Philobiblon

Even the Daily Mail is showing a touch of shock: a man slashes his wife with a knife, comprehensively beats her up, and then finally brands her with a steam iron.

The punishment? Before you read further, guess… imagine what a working class bloke who did this to a stranger down the pub would get.

The answer to what Colin Read, 25, “Cambridge graduate” and “£90,000-a-year executive” got: a £2,000 fine, and no community service, “because he is too busy”. (Tough – a whole week-and-a-bit’s wages!)

A report recommended a community service order, but Recorder William Featherby questioned how Read would fit it in around his long working hours.
He said he was concerned that Read had denied the offences despite overwhelming evidence and he called the iron attack “appalling”.
But the judge said it was the circumstances of the marriage that had provoked Read and that now those circumstances had gone, sending him to prison would “help no one”.

What’s the bet the “circumstances” of his next relationship will be, to him, equally provoking? About 100% I’d reckon.

And it is not like the state has told him — or lots of others like him — that there’s anything really wrong with this behaviour.