The joys of the justice system : Maxine Carr

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12986352,00.html

 

mad aint it.
While i wouldnt want to get into a discussion on wether she was guilty or not, the court found her guilty and passed a 3.5 year sentence. Surely that sentence should be served

But then that is our "Justice" system.

A nurse that my GF worked with was beaten with an iron bar in the hospital carpark by a skank from the local estate. That happened around 6 years ago. She left hospital a few weeks ago and has permanent mental issues due to brain damage sustained in the attack. She cant work as a nurse again. The guy who did it got 7 years...................................

 

ok,
what huntley did was awful, however she was convicted of 'only' perverting the course of justice. the same thing your wife or girlfriend would be charged with if she said she was driving your car at the time you were caught on camera in order to save you from a driving ban so you could keep working as a sales rep - if she was found out. afaik she lied about where huntley was at the time of the crime.
she should have come clean when she realised what it was all about but then love is blind (or fear is powerful). whatever she has to go through life with the stigmata fo being his girlfriend. not an easy thing in itself and it could be construed as cruel and unusual.
this however is nothing compared to the travesty of the child mown down by an illegal imigrant with a false passport and no tax, mot, insurance or driving lisence. what did he get? a few years in prison for illegal papers. now that's a f*cking travesty. cue dom...

cheers


julian

 

I agree Julian, but like i said - sentence was passed and should be served. Irrelevant of circumstance i feel it makes a mockery.
To pass a 3.5year sentence and to cut it down to a few months is ludicrous. There has been no appeal and no real reason given as to why this has happened.

 

i think the tagging scheme is a good idea as it means that the 'inmate' isn;t such a burden on the system. they can be monitored by computer and are responsible for their own bills, food, etc.
of course i wouldn;t advocate this for prisoners accused of violent crimes but for someone convicted of what amounts to lying i think it's reasonable.
finally i believe this was a 'first offence' for her? so she's not a career criminal or anything. actually i doubt she'll ever be able to work again without a name and face change.
cheers


julian

 

Yup, that's the reason I posted the link. Why, oh why, is millions of tax payers money spent to reach the conclusion that she deserves 3.5 years in jail, then all of a sudden she is free to walk around a few weeks after the sentencing ?

I appreciate that she has already spent a considerable amount of time behind bars [in the build up to the trial] but this is quite frankly ridiculous .

Julian, the driver that killed that kid should have been given 5/7 years minimum IMO but I'm not a judge and if he had been given 5/7 years, he'd be out in 2/3 anyway .

 

Got to laugh at that one Julian, 'first offence' is irrelevant in circumstances such as those she was involved in. It's not as if she knicked a tin of Tuna ("My Cousin Vinnie", anyone .)

As far as I know she's going to be provided with a new identity and I reckon she'll have to leave the country.

 

If you believe her, her only crime was to help the man she loved and she genuinely believed that the police were going to stitch him up for no reason.

According to the documentaries I saw, once she realised what a monster her boyfriend is, she was horrified and changed her story.

If all this is true then I do feel for her because she'll have to live with this for the rest of her life and beyond and I don't think she deserved to be jailed. It wouldn't surprise me if she was still on suicide watch.

 

Is this the Daily Mail readers' club?

 

Surprised it took you so long to get here .

 

I don't see a problem. There are far too many people locked up in prison causing overcrowding for relatively minor offences when more forward looking schemes like electronic tagging could be used.

As for the child killed by the hit and run driver, I'm appalled at the xenophobic way in which the story has been reported in the Daily Hatemail and the like. That he was an illegal immigrant really has nothing to do with it. Had the driver with no insurance, tax and mot been a white bloke from Essex then I doubt there would have been anything like the same level of "outrage". Also, the police have a lot to answer for in the case: why was he only charged with "leaving the scene of an accident" and not "causing death by dangerous driving" (which carries a much higher sentence)?

Michael.

 

bub,
what does that mean, that we're all left wing bleeding hearts or right wing facists? just want you to clarify.

voodoo,
the guy who knocked over the kid should get 20 years.
also the 'fist offence' thing is relevant. the only reason she got a 3.5 year sentence is because the public would have lynched the judge if he'd given her less - bear in mind that this is the same public that cannonised princess di. in the media she was portrayed almost as a 'hyndley' to huntleys 'brady' when all she did was give him an alibi which she may have retracted later. i reckon 3.5 years + time on remand for what amounts to a lack of good judgement is hardly 'justice'. still if you can be prosecuted for making a joke in the usa who are we to deviate from the path of stupid prosecutuion.

cheers


julian

 

I thought she was off to Canada !

 

Well, Maxine Carr's crime was far from minor (IMO) but I do agree about minor offences being dealt with in a much more efficient and effective manner.

I think this boils down to the public opinion of who's to blame: The man in question has been labeled an 'Illegal Immigrant'. If he was an Essex Boi, I'm sure he'd have been given the same sentence (maybe less ). However, the fact that he's an illegal immigrant means that he shouldn't have been in the country [under these circumstances] in the first place. So instead of punishing him for being a reckless and thoughtless driver, he is being judged [by the Media] on his circumstances/background.

 

I probably shouldn't answer here as I don't even know what car accident this relates to but, speaking as a layman getting into the spirit of talking about stuff of which I have no real knowledge or understanding, I would say that the above charge was decided on the basis of likelihood of successful conviction - I'm guessing it's a lot harder to prove the death by dangerous driving(and, hence, have no immediate headline) than it is to prove that someone left the scene of an accident(as in, they are not there when the police turned up).

Just a couple of pence worth for free, for all you lucky readers. Not a newspaper reader of any sort so my prejudices are all my own.

Goomer.

 

Not all of you.

 

Just to clarify the situation, Her sentence has not been cut. On sentences under 4 years, the is an automatic release at the halfway point. If a prisoner is deemed suitable, they can be released even ealier on a tag. This saves the tax payer money and frees up prison space. The time that she spent on remand plus any over night time spent in police cells is counted as time served and therefore comes of the custodial part of the sentence. She will be supervised by the probation service for the period of tag up to the halfway point of her sentence plus another 25% of the total sentence. The final 25% will be unsupervised but she will be at risk of recall to prison if she commits any offence which carries a potential custodial sentence.

Rod

 

But she was given a JAIL sentence of x years; that she will not serve.
Why give her that sentence in the first place ?

 

Rodrat is right. She was sentenced to 3.5 years and has been in jail since August 2002, so if she is released under probation this month she will have done about 17 months. This is pretty standard practice for prisoners not regarded as dangerous, not least because there simply aren't enough prison places. By May she would half served half her sentence, at which point most non-violent criminals can expect release if they've shown good behaviour. My understanding is that she will be electronically tagged and under curfew.

From my reading of the trial, she doesn't appear to be a danger to the public, and appears to have shown remorse, and I have no doubt that prison staff have a much clearer idea than any of us about the risk she poses.

-- Ian

 

Ian, very fair and very true (especially about knowing her mental state) but what is the point of spending so much time and money determining that the time given fits the crime committed, only for it to be halved, half way down the line ?

Are they trying to scare prisoners ?
"Oh, we were only kidding. That judge that told you were spending 25 years in prison was just having a larf - he's knows nothing anyway. Here, off you go. 12 years is good enough."