Barrister and Part-Time Judge who lied as part of the Huhne affair given 18 months cu

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27350050

I can't get my head around this at all.

A barrister friend of Chris Huhne's ex wife, who apparently passed information to the press secretly to break the original allegation, and then lied to police when the investigation began, has been given 16 months custodial as a consequence.

Both of the main parties involved got 9 months plus substantial costs (£70k and £49k).

Now, I take into consideration that the barrister friend was a legal professional and a member of the judiciary - but how the **** does she get 16 months inside? Is she a threat to the public? Compare her sentence to what Stuart Hall received for Yew Tree offences. She has received a sentence comparable to what a death by careless driving offender might get for causing the loss of a life. A repeated domestic abuse offender who has committed multiple counts of battery against his wife wouldn't get half of that sentence despite his threat to that victim and other women.

How many people have been burgled and when the offender has been caught haven't seen the offender get 16 months?

It just seems all wrong. Don't get me wrong - this woman has committed offences and tied herself up in some very dirty and vindictive business - but what it says about our judiciary seems to be perverse. Commit an offence against the public and the prisons are full, and resources are short, and the European Convention of Human Rights is prohibitive, and we need to encourage leniency and rehabilitation is more important than punishment... commit an offence against the judiciary, well...

 

Re: Barrister and Part-Time Judge who lied as part of the Huhne affair given 18 month

Dunno, not legally minded at all, but I'd hazard a guess that if someone in her position is faulty - then it shakes belief in the legal process generally so some sort of justice has to be seen to be done, to try and alleviate that ?

 

Re: Barrister and Part-Time Judge who lied as part of the Huhne affair given 18 month

It seems that judges in this country are about as consistent as our referees.

 

Re: Barrister and Part-Time Judge who lied as part of the Huhne affair given 18 month

Totally agree and this is a bugbear of mine. Prisons should be for people like violent criminals, sex offenders and people who break into people's homes, i.e. criminals who are a danger to society. Prisons are overcrowded as it is, so many of the people who should be inside get out early. There plenty of things wrong with our country that need time and manpower to fix, so there should be far more community service sentences given out. And with the money they save by reducing people who are locked up they can employ people to oversee the community service to ensure that it is being carried out.

People like Eric Illsley, for example, shouldn't be locked up. What he did was wrong, but how were the general public safer for him being locked up? His sentence should have been to work for the good of the country to pay back what he effectively stole. And there should be lengthy financial penalties imposed for people guilty of fraud or tax evasion. Lester Piggott, for example, screwed the country out of loads of money, went to prison for a bit, at our expense, and then got released back into his millionaire lifestyle. Instead of spending a year inside, or whatever he spent, he should have spent a year cleaning the streets, scrubbing graffiti, gardening at old people's homes and so forth. Then after this he should have been subject to strict financial penalties for a period of time.

Keep prisons for the people who make our world less safe to live in.

 

Re: Barrister and Part-Time Judge who lied as part of the Huhne affair given 18 month

Completely agree with all this. Sentencing in this country is both far too lenient and ridiculously severe. Criminals who are a genuine danger to society are in and out in no time, while thousands of cells are filled with people who don't belong there in the first place.

There should be far fewer people in prison, but those in there should be serving longer sentences. Whilst in prison there should be far more emphasis on rehabilitation. When the sentence is complete you get released if you are rehabilitated, if you are no longer a danger to society, if that isn't the case you stay inside. We use the word rehabilitation, but we don't practice it.

Those who are not a risk to the public, who commit the so called white-collar crimes, should, as you have said, be sentenced to community service and pay much bigger fines. They should put something back. This is not a class, rich/poor distinction, you're just as likely to be violent if you're rich, just as likely to commit fraud if you're working class.

Back to the opening post, none of those people should have been locked away. It served no purpose. They should have been sentenced to lengthy community service orders and been made to pay huge fines, in relation to their wealth. The exact same should happen if a working class couple did something equally ridiculous. I have no doubt that happens all the time, but once they've told the original lie they tend not to be stupid enough to go back on it.