Justice for Josh Morgan: COMMENT: Thugs should be locked up and key thrown away

I know that's not very politically-correct, compassionate or generous. No doubt the criminals are victims too, in some obscure way.

They may come from broken homes, they might be somewhat intellectually challenged, they could be addicted to drink, or drugs, or both.

But I can't help thinking our sympathy should lie entirely with the people whose lives they wreck.

Jail should be a punishment and a deterrent, not a Christmas break.

Yet next year violent criminals James Robb and Alistair Douglas will be walking the streets of Cannock again as free men.

It's more than can be said for their entirely innocent victim, Josh Morgan, a young man only 20 years old whose life has been more or less destroyed by an apparently random, unprovoked attack on him by Robb and Douglas. It is likely that Josh will never walk again.

Douglas, aged 26, may well be strutting around Cannock as soon as February next year while Robb, aged 23, might have to wait a little longer but will probably be out by September.

Unless a petition calling for harsher sentences actually has any effect, these two vile thugs, after their brief sojourn in prison, have the rest of their lives to look forward to.

Josh, described by the judge as a 'mild mannered and gentle young man', has nothing much to anticipate.

Robb punched him twice, he fell to the ground cracking his skull and was dragged across a car park.

After the attack on March 9 last year, he was in a coma for months. He is now limited to moving his head and forearms and can try to pronounce single words. He needs 24-hour care.

For Josh Morgan, and his mother Clare Simpson, it's a life sentence.

Ms Simpson says she lives in constant fear Josh might die. When she saw him after the attack, her son was unrecognisable. It still gives her nightmares.

Robb got three years imprisonment; Douglas, two years and three months.

Because they've spent a few months electronically tagged, they'll be out in next to no time.

Why have they got off so lightly? They have stolen a young man's life almost as completely as if they had murdered him.

The legal system should mete out a punishment fitting the crime. It should protect the rest of us from scum like Robb and Douglas by keeping them out of circulation for as long as possible.

And it should be used to deter other yobs from behaving with the same callous indifference.

There are far too many casual attacks taking place on our streets, and far too few sentences tough enough to make these people think twice before lashing out.

A few short months in prison leave all of us – but most obviously Josh Morgan's nearest and dearest – with a sense of helpless outrage.

It's clear the reason criminals get off so lightly is because our jails are full. David Cameron told this year's Tory conference we were locking up too many criminals. We had to be more understanding, apparently.

He told the party faithful: "We have got to get away from the sterile lock-'em-up or let-'em-out debate, and get smart about this."

That's easy for him to say.

He doesn't have to walk across car parks at night after he's finished a shift working in a pub. He rarely encounters a couple of drunken amateur boxers looking for trouble.

Instead, he presides over a prison system where one inmate in seven – about 10,500 criminals – is a foreigner.

Instead of kicking them out of the country as soon as they're convicted of a serious crime, we fill our prisons then wring our hands about overcrowding.

We don't even chuck them out when they've finished their sentences. There are 5,000 foreign criminals at liberty in Britain who have done time for everything from assault to rape and murder.

It would be contrary to their human rights if we put them on the first flight back to Kraków or Kingston. So our jails fill up not just with home-grown but foreign-born undesirables.

As a result, judges are told to keep sentences as short as they can. Which means louts like Robb and Douglas get early release.

Now Justice Secretary Michael Gove is 'getting smart' as Dave wants. He's slashing prison sentences and letting inmates out on day release.

Foreigners will be given a special offer – an extra nine months off their sentence if they agree to go home. As if they should be given any choice in the matter.

The latest plans won't help victims, of course, but our criminal justice system has given up worrying about them.

Mr Cameron and Mr Gove should remember criminals like Robb and Douglas will walk free sooner or later however severe the sentence. Victims like Josh Morgan may never walk again.