Express & Star comment: Knifeman's sentence makes mockery of justice system
Sentencing killer Tyrone Andrew to just 14 years says everything about the state of the British justice system.
This despicable thug had already been convicted of wounding with intent, using a knife, at the age of 15, and progressed to drug dealing by 20.
There were clearly, then, enough chances for the criminal justice system to intervene and redirect his criminal trajectory before he picked up a knife and plunged it into the neck of Reagan Asbury outside Walsall Town Hall.
In sentencing him to just 14 years, Judge Simon Drew QC has set in motion a chain of events which could lead to Andrew being back on the streets as a fit and healthy young man, still at the relatively young age of 28.
We have some sympathy with the judge whose hands are undoubtedly tied by official sentencing guidelines.
Passing a longer sentence would run the risk of being challenged by the killer’s legal team, at public expense, and having the overall sentence reduced.
As is becoming clearer by the day, the criminal justice system in this country is quite simply not fit for purpose.
From the under-funding and badly-directed police on the front line through the ludicrously lenient court system and the chaotic probation service the system is falling down at every hurdle.
And yet to look at Theresa May and relatively new Home Secretary Sajid Javid you would think all was operating smoothly.
Certainly the hapless Amber Rudd, the previous Home Secretary, gave little indication that she thought anything was wrong with the criminal justice system.
You ask the person in the street and the fear of crime, the handling of crime and the leniency of the courts are huge priorities.
This is most likely because it is these people, those of us who live in the real world, who face the risks and consequences of having such a lawless society on a daily basis.
Crime is soaring, chief constables are openly admitting their service is not up to standard and apologising for it.
Police and Crime Commissioners appear useless and patently pointless. While in the meantime, the people paying the price for such incompetence and ineptitude at every level are the Reagan Asburys of this world and his devastated family.
Today they are suffering. They have lost a young man in their family they will never be able to replace. His uncle said the sentence was nowhere near enough and the vast majority of law-abiding citizens would agree with him.
Isn’t it about time that every single elected representative started to place crime and public safety at the very top of their priorities and started to do something about it?
There must be now a popular uprising of outrage about the appalling state of policing and the criminal justice in this country.
In the first instance, every single MP in the West Midlands should be writing to the Home Secretary, demanding action and greater investment and a serious change in direction and priorities through the system.
The results of this newspaper’s crime survey are due out in the coming days, where more than 9,000 people have had their view on the state of law and order in this country.
It is fair to say that the scandalous sentences being handed out by our courts appear not to have gone unnoticed. When the public speaks, those in authority have a duty to listen.
The Black Country and Staffordshire have had enough of weak excuses and we are sick and tired of feeling unsafe while criminals laugh at the law.
