Human Rights groups say the sentences are too tough on the looters?

[Bobbisox]

I suppose when you see the two lads getting 4 yrs for inciting a riot on FB which didn't happen anyway and someone who was actually in the thick of things getting 6 months?
Do you think the HR Laws will ever be overhauled as promised, or are we being told this for appeasement ?

[ummmm]

People doing community service wear hi vis. At least my mate had to when he had to do it.

[vulcan]

If they had nice hoods they would wear them.

[Bobbisox]

I think these were emblazoned with the word OFFENDER ummmm and being it is where the looters ran riot, people would know what they did

[Bobbisox]

vulcan..I like that :-)

[ummmm]

I'll have to ask if his had any wording.

[New Judge]

The items you mention are not secret, Zeuhl. They are in the public domain as are the details of any adult offender who is brought back to court for non-payment of fines, costs or compensation.

Only fines and costs can be written off by “time served”. Compensation payments cannot. In my observations I have not seen any sums written off in the adult courts for “non-existent” time served. Although the imposition of fines or costs is far less prevalent in the youth courts, write-offs against non-existent time served may well have happened there – we’d never know, would we?

However, all this is somewhat off the point.

[Zeuhl]

NJ I should have been more clear.

When my daughter worked in the Magistrates Court and an offender was banged up as an alternative to paying backlogs of fines (that were proving too difficult to collect), they would write to victims and ask if they would forgo compo payments (that were also proving too difficult to collect) as the offender was paying their 'debt to society' in jail.

However, the time in jail was not so much 'non existent' as double counted in that one spell inside was used as a rationale for a number of such write offs.

[Zeuhl]

P.S.

In those cases it would be easy for the victim to assume that the spell iside was being weighed solely against their incident - not several.

[New Judge]

Yes, I take the point and quite agree now that you have explained it, Zeuhl.

The option to "buy off" compensation with time served (even one at a time, let alone several concurrently), should not be available even with the victim's consent. If imprisonment for non-payment is imposed it should not, as it currently does, wipe out the debt. (Strangely the only exception to this is Council Tax default, where the debt remains after a term of imprisonment has been served for non-payment).

And we're straying even further from Bobbisox's original question !!!

[jno]

Newsquest papers have the answer

http://static.guim.co...apital_punishment.png

Death penalties for rioters!

Arm all pensioners!

(This appears in British newspapers but it seems to have been written in America. Just pray you don't get in the way of an arthritic pensioner - like me - shooting at cheeky girls.)

[jackthehat]

Don't you like the 'Cheeky Girls', jno?

I thought they were quite fun........:o)

[jno]

I don't like their LibDem connections, Jack...

[Wrongn3mber]

Ummmm and bobisox it's likely that the hi-vis had the words "Community Payback" on them.

http://www.hampshire-...ity%20Payback%203.jpg