Saturday, July 05, 2014

Cynical? Moi? Make it Realistic, Then

I first received the news of Rolf Harris' sentence when I was away on holiday, and it did not surprise me, but what did surprise me was the announcement, immediately after sentence was pronounced, that the sentence was being referred upwards as Unduly Lenient. I understand that such an application can be made by anyone within about four weeks of the pronouncement but this seemed to be extraordinarily swift.
Then it clicked:- just imagine that a tabloid newspaper had a reporter primed and ready to make the application in his private capacity, with a motorbike messenger on standby outside.
Commenters in the tabloids have shown their customary mixture of relish and sadism over the fact that a ruined man stands to die incarcerated. The law makes that unavoidable, but what do these people want?

20 comments:

  1. On the whole I enjoy reading your blog, but I struggle to some to terms with your general hostility to Operation Yew. Being some way in the past.does not make what these vile med did any less serious, and the lives of their victims no less entangled. Just because it is hard to get convictions does not mean that resources should not be channeled into trying to place the guilt where it belongs.

    Harris, Hall and Savile used their talents (well, maybe fame is the more appropriate word for Savile and Hall) to molest and sometimes rape children, many of them unusually vulnerable. Not every life they touched-up is ruined forever, but it is hard to imagine that they haven't had a shadow cast over them and and some have clearly not developed into the people they might otherwise have become.

    As magistrates our oath commits us to maintaining the peace and the freedom of our fellow-citizens to live under the protection of the law. For me this includes applauding those who have pursued and sometimes nailed those who thought their position in society put them above the law and free to pursue their vile ends through hospitals, children's homes and dressing rooms.. From your other postings, I think I am probably less inclined than you to look at custody but in the case of Harris and Hall I won't be losing much sleep at the thought of their bleak and cheerless future.

    And good luck to those who pursue them through the civil courts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Re: '...sometimes rape children': Hall was acquitted of those charges, Harris has not been convicted of any such offence (maybe was never charged either), and Savile was never charged at all. Exaggeration suggests emotional self-righteousness.

      Delete
    2. Hands up all those who don't thin Savile was guilty of raping children below the legal age of consent. Sometimes an emotional reaction is appropriate, and so is righteousness

      Delete
    3. Not from a magistrate, it isn't.

      Delete
  2. I am also a magistrate and I saw nothing in the Bystander piece to indicate that he or she does not agree with Operation Yew Tree.

    Harris got his sentence based on those applicable at the time for each offence. My own guess in advance was that, in totality, it would be between six and eight years. I have no qualms about his going inside at his age and if he dies inside so be it.

    Two things concern me. I am guessing, and it really is a guess, that by now he is a wealthy man. Despite that there was no compensation order but he will have to pay some of the costs. Let those who have suffered for so long because of his actions benefit from his accumulated earnings.

    I think we need a better system for getting a sentence review than anybody asking for it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are putting words into my mouth. I was careful not to comment in detail on Harris's sentence. I don't have the legal knowledge to make judgements about the state of the law at the time he was sentenced. And as everyone in our position knows, except in bizarre miscarriages of justice it is impossible to make a fine judgement of sentence if all you have to go on is media reporting. Ideally you have to be in court and concentrating.. You cannot say "the media are rubbish" in the very same posting that relies for its judgement on media reports.

      My comments did not refer to this posting alone, but to the cumulative effect of all the Bystander postings on Yew Tree, which I think show a rare and serious misjudgement of the situation. Other opnions are, of course, available

      Delete
  3. It will be interesting to see the sentences for the parliamentery child-molesters....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Why a motorbike messenger in the era of email?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hall got, in the end and after two lots of convictions for a large number of offences, 5 years (two lots of 30 months). Some of the offences were quite high-end indecent assualts i.e. they fell not far short of rape. Harris had twelve counts of indecent assualt against four girls. I think they were all low end in that they amounted to little more than groping. Not trivial, but not from that point of view as serious as Hall. What makes them more serious is that at least some of the victims were VERY young.

    Now I know that this kind of arithmetical comparison between cases is deeply problematic because one has to consider qualitative factors about the effect on the women and about the character of the offender and the degree of remorse. I still find it a little odd that Harris gets a longer sentence than Hall.

