, and whatever they claim, Britain’s politicians went soft on crime years ago. Without fear of punishment, crime always flourishes. But wait, there’s an election looming, so both parties say they’ll get tough on lawbreakers, even shoplifters!
Knife crime seems endemic, and I’ve seen drug dealing on the streets of Ryde. I guarantee there’s a drugs ordering service at your teen’s school. Friends of friends use cocaine, the drug of choice for the middle classes. ‘Cool’ coke users, often with kids and mortgages, happily turn a blind eye to how the trade works. In every part of the UK, dealers run around fighting and shooting each other, with little regard for the consequences.
Drug buyers should think about Olivia Pratt-Korbel, the 9-year-old shot in her own home, because her killer was hell-bent on executing his rival. Randomly, the fleeing man burst into the child’s house, and the pursuing gunman shot her through a crack in the closing front door.
Another Liverpool lowlife shot Elle Edwards. He armed himself with a sub-machine gun and sat in a pub car park until closing time, opening fire on his enemies without regard for who else he hit.
Are you sick of hearing defence lawyers making excuses for these criminals? I am. Courts lap up even the weakest excuses and preposterous stories. When there’s violence, it’s always the drink to blame. When large quantities of drugs are discovered, the offender insists they were for personal use. Even when there’s enough weed to keep a large family high for a decade, they swear they planned to smoke it all themselves! Caught with enough class A to kill a herd of elephants? Sure, it was just your personal stash. If we see through these pathetic excuses, why don’t the courts?
However awful the crime, with too few prison places, criminals are soon back on the streets. Most offenders are freed halfway through their sentence. The world’s first DNA killer, Colin Pitchfork, raped and murdered two 15-year-old girls. After serving 33 years, he was released in 2021 and soon breached his license conditions, so was jailed again. Incredibly, our wonderful parole board has decided to let him go again!
Whatever the cost of prison places, our criminal justice system should be there to protect us, and it doesn’t.
Frankly, men like Pitchfork deserve execution, but in this country, that ship sailed long ago. For all the plausible ‘miscarriage of justice’ arguments against the death penalty, I would say where there is certainty, capital punishment is justified. If they can’t find anyone else willing to do it, I’d volunteer myself – certainly for killers of children or police officers.