As the waters rise, a two-year sentence for throwing soup. That’s the farcical reality of British justice.
George Monbiot, 01 October 2024, The Guardian
Why do the mass killers of the fossil fuel industry walk free while the heroes trying to stop them are imprisoned?
he sentences were handed down just as Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina. As homes were smashed, trucks swept down roads that had turned into rivers and residents were killed, in the placid setting of Southwark crown court two young women from Just Stop Oil, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, were sentenced to two years and 20 months, respectively, for throwing tomato soup at the glass protecting Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. No prison terms have been handed to the people whose companies deliver climate breakdown, causing the deaths of many thousands and destruction valued not at the £10,000 estimated by the court in damage to the painting’s frame but trillions.
Everywhere we see a farcical disproportion. The same judge, Christopher Hehir, presided over the trial of the two sons of one of the richest men in Britain, George and Costas Panayiotou. On a night out, they viciously beat up two off-duty police officers, apparently for the hell of it. One of the officers required major surgery, including the insertion of titanium plates in his cheek and eye socket. One of the brothers, Costas, already had three similar assault convictions. But [sic] Hehir gave them both suspended sentences. He also decided that a police officer who had sex in his car with a drunk woman he had “offered to take home” should receive only a suspended sentence. Hehir said he wanted “to bring this sad and sorry tale to its end with a final act of mercy.” The solicitor general referred the case to the court of appeal for being unduly lenient, and the sentence was raised to 11 months in jail.
Hehir also handed a suspended sentence to a man who rammed his car into the gates of Downing Street and was then found by police to have extreme child abuse images on his phone. By contrast, in July Hehir–the Judge Jeffreys of our time–gave five climate protesters who blocked the M25 jail terms of four and five years. It looks to me as if justice itself is suspended in Southwark crown court.
The disproportion became still more visible after racist rioters (some of whom should arguably have been tried as terrorists) this summer received much shorter sentences than the nonviolent M25 protesters. It was highlighted again when the newsreader Huw Edwards received a suspended sentence for his disgraceful crimes. When people expressed their shock, lawyers and other upright citizens defended the disparity, primly explaining that it represents the proper application of sentencing guidelines–as if this somehow makes it right.
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