Get tough on young louts

Here we go again. The steady, sickening process of turning the English legal system into a laughing stock gathers pace. Today comes the serious suggestion that the age of criminal responsibility should be raised from 10 to 14.

The basis for this barmy idea is that “too many children are prosecuted and criminalised.”

This proposal, for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, is not reform. It is a blatant admission of defeat.

If this became law, it would be a charter for hoodies and hooligans everywhere. It would turn the streets over to teenage thugs and strike terror into the hearts of the defenceless.

Why is the legal world so full of people who believe that criminals have problems? Where is the commonsense attitude that criminals are the problem and that some people, including some under-14s, are plain evil?

If too many youngsters are being prosecuted it is not because the law is too strict but because it is far too soft.

So here is a new and truly radical strategy for our times:

Let’s have more bobbies on the beat. Let’s have zero tolerance for the graffiti, joyriding, vandalism and the sheer torment inflicted by teenage gangs on some neighbourhoods.

Let’s have a legal system that, instead of using endless cautions, puts the fear of God into young offenders at their first offence and makes them resolve never to do it again.

And let’s have politicians with the moral courage to listen to real people, not to starry-eyed idealists who see every villain as a victim.

Today, law-makers are being urged to shift “from punishment to problem-solving”. What Britain needs is the exact opposite.

Get the punishments right and the problem will vanish.

More proof that the law is an ass

If anyone doubts the law is an ass, consider the case of three mini-moto louts at Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday.

Uninsured and unlicensed, this trio rode their machines into the path of a middle-aged woman who was terrified for the safety of her dog. She later collapsed and died.

At the original hearing, these three smirked outside the court. At yesterday’s Crown Court appeal they were let off with suspended sentences after a defence lawyer, in all seriousness, described one of them as “vulnerable.”

Vulnerable? Three yobs on motorcycles confront a frail and frightened woman and they are the vulnerable ones?

No wonder ordinary, decent people have no faith in our legal system.

All we want is to be protected. All we see is victims treated like dirt and thugs regarded as delicate little flowers, to be nurtured by battalions of bleeding-heart do-gooders.

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