One of our regular correspondents forwarded this piece to us as another example of what passes for justice under New Labour. |
Under New Labour, it's apparently okay for a judge, who wishes to curry favour with the Lord Chancellor's office, to hand out an excessive sentence 'to make an example of someone' on party political grounds. Mr. Kevin Hughes, 46, a joiner, charity organiser (with royal commendations for his efforts for motor neurone disease), a married man and a member of the British National Party, was in an altercation with an Iraqi asylum seeker in December 2004. Whilst walking along the road an Iraqi Kurd fell into step beside him. After a few minutes Kevin asked the Iraqi where he was from. Kevin claims he meant nothing more by this than an interest. People often ask an obvious foreigner where they are from. In fact. people will often ask a fellow Briton to identify a dialect. There were no witnesses to this altercation. Somehow the police were able to identify Kevin from a description and find him remarkably swiftly. Kevin was arrested and charged with racially aggravated common assault. The case came to court in March 2005. The police had lost all the paperwork and the district judge threw it out. Three months later Kevin received a letter saying that charges were being resumed and, in May 2006, the case was heard in Worcester Crown Court. The charges had been upgraded to religiously and racially Aggravated Section 47 Assault. To begin with the judge discredited the Iraqi in Court, finding discrepancies between his original statement and the evidence he was now giving; asking why he needed an interpreter when he claimed to have understood Kevin in the street and then gave a description of him, in English, to the police. Kevin has friends and customers who are Sikhs and Muslims who were willing to attest that he is not racist. His charity work was not mentioned. He has never been in trouble before and yet he received an excessive sentence. The judge said that he had instructions from the Home Office and it certainly seems as if any member of the BNP can expect excessive and extreme vilification and punishment from the establishment even when they commit no crime but merely because of their membership.
A comparison In July 2006, a 21 year old Muslim was jailed for racially aggravated assault when he and his friends set upon an innocent passer-by, beating him badly.
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