What a surprise!

[Kendall K. Down]

Well well well! What a surprise!! Two teenagers who tried - but failed -
to steal a posh motorbike have ended up in gaol.

For the seriousness of their crime? No.
For their repeated offending? No.
To protect the community from a pair of thugs? No.

Seems the motorbike belonged to a judge - and when it touched him,
suddenly his lovely liberal "be kind to criminals and stuff the victims"
principles went out the window and it was off to chokey with the crooks.

I wonder if the cure is permanent or whether his weak-kneed sentences
will be back when it is just a member of the public who is affected by
crime?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11496365/Two-teenagers-jailed-brazen-attempt-steal-15-000-motorbike-belonging-JUDGE-court.html

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

[John]

Kendall K. Down wrote:
> Well well well! What a surprise!! Two teenagers who tried - but failed -
> to steal a posh motorbike have ended up in gaol.

What a surprise, Ken gets his facts wrong - again.

> For the seriousness of their crime? No.

Yes, they carried a machete and threatened the security guards with violence

> For their repeated offending? No.

Not mentioned in the report, so we don't know whether they had previous
or not.

> To protect the community from a pair of thugs? No.
>
> Seems the motorbike belonged to a judge - and when it touched him,
> suddenly his lovely liberal "be kind to criminals and stuff the victims"
> principles went out the window and it was off to chokey with the crooks.

Your evidence that the Judge who sentenced them was the same who owned
the motorbike is? Your evidence that if it was a member of the public's
bike, the Police wouldn't have also procured the arrests, the criminals
involved weren't exactly the brightest tools in the box from reading the
report, so I would imagine the arrests were fairly easy to make.

> I wonder if the cure is permanent or whether his weak-kneed sentences
> will be back when it is just a member of the public who is affected by
> crime?

Your evidence that the Judge, whether it be the one who sentenced, or
the one who owned the motorbike, has a reputation for handing down weak
kneed sentences is. Problem, is, neither Judge has been identified in
the news reports so how could you possibly know?


> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11496365/Two-teenagers-jailed-brazen-attempt-steal-15-000-motorbike-belonging-JUDGE-court.html

and rather than go by the headline, read the report (in fact it's always
worth checking out other newspaper reports as well because the headline
is inaccurate.

THEY WEREN'T ACTUALLY JAILED

One received a suspended sentence, the other received a supervision
order. In my opinion they got off light. Threatening someone with a
machete would have been instant jail time if I was the Judge.
Seems to me this was a clumsy attempt to attack Judges - something you
have previous for.

Finally this has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity in the UK,
which doesn't bother me, but a few months ago you berated another poster
for doing exactly that.

[Mark Goodge]

On Sat, 3 Dec 2022 00:45:46 +0000, "Kendall K. Down"
<kendal...@googlemail.com> wrote:

>Well well well! What a surprise!! Two teenagers who tried - but failed -
>to steal a posh motorbike have ended up in gaol.
>
>For the seriousness of their crime? No.

Yes, it was. They used weapons and threatened staff with them. That makes it
robbery with violence, which almost inevitably means prison.

>For their repeated offending? No.

Nobody ever gets improsing just for repeat offending. But it's a factor in
the sentencing.

>To protect the community from a pair of thugs? No.

That's part of the reason for prison.

>Seems the motorbike belonged to a judge - and when it touched him,
>suddenly his lovely liberal "be kind to criminals and stuff the victims"
>principles went out the window and it was off to chokey with the crooks.

The judge who pronounced the sentence was not the judge whose motorbike they
tried to steal.

Mark

[Kendall K. Down]

On 04/12/2022 14:58, John wrote:

> Yes, they carried a machete and threatened the security guards with
> violence

Nah. That's par for the course these days and only worth a reproving tsk
tsk from the bench.

>> Seems the motorbike belonged to a judge - and when it touched him,
>> suddenly his lovely liberal "be kind to criminals and stuff the
>> victims" principles went out the window and it was off to chokey with
>> the crooks.

> Your evidence that the Judge who sentenced them was the same who owned
> the motorbike is?

Sorry, I wasn't claiming that. I should have said "a fellow member of
the judiciary" instead of "him".

> Your evidence that if it was a member of the public's
> bike, the Police wouldn't have also procured the arrests, the criminals
> involved weren't exactly the brightest tools in the box from reading the
> report, so I would imagine the arrests were fairly easy to make.

