Better news about bike theft.

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classic33

Leg End Member
"Defending, Michael Graham, said: "A reasonable person should’ve known they were stolen items and he concedes that now." "
A thief not knowing items he stole were stolen?
 

Brandane

Legendary Member
Location
Costa Clyde
14 weeks jail? Which will be reduced by 50% if he behaves himself whilst behind bars, so effectively 7 weeks. He'll be out for Christmas, so watch your new bikes, folks.
Seven measly weeks, for a prolific thief with 150 previous convictions. That's convictions, so not including what he has got away with over the course of his 42 years on this planet.
Another joke of a sentence. Justice, 2021 style :rolleyes:.
 

Pale Rider

Legendary Member
"Defending, Michael Graham, said: "A reasonable person should’ve known they were stolen items and he concedes that now." "
A thief not knowing items he stole were stolen?

It was a handling or receiving stolen goods offence.

Quite likely he was also the thief, but if the goods are recovered a few days later and there's no other evidence, the only provable offence is handling/receiving.
 

Pale Rider

Legendary Member
14 weeks jail? Which will be reduced by 50% if he behaves himself whilst behind bars, so effectively 7 weeks. He'll be out for Christmas, so watch your new bikes, folks.
Seven measly weeks, for a prolific thief with 150 previous convictions. That's convictions, so not including what he has got away with over the course of his 42 years on this planet.
Another joke of a sentence. Justice, 2021 style :rolleyes:.

Defendants with records like this bloke, who are not uncommon, do present the courts with a problem.

Mitigation will no doubt have been along the lines of: "While he richly deserves another prison sentence, locking him up for what will inevitably be a relatively short time will do nothing to address the underlying cause of his offending."

On t'other hand, every type of community/probation order will have been tried many times and failed.

There is 'three strikes and you're out' legislation for domestic burglary and serious offences of violence, but nothing of that type for theft.

If you legislate that a serial shoplifter qualifies for a minimum sentence, the difficulty will always be when the incident offence is minor.

The law might be your fifth shoplifting offence is an automatic 12 months in prison, but if that fifth offence is nicking a box of chocolates, it does seem harsh to lock someone up for a year for stealing something worth only a few pounds.
 

CanucksTraveller

Macho Business Donkey Wrestler
Location
Hertfordshire
Mr Graham said Akred had previously had substance abuse problems and was working to address them before the offences.

"Things were looking OK for him," he said."


Erm, apart from the fact there was a nice bag of Bolivian marching powder in his front room. So clearly our Happy Shopper Escobar was not working to address anything.
In fact given the find, the only correct way to frame that would be to say that Akred HAS substance abuse issues, and he is OK with that.

It would be nice if twatty solicitors like Mr Graham faced sanctions from judges for offering up feeble, lying mitigations that even a 3 year old could recognise as bare faced bull.
 
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Defendants with records like this bloke, who are not uncommon, do present the courts with a problem.

Mitigation will no doubt have been along the lines of: "While he richly deserves another prison sentence, locking him up for what will inevitably be a relatively short time will do nothing to address the underlying cause of his offending."

On t'other hand, every type of community/probation order will have been tried many times and failed.

There is 'three strikes and you're out' legislation for domestic burglary and serious offences of violence, but nothing of that type for theft.

If you legislate that a serial shoplifter qualifies for a minimum sentence, the difficulty will always be when the incident offence is minor.

The law might be your fifth shoplifting offence is an automatic 12 months in prison, but if that fifth offence is nicking a box of chocolates, it does seem harsh to lock someone up for a year for stealing something worth only a few pounds.

One of the issues, though, is that a serial thief coming up before the beak for their 5th shoplifting offence, has almost certainly committed many, many more offences before and between each offence for which they have been arrested and charged. So their '5th offence' is more likely to be their 25th or 50th or even 500th, but none of the others have resulted in their being actually brought to court ... So, I dunno what the answer is. Equally a 5th arrest may truly be only a fifth offence if a person is psychologically vulnerable in some way, or has some sort of intellectual delay - although one would hope that would be detected earlier, and protection/care offered ...

I've lived in a country where (fairly) minor theft by a Joe Bloggs could result in penalties too severe to ever be considered in what we like to think of as 'civilised' Western society, and nor should those penalties ever be considered in any society we want to live in long term - yet at the same time, a society where some people have no compunction about law breaking and simply do not fear arrest or any penalties to which they might be sentenced if their law-breaking is detected, and their victims - even vulnerable victims - have little to no redress, is that a society we want to live in, either, and can it be called a civilised society? I don't think so, not with any degree of sincerity.
 
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classic33

Leg End Member
Mr Graham said Akred had previously had substance abuse problems and was working to address* them before the offences.

"Things were looking OK for him," he said."


Erm, apart from the fact there was a nice bag of Bolivian marching powder in his front room. So clearly our Happy Shopper Escobar was not working to address anything.
In fact given the find, the only correct way to frame that would be to say that Akred HAS substance abuse issues, and he is OK with that.

It would be nice if twatty solicitors like Mr Graham faced sanctions from judges for offering up feeble, lying mitigations that even a 3 year old could recognise as bare faced bull.
*Wondering if he should be bothered about being caught, or he'd been placed on the list for counselling.
 
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