Dale is so wrong on Huntley

I was going to write something on this subject when Iain Dale posted this article on his blog, but walked away and calmed down a bit.

I’m sorry, Iain, but you are so totally wrong on this subject it hurts. We don’t have the death penalty in this country, thankfully, even for appalling crimes such as those of Ian Huntley. If found guilty, we put the convicted in prison, often for the rest of their lives. Note, that is the punishment, and it occurs only after one has been found guilty by a jury, and sentenced by a judge who has heard both the prosecution and defence witnesses and evidence.

We do no throw people to lions anymore. We lock them up.

So like it or not, Huntley’s punishment doesn’t extend to allowing other convicted criminals to hand out summary justice in the form of boiling water and razor blades. When calculating a sentence, the Judge doesn’t think ‘Mmmmm, I’ll give the perv ‘x’ years, that statistically should see him recieve ‘y’ amounts of random violence from other inmates’.

Thus, the Prison Service do indeed have a duty of care to Huntley. They obviously may have failed in this respect, and like everyone else, he has a right to challenge this in court, which is the correct place to decide if there have been any failings, not on the front pages of tabloids and reactionary Tory blogs. Take the following, for example;

I suspect many people would award a medal to the man who slit Huntley’s throat. Did prison officers turn a blind eye? Perhaps. If so, who would blame them?

Now, if you are of the opinion that he ‘deserved it’ and ‘had it coming’, then if you believe in innocent until proven guilty, your only option is to argue for a return to capital punishment, branding, or some such, after a jury trial. I find it obscene that one could cheer from the sidelines at the possibility that prison officers were turning a blind eye while other criminals carried out a serious assault.

Yes, Huntley is a sick, twisted individual. Yes, his crimes were deeply upsetting, ruined many lives and robbed two children of their futures. For this, he should spend the rest of his life behind bars, not on the torture racks of other similarly unpleasant individuals.

Advertisement