The sentencing of a 15 year old Blackburn boy – 14 at the time he committed his thought crimes – to life imprisonment is grossly inhuman. It is not quite as evil as the decision of the appalling Saudi regime to crucify and behead a child dissident, but it is recognisably a product of the same world view. History books will look back on this era as one of astonishing state cruelty.
As I have posted repeatedly, Islamic terrorism in the UK is virtually non-existent. It has killed precisely one person in the last decade. As a massive security industry employing many, many thousands depends for its very existence on this tiny threat, the work of the government, media and security services in exaggerating the “danger” is unceasing and increasingly desperate. It is based on an endless series of stories of thwarted terrorist plots.
The most famous was the liquid bomb plot which in fact had no bombs and no air tickets, and where the traces of “suspicious chemical” found in baby feeding bottles was Milton baby bottle sterilising solution. Then there was the ricin plot with no ricin, and the Manchester “Easter bomb plot” where the “bomb ingredient” found in a kitchen was an ordinary bag of sugar.
In the event of the absence of any terrorism, the focus has shifted to thinking about terrorism, and the result has been the conviction of a series of fantasists who can be held to “prove” the terrorist threat. Of these the very saddest is the State’s crushing of this young child. He had no bombs, owned no weapons, harmed nobody. He was however the “mastermind” behind the dreaded “Anzac Day Beheading Plot” where jihadists in Australia did… nothing whatsoever. Nobody attacked anybody. Some people texted about it.
Aha! But don’t we realise that, but for the tens of billions we lavish on the security services, somebody in Australia definitely would have got beheaded by someone? It was only the arrest of a schoolboy in Blackburn that prevented beheadings in Australia, just as it was only the execution by drone of two men in a car in Syria that prevented something absolutely awful from happening in the UK, somewhere by someone, somehow. “What they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth.”
I don’t understand how stupid you have to be to buy into this stuff. But then I don’t understand what a vicious callous bastard of a judge you have to be to sentence a child to life imprisonment. He is doubtless a very disturbed child and probably very unpleasant to deal with. But he did not harm anyone; pretending he could have is part of the charade of the security state.
I also do not understand why the child’s beheading fantasies get him locked away for life, yet it is apparently OK for the Saudis to behead and crucify anyone they like, and still be grovelled to by the entire British establishment, up to and including the monarch. So far as can be ascertained, the Saudis behead more people than ISIL and for identical reasons, yet I see no Conservative demands to bomb them. One interesting result of the Russian bombings in Syria is that the media are for the first time openly publishing that the CIA and Saudis are funding and arming some of the most dubious combatant groups in Syria.
The power players in all of this, on all sides, are cruel men. Justice Saunders in a British court has just proven that includes the British establishment.
Perhaps someone could explain whether or not I’ve got this right.
The boy has been sentenced to life imprisonment. But the judge’s recommended minimum term is five years.
Media frame their reporting of this in such a way as to lead people into believing the five years is the aberrant thing.
But what has actually happened is that the boy has been given a five year prison sentence for fantasist thought crime with the added punishment of a life time of probation/surveillance.
Because that is the point of the life sentence? Those who receive them are never released from parole and can be recalled at any time the state says so?
Have I got that right?
Sixer
02/10/2015 1:28pm
Yes.
“Released lifers:
•are subject to a life licence which remains in force for the duration of their natural life;
•may be recalled to prison at any time to continue serving their life sentence if it is considered necessary to protect the public.”
The sentence imposed is presumably Detention for Life.
“•Detention for Life – this is the maximum sentence for a person aged 10 or over but under 18, who is convicted of offences other than murder for which a discretionary life sentence may be passed on a person over 21.”
https://www.justice.gov.uk/offenders/types-of-offender/life
Kind regards,
John
Terrorize the few, to gain compliance of the many!
Very well said Craig.
Thank you.
Oh, many congratulations to Justice Saunders.
I wonder how many people he has just recruited as enemies of the United Kingdom today?
Well done. Good job.
Kind regards,
John
John
Thank you. I thought that was it.
I’ve just watched the BBC’s lunchtime news. They led with “Britain’s youngest Islamist terrorist has received a life sentence”. Then moved onto “the judge recommends he serves ONLY five years”.
Framing, framing, framing.
Because this isn’t what has happened, is it?
