EXCUSES, EXCUSES

There is something going on in this country that is becoming so prevalent it really annoys me. In fact it sometimes makes me so mad it could fill a whole What Pisses Me Off session. Again, surprise, surprise, it involves our courts. The way criminals, through their lawyers, and so-called expert witnesses, use all sorts of excuses to not only justify their crimes but to angle for light sentences. Or even no sentences at all.

And judges and magistrates often fall for it. I’m sick of it. Sick of the excuses. I come from a broken home, my mother didn’t understand me, I was an abused child, I was bullied at school, I stole because I was hungry, my girlfriend left me, I have this disorder, I have that disorder, I lack self-esteem.

Silver-tongued lawyers, often at taxpayers’ expense, lay it on with a trowel and too often they win.

An elderly man charged with murder gets bail so he can go to his wife’s funeral. A funeral made necessary because he allegedly killed her.

Remember when that murderous thug Jason Moran was let out of jail to go to his brother Mark’s funeral, and used the pulpit to announce that the gangland war was just beginning.

A classic example this week. A young man abducted and raped his ex-girlfriend. The 23-year-old hid in her car as she left for work. Took her to a country hideaway and raped her. It was the second time in a year that he had kidnapped an ex-girlfriend. On that occasion he dragged the woman, a different woman, into his car and held her hostage for eight hours. That woman had taken out a restraining order against him only four days earlier.

He was on bail for that crime when he abducted and raped the second woman.

For the first crime he got two years in jail with 12 months suspended. For the second crime he got only four years with a minimum of 2-1/2 years.  Why? In the United States he’d get a hundred years.

County Court Judge Irene Lawson agreed the man couldn’t handle rejection and his judgment was impaired ‘by a very significant dependant personality style’.

Gimme a break. I can see the next rapist’s defence. Did you kidnap and rape this woman? ‘Yeah, but it’s not my fault. I have this style, you know, this significant dependent personality style. If I get rejected I just grab them and lock them up and rape them. Even if I’ve already been arrested and charged before. It’s not really my fault’.

I can see it now. ‘And, by the way, can you get me up before Judge Lawson? I know she’s a woman… but she understands’. WPMO.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2008