How much is your safety worth? When you walk about the streets, how much do you have in your pocket? Do you have an expensive watch or mobile phone? Do you carry your laptop in one of those lovely bags with loads of pockets? What's in your wallet - are you a credit card man or a cash man? Out and about round the town, what value would you put on yourself?
And if you were injured or traumatised so that you couldn't work, what would that be worth? Suppose you suddenly couldn't look after your family? Or couldn't do the business in bed? Imagine you lost all your confidence and couldn't bring yourself to leave the house? Or say you are a young, good-looking man or girl who suddenly finds themselves disfigured? Come on, what are you worth?
£75, that's what you're worth.
£75 was the average fine handed out to convicted muggers by magistrates in 2008. They rob, they attack, they punch, they stab, they terrorise, they maim, they ruin your life and it costs them just £75. That's the price of a modest meal for two in a mediocre restaurant. With wine. That's what you're worth; prawn cocktail, steak and chips with all the trimmings, a dessert called "Death by Chocolate", a bottle of pinot grigio, two espressos and a chocolate mint. That's your life, that is.
Magistrates are bound by rules which link the fine to the criminal's ability to pay. Offenders with no income except for state benefits, and who often have severe addictions to drink or drugs, receive lower fines. Of course, this only takes into account their legitimate income. How could it do anything else? Tory justice spokesman Dominic Grieve said: 'Ministers have tried to bully magistrates to give fewer jail and community sentences, but it is no wonder magistrates have little confidence in fines when ministers haven't bothered to uprate fine levels in all the time they've been in power. No wonder public confidence in the justice system has been undermined.'
Conservatives blame the failure of the Government to uprate the framework used for calculating the level of fines. This rulebook has not been changed to take account of inflation since 1992 - meaning statutory fine levels have effectively been halved.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: 'Fines given in individual cases are a matter for the independent judiciary, as they have the full facts of the case in front of them.' In other words, “It's nothing to do with us, it's all the magistrates fault.”
John Thornhill, chairman of the Magistrates' Association, said the low level of fines was because many offenders were on benefits or low income. Offenders could also get up to a 30 per cent reduction in the level of fine for an early guilty plea, he added.
Meanwhile a minor parking infringement earns a £120 ticket in London, or £70 outside the capital. Speeding carries a £60 penalty. And before anyone unthinkingly trots out that lame old mantra "Commit the crime, do the time" or smugly points out that all you have to do is obey the law and you'll not get penalised, let it not be forgotten that speed limits are put in place by local councils simply because they're a cheap and easy way of avoiding the task of actually doing anything to improve our roads, and that increasingly those local councils are setting limits that do not accord with government guidelines. Also that statistically the most common cause of road accidents is not excessive speed, but driver inattention. It's hard to think of anything more likely to distract drivers from watching the road ahead than having to drive with one eye glued to the speedometer.
Recently a pet-shop owner, Joan Higgins, was fined £1,000 and placed under curfew after she unwittingly sold a goldfish to a 14-year-old boy taking part in a trading standards 'sting'. Magistrates ignored the fact that the sting was itself illegal: the law says she should not have sold the goldfish to an unaccompanied minor, but according to at least one newspaper report the boy was accompanied into the shop by a trading standards officer.
Back on the roads, Delshad Aziz did not have a driving licence and was working illegally when he pulled out at a junction in Hove and knocked a 44-year-old man from his scooter last year. The man died, leaving a widow and 2 small children. Aziz was jailed for just nine months. Sentencing him, Judge Anthony Scott-Gall said: “You were an unlawful driver who should not have been at the wheel of any vehicle. You should not have been working because you were not permitted to work but were trying to supplement the benefits you, your wife and children received. You did not take sufficient care when turning across that junction, resulting in an utterly calamitous and ghastly collision.”
This is Aziz's second jailed sentence. He got nine months in 2005 for trying to enter Britain illegally, but was nevertheless allowed to stay in the country and was caught driving uninsured months later in Peterborough and banned for a year.
In January this year a 14-year-old Coventry girl was surrounded and sexually assaulted in the street by a gang of youths. She was was walking to a friend’s nearby home in the middle of the day when she was ambushed by the group of eight boys – aged between 10 and 12 – who shouted at her to stop. They then surrounded the girl, repeatedly molesting her, before she managed to escape.
Police quickly rounded up the boys responsible; the girl was able to identify four of them. Five were arrested. Three, aged under 10, were not.
The CPS ignored the efforts of the police and decided not to prosecute – they said it was “not in the public interest”. The girl and her family have been forced to move home because they feared reprisals.
In Crowborough, East Sussex, two youths broke into the cellar of an Indian restaurant and tried to steal beer. The restaurant owner, Sal Miah, chased them and held them on the premises until the police arrived. A gang of the youths' friends then attacked the restaurant, kicking the door and windows. Mr.Miah went out and fought them off. When the police did eventually turn up, they arrested the astonished Mr.Miah on suspicion of assault and kept him in the cells for five hours. He was cautioned and released. He now has a criminal record.
Sussex police said Mr Miah should not have tried to apprehend the youths and should have 'observed from a safe distance' before dialling 999.
In Torquay a 61-year-old pensioner was stopped in his car by police. When his breathalyser test came up negative, they searched his car. In the glove box was a Swiss army knife he kept to cut up fruit on picnics with his wife. He was charged with possessing an offensive weapon, found guilty and given a conditional discharge. He now has a criminal record.
In Colchester an elderly couple set up a communal allotment for themselves and the other residents of their housing development. They called it The Magnolia Garden Project; the 24 residents of the council-owned flats helped to run it and received a free share of the food it produced, including apples, tomatoes, potatoes and runner beans. Janet Kearney and Terry Marshall were hailed as model citizens.
But their reputation counted for nothing when they confronted a neighbour who let her dogs foul the site. 'Neighbour from hell' Helena Moraldo, who owns three Jack Russells, let them loose on the allotment, damaged crops and was verbally abusive. Janet Kearney spoke to her about it, the police were called and arrested Janet. When Terry protested to the police, they arrested him as well. Both were taken to a police station where they were photographed, and had their DNA and fingerprints taken. They then spent around 20 hours in cells before being interviewed. The couple had to wait six months before they were told they were being charged and would have to appear in court.
However, after 'reluctantly' pleading guilty to avoid a trial, the district judge told them it was 'not appropriate' to punish them and gave them a conditional discharge. The CPS defended its decision to prosecute, saying there had been 'sufficient evidence' against the couple.
In West Yorkshire two masked robbers armed with an axe and a sword burst into a jeweller's shop. The jeweller, John Bradley, had just his bare hands but fought back, pushed the robber with the sword and disarmed him before chasing the pair out of the store with their own weapon.
Mr.Bradley hasn't been arrested yet, but it's only a matter of time.
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