accurate but utterly insensitive remarks he did on Victoria Derbyshire's
programme on R5 this morning.
Some rapes will carry longer sentences than others depending on the
aggravating and mitigating factors just as some robberies, some thefts, even
some murders carry longer sentences than others but to label some rapes as
being "less serious" shows a level of political naivety that Ken, in his
prime, would never have exhibited.
Defendants pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity already get a third
off their sentence, a policy which does concern me, but the suggestion is
that the discount should be raised to half. Their also seems to be a
suggestion in the wind that, instead of being released half way through a
custodial sentence to serve the second half on licence, prisoners should be
released after serving only a quarter of the sentence inside before being
released into the community.
I can understand why folks are so angry. If this piece is right and
currently the average sentence for rape is five years then these two
measures could reduce that to 7 or 8 months.
Of course the effects aren't quite as bad if we assume that most rapists
already plead guilty (which is pretty unlikely) because then the average
sentence for those convicted at trial would be 7.5 years because they
wouldn't be getting the discount but if that were the case then raising the
discount would not achieve the desired outcome of making more of 'em plead
guilty and avoid putting victims through the stress of a trial.
Sorry, Ken, this is a bad idea and you have made it even less acceptable by
the way you've handled the issue.
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