Following the gaoling of Edward Woollard, Deborah Orr thinks he was given too harsh a punishment.
Geoffrey Rivlin QC has given Edward Woollard a “deterrent sentence”. The 18-year-old threw a fire extinguisher from the roof of the Conservative party’s Millbank headquarters in London during the student protest on 10 November last year. It’s safe to say that he won’t be doing that again in a hurry, since he was this week sentenced to two years and eight months in a young offenders’ institution. The idea, of course, is that this harsh example will encourage others to think twice before doing anything similar. Except I doubt that Woollard even thought once.
Frankly, I thought he got off lightly. He threw a heavy object from the roof of a building. It doesn’t take a great deal of intelligence to realise that anyone below could have been killed if struck by it. That someone wasn’t struck is down to pure chance. Woollard is supposed to be one of our bright young things, planning to go to university, so it is reasonable to suppose that he would realise this. Not so, according to Orr:
Woollard’s stupid, impulsive and dangerous act was surely that of a young person caught up in extraordinary events the like of which he had simply no experience.
Woollard had never even been to London without his parents before, let alone found himself swept up in a crowd of angry protesters who had smashed their way into a famous building and climbed up on to its roof. Even seasoned activists described occupying Millbank as a highly dynamic and exciting experience, as Jody McIntyre reports on his blog, Life On Wheels.
Oh, bollocks. This is a pretty dire attempt to excuse criminal behaviour. The poor dear, a country bumpkin who hadn’t been to the big city on his own before got caught up in events – don’t blame him, blame everyone and anything but him. No, Deborah, he is an adult – at eighteen years of age, that is what he is – who made a decision to throw a heavy object from a building into the crowds below. Even a poor country boy should realise that this was stupid, dangerous and criminal – even when caught up in events. Frankly, he should have been tried for attempted murder and put away for ten times what he got, but that’s just me. I don’t make excuses for violent criminals and I have a low opinion of those who do.
I noticed elsewhere the comment that this is how the left behave when they are not in power. The emerging pattern of the past few months tends to reinforce that observation.
So once again, the Groan stoops to new lows.
I’ve heard several people suggest this was too harsh a sentence. I kept my big mouth shut, not wishing to get involved in an argument at the time, but personally I’d throw away (carefully) the key.
On CiF the tu quoque is much in evidence, too.
“Woollard had never even been to London without his parents before . . .”
A reasonable excuse, perhaps, had he been 11 years old.
As I argued over at the Moose’s place this guy claims he tried to aim for a clear area of ground, which suggests that he did realise that what he was doing was bloody dangerous. But he went ahead and did it anyway, and missed by just a few feet because it’s probably not that easy to be that sure where a fire extinguisher dropped from several stories is going to end up, or that the space which had been empty when you dropped it won’t fill up before it lands. In short while nobody was harmed as a result he did endanger the lives of other people for no better reason than it didn’t occur to him not to. 32 months with half served seems about right to me.
Should have been more, but I’m surprised it wasn’t less.
He should have had a further sentence for being in possession of silly hair.
It was a pressurised container which hit concrete at about 100mph. These things are drop tested but not from that sort of height.
But then the arsewipe swinging from the cenotaph was a history “student”.
Grumpy old sod has quite a good take on this
Frankly if there was any real justice they’d have taken Woollard back to the top of Millbank and thrown his useless fucking arse off it.
Let’s face it he isn’t going to amount to very much of a career with a criminal record on his CV is he?
Problem solved. Simples.
Had the fire-extinguisher struck someone, probably on the head, it would very likely have killed them.
Mr Dullard would then have been serving a far longer sentence.
He knew police were below and there could only be one reason why he threw the fire extinguisher off the roof, to land on the police.
Only a small child or someone who is brain damaged would not understand the potential for death or injury from such an act.
The charge should have been attempted murder.
The idea, of course, is that this harsh example will encourage others to think twice before doing anything similar.
Not, its so that people don’t even think about it.
I wonder what line the Goran would have taken if a BNP skinhead had done similar during one of their peacful marches?
God, how I hate their double standards.
What was the point of the lad pleading guilty? Despite cooperating with the police and even handing himself in, it certainly looks as if he has been ‘made an example of’ for political reasons rather than that of justice.
He could have been charged with attempted murder. he wasn’t. He could have been sent down for five years for the offence for which he was charged. He wasn’t. Frankly, he got off lightly, presumably because of his guilty plea.
As for the political element to the sentencing, sorry, don’t buy it. There has always been an element of discouragement in sentencing. It’s futile, because there will always be people who think they can get away with it, so take the risk, or ignorant little thugs who don’t think. He wasn’t made an example of – he did that all by himself. Nor, as some of the CiF comments suggest, was he given a harsh sentence to discourage protest. He was given a harsh – and well deserved sentence – for violent disorder.
I don’t care about his sentence particularly but the fact that he handed himself in and pleaded guilty seems to count for little. Which is unusual.
As an aside – I’d consider that if the CPS really had been stupid enough to try to charge him with ‘attempted murder’ there is a good chance (had he not pleaded guilty to that one!) that he would have not even been convicted.
If he hadn’t handed himself in, he may have been facing closer to the five years maximum for that offence. Or, possibly the higher charge of attempted murder. Yes, it would have been interesting to see the outcome of that one – and I very much doubt he would have pleaded guilty.