What’s the point of us catching knife thugs?
Police blast judges who let criminals go free and ask:
FRuSTRATED police officers have hit out on social media at soft knife crime sentences as scores of dangerous offenders walk free from courts.
Officers around the country have criticised judges and magistrates for handing out suspended sentences to knife-wielding thugs at a time of record levels of fatal stabbings.
On Wednesday a tweet about an 18year- old walking free from court after admitting possession of what police described as a ‘fearsome’ weapon caused astonishment among officers.
Devante Omer, a knife offender who has posed for photographs on social media making gang signs and showing off wads of cash, was handed a six-month sus- pended sentence after being caught with a knife in Enfield, north London.
Superintendent Roy Smith, of the Metropolitan Police, tweeted: ‘I wonder if this judicial outcome serves as either a deterrent or offers any hope at rehabilitation.’ An officer in Barnet, north London, responded: ‘Suspended sentence! Seriously! Perhaps the courts need to catch up on current affairs!’
Colin Sutton, the retired detective who led the inquiry into Milly Dowler’s killer Levi Bellfield, also criticised the sentence, saying: ‘I am sure there are some who share my view – what is the point?’ He said officers do their very best, but find ‘the system beyond them just doesn’t want to assist’.
Greater Manchester Police officers revealed on Facebook on Tuesday that a teenage yob caught with a samurai sword had escaped jail for a second time.
Officers wrote on the force’s Failsworth and Hollinwood neighbourhood page: ‘A teenage youth from Failsworth who recently appeared at Tameside Magistrates for possessing a meat cleaver in a public place was back in court today. He pleaded guilty to having a samurai sword in a public place. The courts revoked his referral order for the last offence and then issued another referral order. Neighbourhood officers are disappointed.’
The post sparked fury, with more than 100 local people complaining of the ‘diabolical decision’ and saying that knife offenders were ‘laughing at the justice system’.
And British Transport Police said that a thug caught with three knives at Birmingham New Street railway station had been spared jail. He was arrested with a Rambo knife, a hunting weapon with a ten-inch blade and an even longer kitchen knife, but on Friday he received only a suspended jail term and an eight-week curfew.
Richard Cooke, chairman of West Midlands Police Federation, tweeted: ‘Yet another dangerous knife criminal walks free from court! If this isn’t part of the problem we are kidding ourselves. This is a travesty of justice and makes a mockery of our work fighting the knife crime epidemic.’
Police anger comes as Justice Secretary David Gauke is under pressure to water down plans to abolish short sentences amid concerns it could lead to around 4,000 knife criminals a year avoiding jail.
Last month he said prison sentences of less than six months could be axed because they are ‘simply not working’.
Mr Gauke argued that community penalties should be imposed more often, although he said violent offenders should still face jail.
Now he is examining whether to exempt knife attackers after the Government came under fire for failing to tackle rising knife crime.
There were 285 fatal stabbings in England and Wales in the year to March 2018 – the highest level since records began in 1946. Ministry of Justice figures show that 4,300 offenders – which is 59 per cent of knife criminals in England and Wales – received jail terms of six months or less last year.
A spokesman said: ‘We are considering how to reform short sentences, but we are not going to take away the tools that judges have to impose tough sentences on those involved in knife crime.’
19-year-old youth was stabbed in East Dulwich, south-east London, yesterday. He was taken to hospital with serious injuries. No arrests have been made.
‘Makes a mockery of our work’