I thought you were a bloke!!!

[Julia9054]

He gets raped?

It's a slightly crass way of expressing astonishment at the apparent lenience of the sentence. Of course he doesn't mean he wishes he could be raped.
I am very disappointed at the lack of a custodial sentence. Can only imagine what the victim must feel like at what seems to be a total downplaying of what he did to her. I am still wondering how the sentence would be different if this unprovoked attack had happened in a town centre and no car or bike were involved.

 

[Mugshot]

Of course he doesn't mean he wishes he could be raped.

What do you think his "drift" is then?

I am very disappointed at the lack of a custodial sentence. Can only imagine what the victim must feel like at what seems to be a total downplaying of what he did to her. I am still wondering how the sentence would be different if this unprovoked attack had happened in a town centre and no car or bike were involved.

I agree.

 

[Accy cyclist]

He gets raped?

No nothing that bad! He means they'll then expect him to do their ironing for them.

 

[Julia9054]

What do you think his "drift" is then?

It's a slightly off colour joke indicating that he doesn't think the sentence matches the offence

 

[Mugshot]

It's a slightly off colour joke indicating that he doesn't think the sentence matches the offence

The "drift" suggests there's some inference to be drawn, specifically something that ozboz believes could happen to a woman, someone mistaken for a woman or someone treated like a woman in a mans prison. It could be ironing as Accy has suggested, it could be a beating to mirror the original offence what it is not is nothing. I'm sure ozboz will be along and tell us what the "drift" was that he'd like us to get.

 

[Julia9054]

The punishment involved in imprisonment is the loss of liberty. We don't send people to prison to be assaulted, sexually or otherwise.

Which is moot as this guy is free to walk the streets. The message is that it is fine to seriously assault someone if they get in your way on a bike - especially if you think they are a man.

 

[Mugshot]

I'm not sure how sending him to prison would really be a good use of resources.

Yeah, but if he'd gone to prison.........

 

[Julia9054]

Hardly 'fine'. He pleaded guilty and has been punished. He might also be sued by the victim. I'm not sure how sending him to prison would really be a good use of resources.

The light sentence normalises violence in the context of road rage. Other forms of assault are seen as "other" - something that a person that is not unhinged would not dream of doing.

 

[Markymark]

Yes quite, you are not telling me anything I don't know or disagree with, but a suspended sentence is still a sentence in the sense that he must now behave well or face the consequences.

In the same way that when he was driving he must behave well or face the consequences. It turns out that the consequences from our judicial system are inadequate.

 

[User10119]

Surely that's two separate questions up there^^^ - whether or not one thinks it is OK to make 'jokes' about prison rape* doesn't affect or correlate with whether or not one thinks that the sentence in this case is appropriate. Objecting to the 'joke' is just that - it isn't expressing a view on the sentencing.

I'm not sure what I think of the sentence, partly because I hadn't gone to look up the sentencing guidelines and so on. The guilty plea will have been taken into consideration, but I didn't know what the maximum/minimum sentences were for that which he was found guilty of, or what other mitigating/aggravating factors will have been applied. My immediate reaction was slight surprise that they sought and got a conviction - I know a few people who have been on the receiving end of a 'road rage' assault that caused serious injury whose cases have never come close to troubling the courts and the judicial system. Although I do have some reservations generally about what is achieved by, and the purpose of, custodial sentences in our criminal justice system my instinctive reaction was that causing that degree of harm and damage through an assault ought to carry a custodial sentence but that was based on my instinct - not a detailed understanding of the applicable sentences generally or of this particular case.

So I went and found https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.u...ssault_definitive_guideline_-_Crown_Court.pdf
From my (relatively brief) reading of that, I think this would have probably been considered a Category 2 ABH, which has a starting point of 26 weeks and a range of sentencing options from "Low level community order – 51 weeks’ custody". So the sentence was far from the harshest that could have been applied, but also not the lightest. I'll freely admit I don't know enough about suspended sentences to know how frequently they are applied. Is it possible that one reason for the suspension is that it allows the assailant to earn the money with which to pay the compensation his victim was awarded?


*For the record - I think such 'jokes' stink and represent more than a 'little off colour humour'.

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

He got away very lightly - rape jokes or inference of such happening aren't funny ever

 

[BoldonLad]

The light sentence normalises violence in the context of road rage. Other forms of assault are seen as "other" - something that a person that is not unhinged would not dream of doing.

IMHO. One of the problems is the subdivision of certain crimes into sub-categories. Eg, if we consider violent crime, we have sub-divisions for "hate crime", "road rage", "mugging", etc etc

Again, IMHO, I expect to be able to walk (or cycle) our fair land, without fear of being violently assaulted. end of. The reason (ie the offender does not like my face, colour, religion, the fact I am cycling or whatever), is not relevant, violent assault is violent assault, and should be appropriately punished.

 

[Crackle]

Mod Note:

In this case I'm happy to leave ozboz's comment because it's been challenged. If it had been reported we might have removed it before it was challenged. We'd prefer the conversation moved on from this point to discussing the incident and the sentencing and anyone picking up from that earlier comment might have their posts removed from now on just to allow the thread to move on.

 

[Tommy2]

Anyway, Caroline is now back training and has actually gone freelance with her career and moved to Majorca for a while, her husband coached our Tri club for a while and he coaches her, she is a pretty darn good athlete considering the hours she put in to her work and training she could be a pro if she went full time and I don't doubt that she lost any less than £9000 from not being able to compete.
If anyone's interested in triathlon Mark her husband has a podcast https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-triathlon-brick-session/id1196334770?mt=2
With some good interviews.

And training software https://trainxhale.com/

I have no connection to these and don't use the training software as I use training peaks via our club coach but based on the subject though it was relevant.

 

[swee'pea99]

[QUOTE 5114782, member: 10119"]Is it possible that one reason for the suspension is that it allows the assailant to earn the money with which to pay the compensation his victim was awarded?[/QUOTE]
The final line of the press piece is: "Sentencing was delayed to enable Mr Lee to prove that he is able to work to pay compensation to Mrs Livesey. If he is unable to do this then he could face a prison sentence."

I would hope, too, that the suspended sentence is conditional on him paying. All too often, as I understand it, such 'awards' go unpaid, or dribble to a halt after two payments, with the victim then forced to go through a whole new mill to get what should be his/hers by rights. Hopefully one of the terms of the suspension is: miss a payment, go to jail.