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The Magistrate's Blog (2005-2012)

This blog has migrated to www.magistratesblog.blogspot.co.uk This blog is anonymous, and Bystander's views are his and his alone. Where his views differ from the letter of the law, he will enforce the letter of the law because that is what he has sworn to do. If you think that you can identify a particular case from one of the posts you are wrong. Enough facts are changed to preserve the truth of the tale but to disguise its exact source.

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Location: Near London, United Kingdom

The blog is written by a retired JP, with over 30 years' experience on the Bench.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Suppressio Veri, Suggestio Falsi Again


I have already made my views clear on the subject of sentencing drivers who have killed someone. Today's papers (and it's my fault for being such an avid reader, I know)are full of stuff like the Mail's headline. The driver concerned got 18 months. He will, as the law prescribes, have received a third off his sentence for his plea of guilty. He will also, as the law prescribes, be released at the halfway point of his sentence - just like everyone else - so he will serve 9 months. But he has already served a lot of time in custody pending sentence, a fact that the papers choose to ignore, so that they can trumpet that he will be 'out in four months' or whatever. Now there is a perfectly legitimate argument that his sentence was or was not appropriate. I am just depressed that the press have again resorted to deliberate distortion of the facts to make the story a bit more sensational.

http://parkingattendant.blogspot.com/http://www.crimeline.info/