Express & Star comment: Sentencing this soft lets us all down

Just hours after the fatal attack on the schoolboy in Wolverhampton, a judge at the city’s crown court was displaying one of the key reasons why so many young people now feel emboldened to arm themselves with knives.

A 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, took up a bottle and a knife after an altercation in a Stourbridge park.

Having had the bottle torn from his grasp, he used the knife to slash at his victim, leaving him scarred for life, physically and mentally.

Thankfully, the wound was not life-threatening – although the attacker was not to know he wouldn’t have killed the victim if the blows had landed differently.

You would think such a case, in such a climate, would be used as an example.

It was the perfect opportunity for those who are handsomely paid to uphold our laws to make clear that this rising tide of knife crime has to be stopped and reversed.

And yet many would argue Judge Michael Challinor did just the opposite in this case.

He sentenced the knife-wielding youth to a 12-month rehabilitation order, two months night-time curfew and 50 hours unpaid work.

Incredibly, he added: “I am satisfied that dealing with him in the community is the best way to turn him away from violence.”

Quite frankly, such comments and such soft sentencing really beggar belief.

Barely a day goes by without this newspaper reporting on outcomes that must make ordinary men and women despair.

Our thoughts are not only with the victim in this case, but also the hard-pressed police who helped bring the culprit to this so-called justice.

As for the wider public, police stations are being closed down while politicians squabble about funding and prosecution rates are a national disgrace.

And if – on the rare chance – criminals are caught after the act, judges with soft hearts and softer heads take every opportunity to set them free into our midst again.

What a mess.