On the 11th August last year 20 year old Sophie Lancaster was kicked to death and her boyfriend was left for dead by two thugs who attacked them because of the way they dressed. In the eyes of Sophie’s killers she, and her boyfriend Robert deserved to die because they were goths. One attacker admitted guilt and the other has finally been convicted (having dragged out the ordeal for Sophie’s family, boyfriend, and friends by maintaining his innocence rather than acting with honour and admitting his guilt).
The final tragedy though is that the killers, aged 15 and 16 will ultimately be released from jail before their 40th birthdays, leaving them free to enjoy life despite denying another their own.
Many times in the past I have argued in favour of restorative justice, but I’m afraid when it comes to murder of the kind in this case there is no place for anything other than a sentence of life (where life means life).
Sophie was killed because she dressed a certain way, and one day her killers will go free and unhindered; where is the justice in that?
[In an aside it's often not realised the extent to which individuals who belong to particular sub-cultures do come under physical and verbal assault. Just last weekend for example two close friends of mine (one a goth and one a metal-head) walked out of their local Tesco and noticed a car slow down as it approached them, the rear window was wound down and a man with a bandana covering his face leaned out. He proceeded to produce a paintball gun, fired it rapidly in their direction, hitting them repeatedly. Why were they hit? I wonder... could it have had anything to do with the way the looked? The BBC has an interesting piece on this issue.]
Posted by Letters From A Tory on March 28th, 2008 at 10:45 am:
Sadly with such crowded prisons, I doubt the government is desperate to keep anyone for life - even though the argument for them doing so is beyond compelling.