... RAISING SOME VERY ALARMING QUESTIONS

How can blackmail be on a par with child abuse?

THE Crime Harm Index ranks blackmail as slightly more serious than ‘abuse of children through prostitution and pornography’.

It gives blackmail a ‘weight’ of 566, representing the average number of days offenders serve in jail for the crime, compared with 563 for taking advantage of teenagers for sexual reasons.

Many observers would consider the latter to be the more serious crime, particularly in the light of the horrific abuse carried out by grooming gangs around the country that has been exposed in recent years.

In one notorious case, a 14-year-old girl was forced into prostitution by a group of men after being picked up in a Rochdale nightclub and plied with alcohol.

Police said the vulnerable teenager was ‘used as a commodity’ by the gang, who forced her to have sex for money before she escaped their clutches.

Ringleader Aftab Khan, pictured above, was jailed for seven years.

...or robbery over twice as bad as kidnapping a child?

ROBBERY is deemed twice as bad as child abduction under the index. The theft of personal property is given a weight of 480 in the controversial list, compared with 211 for child abduction.

The maximum sentence for robbery is life imprisonment, although under new guidelines judges can jail offenders for as little as a year if they do not use force. By contrast, the maximum for child abduction is just seven years – to the consternation of the courts and campaigners. In a 2011 Court of Appeal case, three senior judges said in a judgment: ‘We recommend the maximum sentence for child abduction should be increased.’ The Law Commission has also called for the maximum sentence to be doubled to 14 years. In a case that gripped the nation, teacher Jeremy Forrest, left, was jailed for five-and-a-half years in 2012 for running off to France with a 15-year-old pupil and having sex with her.

... or bike theft 4 times worse than heroin use?

STEALING a bike is much more serious than taking hard drugs, the index would appear to suggest.

‘Theft or unauthorised taking of a pedal cycle’ is given a weight of 11 in the list, on a par with assault without injury.

Yet possession of illegal drugs is almost at the bottom of the harm index with a score of three, followed by possession of cannabis scoring two.

The disparity suggests the list does not reflect the impact on society or the NHS caused by addiction or mental health problems linked to drug abuse – or the fact that many cyclists will simply be reimbursed by insurers for the loss of their bike from a rack or garden shed.

There have been a number of killings in recent years carried out by people who were regular users of super-strength skunk cannabis, while a synthetic variety known as Spice has led to a surge in violence in jails.