The idea of victims' justice is something which civilised societies rightly abhor. Uncle Sam, of course, with his Bible-thumping barbarism, is uncivilised, along with China, the Indian sub-continent, parts of Africa, parts of the former USSR and countless other states, notably in the Middle East, where the state or the theocracy casts itself as the victim of all crimes and extracts a deadly and wretched compensation from offenders - or those said to be offenders by proper offenders, generally men, often holy men, utter bastards, in other words.
Victims' justice belongs far in the past, along with the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama, proper societies have a system of blind, impersonalised justice, detached from the offence but connected to the society in which it occurred and driven by considerations other than solely vengeance; how else can it work? Unless we are prepared to condone one crime leading to another, probably worse; to condone a fatal escalation of inter-citizen violence as burglary leads to murder and murder leads to torture and murder, unless we want blood and limbs flowing in the streets we must consign the dispensation of justice to professionals, with whom we will often disagree. Because they are all bastards, too.
The selective abolition of the Double Jeopardy rule was one of NewLabour's darker achievements and we see that controlling impetus everywhere, now, in politics; the Irish Referendum on Europe is a fine example of state - or pan-state - lawlessness, you keep on voting until you give us the answer we want or, as in this case, we keep on trying you until we get a conviction, it is one of those slippery slopes beloved of NewLab bullyboy, Jack Torture, simpering learnedly, the rotten fucking bastard, about human rights whilst extending the rights of the state over the citizen; as Foreign Seckatry Straw lied his face off to the United Nations, in order that his masters in Washington might bomb the beJasus out of innocent Iraqi children; today, in the light of the Lawrence verdict, this monster will be toasting himself, even more than usual. It is better that a thousand guilty go free than that one innocent be incarcerated or executed and fuck DNA evidence and fuck scientific advance and fuck clozeya for victims' families. The ability to try and re-try is the work of the Devil which we shall all come to regret, all of us, that is, save the lawmakers and their agents, who, as we know, are far beyond the reach of the laws they visit upon the rest of us.
Another NewLabour solecism - along with the creation of Holocaust Day - was the idea that killing some people was worse than killing other people; that, if you killed a ginger person you should get a sterner bollocking off the likes of Coleman Treacey than you would if you just killed someone who was, say, brown haired. And so now we have gingerly-aggravated killing, unless, of course, at the earliest opportunity you express remorse for hating ginger bastards. Once upon a time, killing anybody was bad shit, but now if you kill some bastard because you don't like him, well, as we see, hanging's too good for you. A black person, you see, or a gay person, is uniquely, when killed, more dead than a non-black or non-gay person. ( I wonder, in passing, if, had Steven been killed by a Yardie and his killing effectively overlooked by the Met, would we be banging-on about it nearly twenty years later, would it be less of a tragedy, less of an outrage? Where does the racism really lie in this?) Now, if I was a white, straight person, I'd take serious exception to this shit because what it means is that if someone is sat at home thinking about killing someone else he is very likely to think, Fuck me, I wanna kill some bastard so bad, I wanna knife him and kick him and set fire to him, maybe not knife him, because that carries a bigger sentence, and certainly not shoot him because they'll throw the fucking book at me and it better not be a black person or a brown person or any kinda coloured gay person, or a Muslim or Scotchperson; the bastard'd certainly better not be studying for A levels or we'll never hear the end of it. Who does that leave me, then, to murder? I'll just have to find someone who's not now and never has been a member of any minority group whatsoever, because that'd be HateCrime. And all I wanna do is murder some bastard.
Now, the individuals convicted for the murder of BrightAlevelStudentStevenLawrence do present as pretty unpleasant and despite the botched evidence of the Met's scientific teams, the jury felt that they were guilty of a terrible deed, spontaneous, although apparently in character; a couple of knife thrusts and a shared jubilation. And now, for some, the state's retribution - those calling, incidentally, for a longer sentence have clearly never spent a week-end in the cells, have no concept of what fifteen years' incarceration means. I am no armchair jurist and I don't know - beyond a gut feeling of "probably" - the truth of the matter. And if I blame anybody, I blame the parents. And, of course, their parents. There's no shortage of people to blame. Just as long as we don't blame our representatives in MediaMinster.
