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A multiplicity of Wankers this week. They are Recorder Paul Grumbar, a judge at Exeter Crown Court, and various pub-managers in the charming little town of Sidmouth, South Devon. The GOS remembers Sidmouth from his childhood, when his family took regular holidays there. It's a small, pretty seaside resort and should, you'd think, be a safe and friendly place. But it wasn't too friendly to a university student called Cox at the end of 2005. Home for the vacation, he was walking along the seafront when a large young farmer with the unlikely name of Benjamin Squance ran up to him and subjected him to a frightful, drunken, totally unprovoked attack, breaking his jaw so badly on both sides that he had to have metal plates inserted to hold his face together. At Exeter Crown Court this month Paul Grumbar ordered Squance to pay his victim £500 and sentenced him to 200 hours of unpaid community service over the next 18 months. If you care to do the sums, that's only about two and a half hours a week, and £500 would just pay for two trips to the new Wembley Stadium. Not much of a consolation to Mr.Cox, then, as he sucks his food through a straw … The reason Grumbar gave for this absurdly lenient sentencing was that Squance had a previously good character, had good references from members of the local community (can't have these uppity intellectuals coming into our town, m'dear, and flinging their faces at the fists of our lads, noomye) and had, surprisingly, not committed any violent and frenzied assaults since. He said a prison sentence "would not be in the public interest" because of its negative impact on the defendant's future. He didn't comment on the negative impact on the victim's future of having his face rearranged for him. And the good publicans of Sidmouth? They'd written to the court and said that they wouldn't support a ban on Squance visiting their establishments. From the sound of it he was such a good customer they couldn't afford to lose him. So, there we are. Down in sunny Devon, if you're a well-known tearaway you'll get what's coming to you, to the full extent the law allows. If you're some snotty over-educated college prig, you'll get your face smashed and it probably serves you right. But if you're a horny-handed son of the soil and a right ol' pop'lar local lad, you can do no wrong. You can get completely bladdered and maim total strangers, and there'll still be a welcome for you in the public bar of the Balfour Arms, the Rose and Crown, The Old Ship, The Railway Inn or The Swan. Warms your heart, doesn't it: who said small town life was dying? either on this site or on the World Wide Web. This site created and maintained by PlainSite |