Legal eagle

[Dr Lobster*]

what's wrong with somebody trying to get just one little thing for free?

Hmm. Interesting comment. Where do you draw the line? Is it OK to steal an inexpensive item from a store? How about an expensive one? Owning TV reception equipment without a licence is illegal in this country, and the culprits should be brought to book like any other criminals. Whether you agree with it or not, it's the law of the land and must be adhered to.

[a point raised by freddy in another thread raised an interesting point, so i've started a new one]

The problem is, I have no confidence, faith, or respect in the criminal justice system in the country.

a legal system which pays out anything between £50, 000 and £500, 000 for 'discrimination', whilst the parents of holly wells and jessica chapman get £10, 000 for the death of their daugthers is flawed.

why it is you recieve a harsher punishment for copying starwars with a camcorder at your local cinema than you do if you break into a pensioners home and steal her telly or money?

why is it you spend longer in prison if you make a business out of selling pirate merchandise than you do if you are a drunk driver found guilty of killing somebody?

The laws of this land are so stupid, they disserve to be broken. Fairplay to anybody who finds a loophole or get something for nothing.

[DAS]

As I see it... the problem with the British legal system is that instead of being one big system of interrelating crimes and punishments, it is a complicated collection of crimes that run parallel with one another. If you compare different crimes and their punishments you lose the context, and where one punishment may seem perfectly suitable, it may become less adequate when you compare it to another. Comparing discrimination with the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman is an example - it is more tempting to award high damages for serious discrimination cases where it can be argued the person's life has been ruined by psychological damage. Yet in the case of the murders, how can you put a sum of money on the loss of a person? The jigsaw pieces just don't fit.

I was intrigued by the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 today - they were talking about the guy who was released 25 years after being imprisoned as a young teenager for attempted murder. His detainment was prolonged because he preferred to protest his innocence rather than admit guilt. Now surely there's something wrong there. If you are innocent, you must NOT make that known to avoid further detainment. If you admit your guilt, you will - in all likelihood - be released quicker than if you insist that you are innocent.