But I do know that criminal trials are not, or should not be held to burnish, belatedly, the reputation of a palpably corrupt police force, to vindicate the drunken, amoral splutterings of the wretched, anti-democrat Paul Dacre of the Daily FilthMail, nor should they be held to bring clozeya to Mrs Lawrence, people who speak in such terminology betray not their compassion but their imbecility. Mrs Lawrence is a true vexation to the spirit, for one can be sure that before her personal loss she discounted all the police wickedness visited upon other, less "bright" black boys; her son, doing A levels, wasn't he actually gonna be an architect, almost a proper white man. Nothing that happens, in or out of the criminal justice system will bring clozeya to Mrs Lawrence. Nothing except Forgiveness. But she is clearly an unforgiving woman and her wretchedness will yet sell many more newspapers as anniversaries roll around and - in the distant future - parole applications are heard. I am doing a life sentence she will howl; yes, she is and only she can free herself; although we know that Grief's celebrity-noire is a tenacious monkey on the back of the unwary - once there saddled by skymadeupnewsandfilth, he is hard to unseat. Here Mrs Old Lady, here's a coupla hundred quid, tell us, tell our readers, how much you hate Ian Brady and Myra Hindley for killing your son; thanks, love, seeya next year.
But the trial wasn't about Mrs Lawrence - but don't tell her that - it was about an act of random, racially inspired murder, like the one of an Indian student, just committed in Manchester - undeterred, you see, by the great efforts made by our masters, hatred stalks us, still; and who knows when others of similar mind to the Lawrence killers may strike again, maybe in solidarity with their jailed comrades.
Mr Justice Coleman Cuckold Treacey is a man made mean by his disappointments and we may be sure that he has dished out as much prison as he could, consistent with the career implications of a high profile case such as this and few will complain that he was over-harsh although, as we see, some are of the view that hanging's too good for 'em, life should mean life and so on. There may be room for another court to give them an extra year or two - even though Treacey's doses of porridge are just a minimum, the Parole Board and Home Seckatries are well-attuned to the public mood in such cases and these two should not hold their breath, awaiting release on the dates specified by the Court, they could well spend their lives in prison.
The institutionalised villains of the piece of course are feasting, too, along with the drunken bum, Dacre, along with every half-witted race relations activist and with every veneer-scratched Guardian-reading fascist in the land.
DAC Clarissa Gob was good, nice mixture of smug satisfaction and regret that it had taken so long for her mob to do the decent thing; Clarissa, it was, who masterminded the emptying of a magazine into the head of poor young JeanCharles de Menendes, before he was swiftly slandered by Sir now Lord Ian Blair, then Commissioner of the Filth; unlike the unfortunates sentenced yesterday, Clarissa was immediately promoted, it's how they do things in the police. And all, the entire revolting Gabshites Chorus, have been singing the praises - although they didn't at the time - of the MacPherson Report, as though the images of women being dragged around the cells by their hair, batoned in the face by psychobastard coppers-without-numbers and of Ian Tomlinson being killed, right before the eyes of the world and his killer being cynically protected by the entire law enforcement system had been apparitions, visible only to the sceptical, the naysayers. visible only to those who say that all lawyers are scum, all politicians are shit-eating hypocrites, all journalists are filth and - l'axiom des toutes axiomes - all coppers are bastards. That some cops have been dragooned into prosecuting their spiritual homies does not alter the fact that those who, at the time, protected the killers, will have been, what's that phrase, in FilthSpeak, allowed to retire early, on health grounds
The feasting, therefore, friends, the Feast of Stephen, is of thin gruel, bread and circuses, a good, self-righteous, tub-thumping, self-writing New Year's story to gladden the hearts and divert the attentions of the braindead.
The final word should go to the Met's chief sociopath, wotsisname, Baden Powell, Hogan Powell, who knows, so rotten is the barrel from which their bosses emerge that even the most blatantly criminal organisation in the country can't seem to keep hold of one of them for more than five minutes.
COMMISSIONER HAGEN-DAZ
Those involved in the killing of young wotsisname, the black lad, they shouldn't sleep easily in their beds. Those involved over the past decade in the killings of three hundred and fifty people in their custody - ie us - we can sleep as soundly as we like.
Always remember, there is only a thin but excessively well-armed blue line protecting you from an outbreak of complete Decency.
