LETTER: The time does not fit the crime!

(Teenager jailed after man died from a punch - January 31.) What hope is there for any kind of justice or any likelihood of violent criminals being deterred when 13 months in prison and another 13 months on licence is seen by a crown court judge as appropriate punishment for committing a criminal act of causing actual bodily harm as result of which a man died.

The fact that the person who did this was 15 years-old at the time should not soften the sentence which should be based on the facts of what he did and nothing else.

We read everywhere of young people attacking and sometimes killing with knives. We need to see a legal system which will deal appropriately, in relation to the crimes they commit, with everyone who uses aggressive violence.

Not to have this is to invite a crime wave by the young which will be unstoppable.

Modern liberal thinking which finds every mitigation, especially age, and hunts for every amelioration of sentence has no answer to the problem.

Instead we all have to live with the consequences of the concentration on the human rights of the convicted criminal over those of their potential and actual victims.