What Planet Are They From?
Lord
Chancellor Derry Irvine believes that burglars
should not be sent to jail for a first, or even
second, offence. He was backing up Lord Woolf,
Britain’s most senior judge, who two weeks
previously ordered the courts to go soft on
burglary. Irvine’s comments come after a
machete-wielding burglar, with 51 previous
convictions, was freed at the Old Bailey by Judge
Simon Goldstein so he could write poems. And at
Norwich Crown Court, another burglar who admitted
breaking in to seven homes was given community
service by Judge Alasdair Darroch. What exactly
is a “first offence”? It means the
first time a burglar is caught and brought before
the courts. That isn’t always one and the
same thing. Young burglars are often let off with
a caution. In the case of the
“first-timer” before Norwich Crown
Court, it was seven offences. And they’re
just those he put his hands up to. Only a handful
of reported burglaries are ever solved.
So it’s perfectly conceivable that a
“first-timer” may have committed dozens
of break-ins before the law catches up with him.
Irvine doesn’t even think a second-time
offender should be jailed, even though he may
have been responsible for hundreds of unsolved
burglaries, unless there are “aggravating
features”. Clearly carrying a machete
doesn’t count as an “aggravating
feature” these days. Not according to Judge
Goldstein, who released serial offender Mark
Patterson to concentrate on his poetry while
undergoing an 18-month drugs rehab programme.
There's little chance of Derry Irvine ever
becoming a victim of burglary himself. He lives
in grace and favour apartments in the Palace of
Westminster which are protected by 24-hour
security. There is even a checkpoint at the
entrance to his apartments to stop the public
getting too close. There’s certainly plenty
of potential swag in his 15-bedroom home to tempt
burglars. The luxury-loving Lord spent £600,000
of taxpayers money renovating the apartments,
which come as part of his job. They have
four-poster antique beds, wallpaper worth
£59,000 and famous paintings. His second home is
hardly in a crime ridden area. He owns an
eight-bedroom farmhouse six miles from the
Argyllshire village of Clachan, which has had two
burglaries in 30 years.
A
judge sentenced a drink-driver who killed three
in a 90mph smash to be jailed for just 4½ years.
Aaron O’Reilly, 19, knocked back vodka and
other spirits before taking his step-brother on a
ride in his dad’s Sierra. He was travelling
so fast around a 30mph bend the car was balancing
on TWO WHEELS. It collided head-on with a taxi,
killing the driver and two passengers.
O’Reilly was two-and-a-half times over the
limit and had not passed his test, Bolton Crown
Court heard.
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