Yesterday, on my return from work, as I drove up my street a group of kids playing in the road with a ball, a ball in a sorry state of inflation, they were happy, they were shouting, they were playful. One of the kids was older than the rest, so much older in fact that he really wasn’t a kid at all. He was an adult by legal, age-specific standards, one of the younger kids I witnessed among the group was his younger brother and his brothers younger friends. This supposed adult playing with children from various families and part of the estate was in fact a murderer.

A murderer who was out on the streets laughing and playing after having served barely a year of a court-imposed custodial sentence. In the Britain, 9 months is the cost of a human laugh and if your willing to pay that price, you can kill someone for a ‘bargain‘ – that is the message that I translate from it. The circumstances around the crime revolved around a night out in the other boozers capital of the north west, Bolton, the group involving this murderer were apparently harassing a girl in the queue for a nightclub, the girl was intimidated and coy, perhaps her normal daily nature, the group persisted and escalated their banter and harassment to a vulgar and lewd level, at which point a gentleman behind the girls intervened and suggested to the group of lads that their comments may not be welcome, that in fact they were out of order and perhaps they should move on. The group of lads turned from loud and mouthy thugs in to violent and brutal Neanderthals as they punched and kicked the guy to the ground and continued until the life was beaten out of him. They left and left the girls they were harassing holding his bruised and bloody body in their hands until help arrived. Help that could not save him.

The kind gentleman who stepped in and offered aid to distressed citizens died at the scene and will never venture out again. He’ll never be able to intervene when a situation causes him to, he’ll never be able to see his family, play with his kids, meet up up with his friends, go to work, he’ll never…

His murderer on the other hand will get to play his football and all the other stuff their victim can not. He will enjoy fresh air and freedom perhaps, given the excellent recommendation and accomodation he received courtesy of our government, queen and country, he may choose to murder again. It seems as though no one in a position of power to punish these people wants to do so. For example it is within a judges power to impose a custodial sentence of up to four years on anyone caught with a knife, let alone using it, yet many receive ASBOS and/or community service/tagging etc. I don’t know why our legal system is so fucked or whether our judges or just too lenient and are a sorry excuse for executors of punishment but one things for the sure – the person who straps a knife to their body before leaving the house is a clear and present danger to themselves and, importantly, to the public.

The image of the aforementioned murderer who is now free to do as he pleases is now, and i fear forever, burned in my mind as the image of Britain falling into eventual Anarchy.

Pretty soon I don’t think there will be a person in this country who will remain unaffected by violent, specifically knife, crime. Already it appears that people are not safe anywhere and that there are fewer and fewer places to hide from it every day; work, the supermarket, the park, in your car, on the road, at school, the streets.

Our governments’ favourite answer when the public cry out about crime, especially of the violent kind is that there simply ‘aren’t enough prisons to hold our criminals,’ I smell bullshit. Then a light bulb moment they realise they’ll have to make room so they begin releasing offenders early – what kind of logical, clear headed thinking is that! I would say our prisons are full, how about building some more?

Another thing that really pisses me off is when a teenager is convicted, an overwhelming amount ofg people want to see them serve a lesser sentence or benefit form ‘perks’ and concessions whilst serving time in prison – why? They’ve committed a crime, they’ve destroyed multiple lives and in some cases leave their victims with psychological and physical hurdles to overcome, why should we throw concession after concession at these younger and younger criminals. They are criminals after all.

In conversation with a couple of friends and people affected by crime, the general concesus was that the Human Rights charter, all too often interferes with the punishment of criminals for the crimes they commit. Here in Britain, we are the personification of political correctness gone mad. Would it be so hard, or in deed terrible, to say, criminals who take away the rights of their victims should have theirs taken away. Is that NOT reasonable?