Letting rapists out early

The Government seems to excel in convincing people they are doing one thing whin in fact they do the opposite. Take last year’s sentencing act which they claimed was a response to the 90% referendum vote for tougher sentences. How many people realised it allowed criminals to get parole after only one third of their sentence now.

The Act has also been so badly put together that not even the Court of Appeal can work out what it means. They have asked Parliament to “rewrite Section 86 more clearly” as they saw `major problems” and could `foresee this subject being a fertile source of difficulty for some time to come, both for sentencing judges, and on appeal”. In the normal diplomatic language of the courts, this means it makes no sense and is contradictory. This is what happens when you use Acts to try and con people that you are doing what they want.

One Appeal judge described a section of the Act as “inept drafting” and “something like the Hampton Maze”.