Peter Rhodes on Strictly, emails and the astonishing number of defendants 'spared prison'
My bank has been in touch to tell us that from now on, in order to save paper, more important information will be sent by email, not post. But I bet I'm not the only customer who, on receiving any important email, promptly prints a copy and keeps it safe in a file. So from now on with each email, the bank will save a sheet of paper but I will print a sheet of paper. And thus shall we save the planet . . .
Incidentally, if you prefer to save all your documents digitally rather than on paper, that is entirely your right. As we saw last week, computers never go wrong.
I can't help noticing how many court reports these days include the same little phrase: “spared prison.” The number of defendants convicted of horrendous crimes but “spared prison” is shocking.
It's a misleading term. It suggests that, but for some extraordinary facts about the case, the accused would have been banged up as normal as he justly deserved. Truth is, the old normal has vanished. Today, courts and cops are under pressure to reduce the number of criminals held in detention. If that means not making arrests, imposing suspended sentences or slicing a few months off prison terms, so be it. But what's the end game?
When hundreds of cells have been emptied, refurbished and made ready for another influx of miscreants, how many of the new arrivals will be old lags “spared prison” only a few weeks before?
The BBC has been obsessed with America for so long that we almost take it for granted. Consider, for example, the lack of in-depth reporting from Leeds where social tensions allegedly led to riots, compared with the BBC's headline treatment of workers at Disneyland threatening to go on strike.
If that comment strikes you as unfair on the Beeb, it may be I'm a tad bitter, having just shelled out £169.50 for a TV licence which, I learned at the weekend, may be spent employing chaperones to look out for “abrasive” behaviour in training for Strictly Come Dancing. Couldn't somebody simply call the police?
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