Legal Inconsistencies

The BBC reports that seven of ten challenges to harsh sentences handed down by courts relating to the riots in England in August have been rejected. Disturbingly, among the seven were two four-year jail sentences for 'incitement to riot' made by a couple of jokers on Facebook (riots which, incidentally, never occurred):

Jordan Blackshaw, 21, of Northwich, Cheshire, jailed for four years after admitting encouraging a riot on Facebook, which never happened

Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, of Warrington, Cheshire, jailed for four years after admitting encouraging a riot on Facebook, which never happened

It appears that the two cases are quite different, as detailed by Index on Censorship:

Blackshaw, who will serve his sentence at a young offenders’ institution, called upon his virtual friends to meet for a “lootin’”. He created a Facebook page entitled “Smash Dwn in Northwich Town”. Only nine of his 147 friends responded to the event and Blackshaw arrived alone at the designated meeting place. He was met by police officers rather than fellow looters and was immediately arrested.

On 9 August, Sutcliffe-Keenan created a page called “Let’s Have a Riot in Latchford”. A few hours later, he took down the post. According to his lawyer, Rebecca Tanner, Sutcliffe-Keenan was drunk while posting the messages and quickly removed the event after “a phone call from a friend prompted him to remember his action”. Once he “realised the gravity” of his actions, Sutcliffe-Keenan removed the page and made a public apology. No one turned up for the event, but 47 individuals confirmed their attendance on the page. According to prosecutors, the Facebook post still caused panic in the town.

Even if you accept that Blackshaw should have been jailed, as he appears to have been quite serious about trying to start a riot, four years is nevertheless excessive, and Sutcliffe-Keenan's sentence is utterly ludicrous. It was clearly a drunken prank, and a short-lived one at that which he regretted and apologised for at the time. And for both, four years for something that never happened is disproportionate and clearly a case of vindictiveness in sentencing.

It is in marked contrast to the rugby player Greg Johnson who sexually assaulted a bride-to-be in a pub and glassed her in the face when she spurned his advances, almost costing her the sight in her right eye and leaving her vision permanently damaged. He received a pathetic two years jail sentence.

And we can also usefully compare the cases of Blackshaw and Sutcliffe-Keenan with the evangelical churches in London which are telling HIV sufferers in their congregations that their medication doesn't work and that the Lord will cure them (presumably helped with generous donations to their churches - that's usually the way of things with the evangelicals).

People have died because of this, and yet the most the government can say is:

"Over 60 recommendations were made [in the House of Lords committee report into HIV awareness] and we will be responding to Parliament in the next few months."

Pretty feeble stuff, considering evangelical Christian pastors are, in effect, inciting members of their congregations to kill themselves. These deaths have actually occurred, they are not notional or hypothetical events in the sense that the riots-that-never-happened were. And yet I see nothing about arresting the pastors concerned for conspiracy to murder, or perhaps collusion in manslaughter or maybe incitement to commit suicide.