He's a good lad - it's the company he keeps

Keir Starmer, Director of Public Prosecutions, says the law should distinguish between hard-core rioters and "essentially peaceful" demonstrators who commit crimes "in the heat of the moment," writes Peter Rhodes.

I spent many years covering courts. I cannot recall a single defence lawyer who did not claim that his client, even when guilty as sin of the vilest public-order offence, was an "essentially peaceful" person who just happened to be in bad company.

I once reported a case where half-a-dozen lawyers mitigating for half-a-dozen vicious little toerags claimed, in solemn succession, that their client was a good lad and the others led him on.

If Mr Starmer really wants courts to differentiate between serial thugs and one-off offenders, then let us see every trial beginning with full disclosure of the defendant's past record. It is long overdue.