The 90K a year thug and the judge who doesn’t get it
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.
Stumble it!
Digg
reddit 
Del.icio.us
Putting it rather cold-bloodedly, that’s what one hopes for when instructing a really good barrister, and describes as money well spent! I suspect one had to be in court to understand how such an evidently nasty piece of work got off. Repulsive.
Comment by John Norris — August 22, 2007 @ 9:52 am
Natalie, I haven’t had any response to my emails to you- perhaps there’s been a server problem- so I’m going to leave a comment. Feel free to delete.
There is a blog-based campaign to get asylum rights for Iraqis who are now being murdered for having worked for this country- including Iraqi women, whom the death squads apparently like to rape and torture before death. No, these aren’t the only Iraqis at risk of death; no, giving them asylum doesn’t exhaust this country’s obligations to Iraqi civilians. It just happens to be one of the most urgent obligations we currently have, since these people are being murdered right now as a result of decisions taken by this country’s elected government, and we can feasibly save them.
You would be very important to us: your example would prompt a lot of other feminist and environmentalist bloggers to follow suit. I hate to use the language of moral obligation to a stranger, but here goes: you should write a post directly asking your very many, very literate readers to contact their MPs and ask for asylum rights for people being hunted by death squads because they have worked for this country. Your distinctive writing and hard work has earned you your own audience: now it’s time to ask that audience to do something. I am convinced that a post by you would prompt many letters to MPs who have not yet been contacted. This may sound like a guilt trip, but I’m afraid just this once I won’t apologise for that. It’s important to get this policy changed and you could make a genuine contribution to doing so.
Comment by Dan Hardie — August 22, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
[...] second such case in a week. Posted in Feminism (Thursday August 23, 2007 at 8:17 pm) [...]
Pingback by Another middle-class thug gets a slap on the wrist - Philobiblon — August 23, 2007 @ 8:17 pm
I am looking for an article on why Iraqi interpreters who work for the occupying army in Iraq are such a “good cause” at the moment but many other categories of asylum seekers are not.
Comment by bbm — August 25, 2007 @ 12:26 pm
[...] as ever, Natalie at Philobiblon excoriates the pathetic sentence meted out to a wife-batterer, which does nothing to challenge the trivialisation of domestic violence. That justice is blinkered [...]
Pingback by Redemption Blues » BritBlog Roundup 132 — August 27, 2007 @ 10:58 am
[...] as ever, Natalie at Philobiblon excoriates the pathetic sentence meted out to a wife-batterer, which does nothing to challenge the trivialisation of domestic violence. That justice is blinkered [...]
Pingback by Britblog Roundup 132 » Anorak News — August 27, 2007 @ 4:56 pm
This is not intended to justify domestic violence – but in general, I would be very wary of treating the Daily Mail as a source of reliable and undistorted fact, whether they’re diametrically opposite to my personal views (as is usually the case) or in line with them (as here).
The lack of reporting on the case in the ‘serious’ media (iirc it was only reported in the Mail, the Mirror and the local press, with the BBC news only article just a summary of the Mail piece) and the fact that the Mail piece appears to be based predominantly on an interview with Ms Axe, whose recollection of the breakdown of her marriage is unlikely to be 100% impartial and emotionally unclouded, makes me not entirely confident that the real story is as the Mail presented it.
If – and I’m not saying that this *is* how it happened – the attacks happened in the context of fights that were not necessarily initiated by Read rather than as unprovoked assaults, then the community service sentence recommended by the probation service looks more reasonable [although even then, I'd agree that the judge's decision to not impose it becuase of Read's workload was utterly wrong].
It would be interesting to get hold of the actual case transcript and see how it compares to the Mail story.
Comment by john b — August 28, 2007 @ 11:38 am