The boy has, in effect, been given a 5 year prison sentence for encouraging someone else, via email, to commit a terrorist act. Which the someone else did not actually commit. The boy has also been sentenced to a lifetime of state control, via a special life sentence given only to children, which we have on the statute, presumably to deal with the likes of the Bulger murderers.
“The sentencing of a 15 year old Blackburn boy – 14 at the time he committed his thought crimes – to life imprisonment is grossly inhuman.”
STOP LYING CRAIG. These aren’t “thought crimes”. They stopped being thoughts when words came out of his head to become actual incitements to violence and conspiracy to commit murder. How do you transition from a silent “thought” to a bloody head rolling down the street with nothing in between? By your legal opinion, those murderous savages who nearly beheaded Lee Rigby would have only commited thought crimes had they been prevented from commiting the actual murder. They would have been free to go on to succeed another time.
Now, I had just heard this report on the radio a couple of hours ago and thought that it was harsh sentence. The offender was a stupid kid at the time and did not physically participate in any progression of the intended crime – as far as I know.
*BUT* you Craig have done something even more irresponsible than the stupid kid. You are actively providing false defences of “fantasy” to criminals who are engaged in the nascent stages of serious violent crimes. How do you justify that?
Jemand
Err, nobody did “physically participate in any progression of the intended crime”. The crime did not happen. It was a fantasy. Come back to me when there is an actual terrorist attack.
Shocking and disgraceful but the UK is now a fascist state.
Let’s take this further.
If somone commenting on this blog were to openly “fantasize” about raping and savagely beating your lovely sexy wife in front of your kid AND actively encouraged some reader to carry out this heinous act, your only objection would be the tastelessness of such an ugly fantasy. Is that right?
The possibility that someone might act on this openly discussed “fantasy”, with details exchanged on how it might be achieved, would not be cause for action to prevent it from happening. Is that right?
Fuck. Have I got you wrong.
Jemand
02/10/2015 2:01pm
If the author of such a fantasy was discovered to be an emotionally disturbed 14-year-old boy with a degenerative eye condition, I would not regard detention for life to be an appropriate sentence.
John
C4’s report on Syria last night was full of 8-year-old’s being trained by Muslim fanatics to behead people.
The oldest Wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=T_in_the_Park&diff=prev&oldid=41911203
“As I have posted repeatedly, Islamic terrorism in the UK is virtually non-existent. It has killed precisely one person in the last decade.”
Looks like the security and intelligence services are doing a good job then. Or do you deny that Islamic terrorism is a widespread threat?
“Jemand
Err, nobody did “physically participate in any progression of the intended crime”. The crime did not happen. It was a fantasy. Come back to me when there is an actual terrorist attack.”
– – –
Err.. A majority of serious crimes require planning. Most of the time might be spent planning with only a few seconds or minutes required to physically implement it. Under your legal system, Craig, we can expect more violent crime as police are held back from taking action until the crime has succeeded. Attempted murder is not murder at all – no crime. It’s just a mock act of fantasy.
JSD, read my comment again regarding “harsh sentence” of “stupid kid” before commenting, please.
The jailing of a child by a state is marginally kinder than shooting and killing an 18 year old –
Wanted: The killer of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun
September 28, 2015
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/09/wanted-hadeel-hashlamoun
or this 15 year old
For You, Palestinian Kid Killed by IDF Was Just a Statistic
Abu Yasser has buried three of his brothers. His tragedy is heartbreaking; ours is that we are slowly losing our humanity.
Dan Goldberg |
Jul 10, 2015
‘ Mohammed al-Kasbeh, shot in the head and back last Friday morning near Qalandiyah checkpoint, was just another statistic for most people.’
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.665371
Jemand,
I have actually had disturbed people threaten my family, as long term blog readers may recall. I don’t want them locked up for life for it and I wouldn’t falsely characterise it as a practical terrorist plot. Still less if it were a child.
I stated in my article that the child is unpleasant and difficult to deal with. He is nonetheless a disturbed child, not a “terrorist”. Many of the fantasists have indeed been unpleasant. In some cases like the “fertiliser plot”, though not as far as I know in this one, they have been egged on by state agents provocateurs. But there is a major difference between “unpleasant fantasist” and “terrorist” – still more between “unpleasant child fantasist” and “terrorist”.
