Holiday Time

I shall be away for a few days, so greetings to everyone, and thanks for taking the time to have a look at this everyday story of offending folk, with extra thanks to those kind enough to contribute comments - even the rude ones.

I am due to sit in court next week, so there are people out there who as yet have no inkling that they will be standing in a dock facing me and my colleagues in a few days' time. All that it takes is a couple of extra drinks, a moment of madness, and the law swings into action in its flat-footed majesty.

Finally, just a thought for those seventy-odd thousand people who will be spending Christmas in prison. Many of them are mentally ill, many more are the product of casual cruelty and indifference that has brought them to their present position of being excluded from society. Many more are just plain wicked, some are unlucky. Christmas must be the hardest time for prisoners with families, so as I dig into my turkey with my family I hope that I shall remember those who are sharing a thirteen foot by seven foot cell, with an iron bedstead and painted walls.

Someone from my class at school is currently serving 20 years (at least two-thirds to be served before parole), and while I have no sympathy for his crime, that is an awesome sentence for a man in his fifties, and I shall try to remember that there but for the grace of God goes any of us.

Merry Christmas.