They may have been easy, but when people provide the police with the
actual location of the stolen object and the police still refuse to take
any action, their efficiency in this case is surprising.

> Your evidence that the Judge, whether it be the one who sentenced, or
> the one who owned the motorbike, has a reputation for handing down weak
> kneed sentences is.  Problem, is, neither Judge has been identified in
> the news reports so how could you possibly know?

*All* judges these days seem to be weak-kneed namby-pambies. Knock a
pair of criminals off your motorbike that they have stolen and you go to
gaol for two years. The criminals, of course, get a derisory sentence of
unpaid work - which they won't do.

> One received a suspended sentence, the other received a supervision
> order.  In my opinion they got off light.  Threatening someone with a
> machete would have been instant jail time if I was the Judge.
> Seems to me this was a clumsy attempt to attack Judges - something you
> have previous for.

I think you make my point for me. *You* - and any other member of the
public - would have thrown the book at these and all other criminals.
The judges ...

> Finally this has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity in the UK,
> which doesn't bother me, but a few months ago you berated another poster
> for doing exactly that.

It is tangentially related. The Bible is rather keen on the punishment
fitting the crime with the principle of an eye for an eye, perhaps a
motorbike for a motorbike ...

[Kendall K. Down]

On 04/12/2022 18:58, Mark Goodge wrote:

> Yes, it was. They used weapons and threatened staff with them. That makes it
> robbery with violence, which almost inevitably means prison.

As I said to another poster, that sort of thing is par for the course
these days. You would only go to gaol for it if you were a law-abiding
member of the public protecting yourself and your property - in which
case it becomes "taking the law into your own hands" and draws down
condign punishment.

[Mark Goodge]

On Sun, 4 Dec 2022 19:41:27 +0000, "Kendall K. Down"
<kendal...@googlemail.com> wrote:

>On 04/12/2022 18:58, Mark Goodge wrote:
>
>> Yes, it was. They used weapons and threatened staff with them. That makes it
>> robbery with violence, which almost inevitably means prison.
>
>As I said to another poster, that sort of thing is par for the course
>these days.

And you go to jail for it, unless there are specific mitigating
circumstances. It's a grade A crime, which is anything from three to twelve
years in prison depending on the other factors.

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/item/robbery-street-and-less-sophisticated-commercial/

Bear in mind that most sentences don't get reported. They are only
newsworthy if they are in some way different to the norm. And that's usually
the very small number that are unusually low. Most crimes have a fixed
maximum sentence, but no minimum. What that means in practice is all the
outliers are at the bottom end of the scale. So just ebcause something is
reported in the newspapers don't mean it's typical. Far from it; It's the
fact that it's *not* typical which makes it worthy of being reported.

Mark

[Kendall K. Down]

On 04/12/2022 20:51, Mark Goodge wrote:

>> As I said to another poster, that sort of thing is par for the course
>> these days.

> And you go to jail for it, unless there are specific mitigating
> circumstances. It's a grade A crime, which is anything from three to twelve
> years in prison depending on the other factors.

Oh yeah?

"A hundred violent crimes are 'screened' and shelved every day by police
officers, data shows. Police officers 'screen out' reports based on
factors such as the severity of the crime and the prospect of a
conviction - as more than half a million reports were dropped overall
last year."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11501873/A-violent-crimes-screened-shelved-day-police-officers-data-shows.html

> Bear in mind that most sentences don't get reported. They are only
> newsworthy if they are in some way different to the norm. And that's usually
> the very small number that are unusually low. Most crimes have a fixed
> maximum sentence, but no minimum. What that means in practice is all the
> outliers are at the bottom end of the scale. So just ebcause something is
> reported in the newspapers don't mean it's typical. Far from it; It's the
> fact that it's *not* typical which makes it worthy of being reported.

The headlines scream "125 yeas for brutal murder" and then you read the
details and discover that there were 15 people in the gang and it is the
total of all their sentences which comes to 125 years. (Those are made
up figures, but typical of the "tough approach" to crime of which
successive governments boast.)

Your statement above is only partially correct. It is when the sentence
is egregiously low that it gets reported. As you say, there is no
minimum, so criminals are routinely given low sentences (or tough
sentences suspended for three months); you have to be a Yorkshire Ripper
- or steal a judge's motor bike - to get the judiciary stirred up.