    I am also of the currently unfashionable view that the gfe of the offences i.e. the fact that they happened a long time ago and the age of the defendants (both in their 80s and not in good health) ought to have some relevance to sentence. Five years for a 30 year-old is one thing. Five years for an 85 year-old seems to me something else again.

    I cannot think that either man is now a danger to the community. I am not sure that I would go quite as far as Italy, where over-75s cannot be sent to prison (that's why Berlusconi got a community sentence) but I do not feel comfortable at the length of these sentences.

    This will no doubt draw an avalanche of criticism, and I can only say that the vengeful attitudes which seem to me to prevail now in sentencing policy make me sad.

    [Saville of course was never convicted of anything, and I wish writers would stop taking it for granted that he is guilt of every allegation made against him. I know he's dead and cannot be defamed, but that is not my point].

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Harris' assaults included digital penetration. I don't think these could be regarded as 'little more than groping'.

      Delete
    2. Italian Lawyer7 July 2014 at 11:08

      "I cannot think that either man is now a danger to the community. I am not sure that I would go quite as far as Italy, where over-75s cannot be sent to prison (that's why Berlusconi got a community sentence) but I do not feel comfortable at the length of these sentences."

      Actually, in Italy, whatever your age, you cannot be *prosecuted* thirty years after the fact, except for offenses entailing a life sentence.
      Berlusconi, on the other hand, could still go to prison if he doesn't justify the presumption that he will not re-offend. Mafia dons , for instance,routinely die in prison.

      Delete
  6. They are also eradicating his (Harris) pictures everywhere - not long before group responsibility appears on the horizen.

    ReplyDelete
  7. IF it is right that our clean and pure gentlemen of the Press had an application for an Unduly Lenient Sentence Review waiting for the result, then I'm afraid I doubt very much that it had ANYTHING to do with getting what public opinion might view as 'Justice' for the victims and EVERYTHING to do with milking a story for a few more sales.

    I feel distinctly queasy about Les Tricoteusses of the redtops knitting away while salivating at the disgrace of another 'sleb'. I have no problem at all with them being brought to justice many years after the event but DO wonder if some bandwagons have also been jumped on. And I personally place some journos just slightly below rats in the ethics department...(apologies to rat lovers everywhere)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Why use the penalties applicable to the time of the offense(s)?

    If I today come clean about my murderous shenanigans in the early 1950s will I swing for it, as would have been the usual disposal at the time?

    It seems that there are dual standards at work here, and I can't fathom any plausible reason why.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What's the dual standard? Can you think of any examples outside of murder?

      Delete
  9. It goes back to the principle that the offender is punished as he would have been at the time of the offence. The fact that sentence has been delayed so long should not see him more severely punished.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Swansong - you may have picked up the wrong piece of music?

    The bit you have explained, I fully understand. But apply that same logic to the trial today of a murderer sentenced now for a crime committed when capital punishment was the order of the day? Is there not a dichotomy?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Simple enough - you can end up with less if you are lucky, but not more

      Delete
  11. Bowstreetrunner8 July 2014 at 08:48

    Anyone can ask the Att Gen to review a case and make a reference but few are sent forward to the CoA. This is because a lot of the time the judges get the sentence bang on in accord with the law rather than the view of the Sun.

    You have to wonder though why these sentences could not have been suspended to take acount of age and then they could have been confinded to house arrest on a curfew for most of the time and have been required to pay large amounts of compensation. It seems to just prolong the agony for the now victims to have to go through the civil courts to get their redress.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I do not think any civil action should succeed. Limitation has kicked in. This is not like the rapist who won the lottery and was suddenly worth powder and shot; Mr Harris has been there, at a known address, and rich, for decades. Section 33 shuld operate to bar any claims.

    Apart from anything else he will probably die in prison so that any damages would really fall to be paid by his wife. It's just not right.

    ReplyDelete

Posts are pre-moderated. Please bear with us if this takes a little time, but the number of bores and obsessives was getting out of hand, as were the fake comments advertising rubbish.