Anyone else think these two got off lightly?

[expat]

A premeditated and deliberate assault that leads to the death of the victim gets a 4 year term, disgraceful. 18 months for the cretinous slapper that orchestrated the assault......

Rediculous, those sentences aren't even a slap on the wrist for taking the life of someone else.

As NotAllThere says, it's not the way English Law (or Scots Law come to that) works. They didn't get punished for taking a life because they didn't mean to do that.

Imagine this: 2 cars racing side-by-side at high speed. One hits a pedestrian and kills them, the other doesn't. Is one guilty of a greater crime than the other? The law says no, because they both did the same actions.

Personally I think the world would be improved by not having them in it, but I don't get to make the rules.

[Cyberman]

This is incredible. The guy should have got life !! I despair !!!

He will be out in two years to attack and kill somebody else.

[Cyberman]

As NotAllThere says, it's not the way English Law (or Scots Law come to that) works. They didn't get punished for taking a life because they didn't mean to do that.

Imagine this: 2 cars racing side-by-side at high speed. One hits a pedestrian and kills them, the other doesn't. Is one guilty of a greater crime than the other? The law says no, because they both did the same actions.

Personally I think the world would be improved by not having them in it, but I don't get to make the rules.

That's a ridiculous analogy. If you deliberately punch somebody in the head there is always a risk that you may kill, and if you kill that is manslaughter and worthy of far more than serving 2 years imprisonment.

[NotAllThere]

They pleaded guilty, so that would also have reduced the sentence severity.

[Cyberman]

They pleaded guilty, so that would also have reduced the sentence severity.

I'm sure it would have been a difficult case to prove if they had not pleaded guilty, especially as it was all on security camera..................

[BrowneIssue]

If I were a relative of the (utterly innocent) victim, I think I might be considering doing my damnedest to find this git in spring 2011 when he comes out. It would be worth a couple of years inside to set him on fire. I could explain the gap on my CV as 'that post New Labour downturn'.

If the system won't show justice, the people ultimately will make their own.

[OwlHoot]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. They should never have abolished the Felony Murder legal principle in the UK (in 1957).

In the US, where the felony murder common law principle is still in effect, these critters would have been sent down for 20 years minimum and, in some states, the guy who struck the victim might well have been topped, and serve him right.

In the United States, felony murder is generally first degree murder, and is often a capital offense. When the government seeks to impose the death penalty on someone convicted of felony murder, the eighth amendment has been interpreted so as to impose additional limitations on the state power. The death penalty may not be imposed if the defendant is merely a minor participant and did not actually kill or intend to kill. However, the death penalty may be imposed if the defendant is a major participant in the underlying felony and "exhibits extreme indifference to human life".

[TykeMerc]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. They should never have abolished the Felony Murder legal principle in the UK (in 1957).

In the US, where the felony murder common law principle is still in effect, these critters would have been sent down for 20 years minimum and, in some states, the guy who struck the victim might well have been topped, and serve him right.

I agree totally, I wasn't sure that the old Felony Murder rule applied in the UK, I thought it did in the US, but couldn't prove it.

It seems like a perfectly reasonable principle to me, if someone dies as a result of a crime then they have been murdered.

Mind you I would apply it to causing death by dangerous/careless/drunk/drugged driving too.

[minestrone]

Consider two crimes:

You are in a beer garden with your lady and some guy comes up and starts abusing the two of you for 5 minutes, when nobody comes to your help you eventually lose the rag you hit him where he falls and hits his head and dies.

You are walking home from the pub and someone jumps you with a Stanley knife, he stabs you 30 times but it turns out he is a Doctor and can prove that the length of his knife and the areas he stabbed you in would not prove fatal.

Who gets the longer sentence? Most of the arguments on here would say the person in the first crime.

[TykeMerc]

Consider two crimes:

You are in a beer garden with your lady and some guy comes up and starts abusing the two of you for 5 minutes, when nobody comes to your help you eventually lose the rag you hit him where he falls and hits his head and dies.

You are walking home from the pub and someone jumps you with a Stanley knife, he stabs you 30 times but it turns out he is a Doctor and can prove that the length of his knife and the areas he stabbed you in would not prove fatal.

Who gets the longer sentence? Most of the arguments on here would say the person in the first crime.

Not really, in the first scenario getting up and walking away, complaining to the Landlord or phoning the Police would be appropriate. In scenario 2 that's assault with a dealy weapon, ABH, criminal wounding and attempted murder by the assaulting paty, besides a Stanley knife can very easily cause a fatal wound so his argument wouldn't stand.