IF you’re a straight white Christian man, you might want to think twice about committing a crime next month.
But if you belong to a minority ethnic group or faith, or like dressing up in women’s clothes, then feel free to go out and fill yer boots!
GettyWhy should someone’s skin colour or religion have anything to do with what punishment they should face?[/caption]
AlamyJustice Secretary Shabana Mahood has insisted ‘there will never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch’[/caption]
That’s the startling message that went out this week from the Sentencing Council in their new guidelines for judges and magistrates.
Under the new rules from April, courts will be ordered to commission a “pre-sentence report” about any criminals who come from “an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community” or who are women, pregnant, a primary carer, or are young adults, addicts, or who have a mental or physical disability or claim to be transgender.
Special treatment
That’s quite some list. It makes you wonder how gingers and baldies didn’t make the grade, or the obese, or even people with a slight lisp — all groups who apparently face discrimination yet won’t get special treatment under these new rules before a judge decides whether to send them to prison and for how long.
Indeed, there’s barely anyone left in the country after that list.
Except straight white men, of course. So what on earth is going on?
Well, the point of those pre-sentence reports is to tell the judge more about an offender’s background — often a sob story which could result in a lower sentence.
But why should someone’s skin colour or religion or claim to be transgender have anything to do with what punishment they should face for breaking the law?
We all grew up being told that justice is blind — hence the statue of a blindfolded Lady Justice that stands above the Old Bailey in London.
Yet you’d have to be blindfolded these days to believe we don’t now have a two-tier justice system, depending on who the criminals and victims are.
When Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood was confronted about the sentencing guidelines in Parliament by her Tory shadow, Robert Jenrick, she insisted “there will never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch”.
She’s going to be bloody furious when she finds out about the justice system’s response to last summer’s Southport riots, isn’t she?
The Sentencing Council claimed the new rules will not create any NEW unfairness but will instead seek to rectify “existing” unfairness in the system that sees ethnic minorities face harsher sentences on average.
We are all equal before the law but some of us, it seems, are more equal than others
But studies show there are many different reasons why ethnic minority offenders may get tougher sentences than whites, including factors such as social and economic background, whether they have a criminal record, how soon or if they plead guilty, and the types of crimes committed.
Even if there is a racial factor, it’s certainly the not ONLY factor.
Robert Jenrick criticised the bid to enshrine this “double-standard, two-tier approach” to sentencing, which would make prison sentences less likely for minority groups.
But in a rather grumpy interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, presenter Emma Barnett told him that his claims were “false” because a listener who was a “sitting magistrate” had written in to say just that.
Equal before the law
Of course, we don’t know if the BBC had verified that the listener was indeed a magistrate or if they were in fact the son of a Hamas official.
It’s an easy mistake to make, after all.
Whatever the intentions of these new rules, discriminating between offenders based on irrelevant racial, religious and gender identity grounds will not deliver justice.
We are all equal before the law but some of us, it seems, are more equal than others.
One piece of advice though: if you’re a straight white man and you do go off the straight and narrow, make sure you remember to tell the judge you’re actually a drug-addicted Buddhist convert.
Oh, and wear a dress.
PARobert Jenrick criticised the bid to enshrine a ‘double standard, two-tier approach’ to sentencing[/caption]
Devoted to dodgy Donald? Get real
The Mega AgencyTrump is horribly, dangerously wrong when it comes to Ukraine and Putin[/caption]
HEALTH warning: there’s a new kind of TDS around. Trump Derangement Syndrome has mutated into a new variant.
The old kind of TDS afflicted Lefties so badly that ANYTHING Donald Trump said or did, no matter how sensible, was evil.
The new variant has the exact opposite effect on MAGA devotees.
Whatever the high priest of their cult says or does, his followers treat it as the gospel truth, no matter how mad or bad it is.
Trump claims the democratically elected Zelensky is a dictator, while ACTUAL dictator Putin is just a peace-craving, trust-worthy victim? Okeydokes.
Trump wants peace in Ukraine so he stops all military aid to the Ukrainians to force them to surrender to their invading Russian forces?
Yep, that’s fine with us.
This cultist devotion is as maddening as it is dangerous.
I cheered on Trump’s victory in 2024, and I agree wholeheartedly with him on tackling immigration, Net Zero, wokery, trans ideology, runaway public spending and on backing Israel.
But when it comes to Ukraine and Putin, I – along with the majority of the British people, according to a new poll – believe he is horribly, dangerously wrong.
Blind loyalty to a political leader is as dumb as the first version of TDS.
It’s time for a big dose of Trump Reality Syndrome.
Meg-a fake
I’VE been laid up in bed with a flu-like bug for the last few days with nothing but tea, soggy tissues and paracetamol for company and I’ve still not been bored or desperate enough to try watching Meghan’s new series on Netflix.
No one can escape her With Love, Meghan lifestyle show completely, of course, with non-stop clips doing the rounds of the Duchess of Montecito’s fake home, fake garden, fake cooking, fake friends and fake smiles.
Not to mention her fake life as a working mum.
“We all have to work”, she beams as she lays out £20 worth of fruit in a rainbow pattern to make breakfast more “fun” for her kids – all while wearing a designer white outfit.
Marie Antoinette would be proud.
If only ALL us working parents had to worry about was which rich celebrity chum’s private jet we’ll borrow this weekend instead of having to pay the bills, put non-rainbow shaped food on the table, get to our jobs on time and argue over whose turn it is to buy the sodding milk.
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