A justified life sentence

Stuff reports:

A man obsessed with Nazis and white supremacism will spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of British lawmaker Jo Cox in a frenzied street attack which stunned Britain a week before the European Union referendum.

Thomas Mair, 53, shot Cox three times and repeatedly stabbed the 41-year-old mother of two young children in her northern English electoral district.

During the attack on June 16, he shouted “Britain first” and “Keep Britain independent” his trial heard, and when arrested he told officers he was a political activist.

All murders are bad but the murder of an MP is especially chilling as it is an attack on democracy as well as an individual.

He asked to make a statement only after the jury unanimously returned a guilty verdict but judge Alan Wilkie turned down his request.

“You are no patriot,” Wilkie told him. “By your actions you have betrayed the quintessence of our country: its adherence to parliamentary democracy.”

He added: “It is clear … that your inspiration is not love of country or your fellow citizens, it is an admiration for Nazism and similar anti-democratic white supremacist creeds.”

A particularly loathsome individual.