The Lee Rigby is the single Islamist terrorist death in the UK in the last decade. And the only thing it proves if that if nutters really wanted to kill somebody, it is easy to do. What it proves conclusively is that there are not really thousands of actual terrorists out there.
Does anyone have any “fantasies” they’d like to openly discuss here and lawfully hope will be unlawfully carried out? Wan’t it some king who was overheard fantasising about being ridded of some irksome priest a long time ago? Didn’t some right-wing American commentators and politicians openly “fantasize” about Assange being taken out by a drone? Can we march down the street openly “fantasizing” about the extrajudicial public executions of muslims?
What a wonderful world it would be.
Jemand
It would have been attempted murder if somebody attempted to murder somebody and that would be extremely serious. Nobody did attempt to murder anybody. The idea that all crime should be prevented by arresting people before they can do anything wrong is Pythonesque.
Jemand
02/10/2015 2:12pm
Jemand, read Craig’s article again and point out where he said no action should be taken to prevent it from happening, please.
John
Craig, you don’t want those people who threaten your family to be prosecuted for anything. According to you, those threats are just fantasies, “thought crimes”.
Who was the victim of this “attempted murder”? Where is the weapon with which the “attempted murder” was carried out? Exactly at what time and what place was murder attempted?
A great many people openly fantasise about killing Muslims with drone strikes. On the opinion columns of the mainstream media every day. Nobody arrests them for it.
@Anon1
If you believe everything that the state machinery tells you (e.g. the Security Services), then I have this bridge I’d like to sell you.
All Governments lie for their own ends. They always have done and I am sure they always will do. So what is the ‘end’ in this case? It’s not too hard to see. Ensure a complaint public supports the governments continued war-mongering, and by so doing supports the military industrial complex. (UK is one of the world’s leading seller of weapons; and to some pretty disreputable regimes). I recommend you see how many current and former MPs have connections to the MIC.
Another is to enable it (Govt) to introduce legislation they could never do in ‘peace time’.
Another is to keep the population in a state of anxiety. Google Topologies of Fear for the rationale behind it.
Stop being led by the nose.
Has Straw’s successor, Kate Hollern, had anything to say about the sentence?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Hollern
She is on the Select Education Committee.
‘Meanwhile, the education select committee, chaired by Stroud’s Conservative MP Neil Carmichael, will be made up of Conservatives Lucy Allan (Telford), Michelle Donelan (Chippenham), Suella Fernandes (Fareham), Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) and Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North).
They will be joined by Labour MPs Ian Austin (Dudley North), Kate Hollern (Blackburn), Ian Mearns (Gateshead) and Kate Osamor (Edmonton), and SNP MP Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw).’
Did Judge Saunders make any ruling about the child’s education?
Some of his ‘previous’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Saunders_(English_judge)
Anon1
Very likely either the CIA or Saudi Arabia was funding the organisation doing the training.
“It would have been attempted murder if somebody attempted to murder somebody and that would be extremely serious. Nobody did attempt to murder anybody. The idea that all crime should be prevented by arresting people before they can do anything wrong is Pythonesque.”
Attempted murder is NOT murder. No crime. Just a pantomime of a fantasy – in line with your logic.
What you are suggesting is that the authorities are able to ascertain what will and what cannot succeed. How does that work, Craig, when nuts like Charles Manson “fantasize” about a race war that will never happen?
The Law is quite specific on these matters, incitement to kill, and the very dubious ‘Encouragement to Terrorism Act 2006’ in 2007 one man in a crowd who shouted bomb, bomb USA in protest at a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad was jailed for six years, even though it was obvious he did not have the intention or the wherewithal to carry out his so called threats http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1557867/Cartoon-protest-Muslims-jailed-for-six-years.html Obviously this boy needs psychiatric help. I once asked a policeman if I could be arrested for what I thought? He said of course not, why do you ask? I said because I think you are an effin idiot, I was promptly arrested.Hej
The BiBiCee have given it top billing and the full treatment.
Anzac Day terror plot: Blackburn boy sentenced to life
25 minutes ago
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34423984
We can picture the tabloid front pages tomorrow.
Thanks Craig, for highlighting the issue of the child lifer in the twenty first century UK!
As you have noticed the purportedly Australian who is not here as a propagandist and is not a racist!!!!!!! Not at all Nt at all!!! is the first one to jump to admonish you for your crimes of sewing slightest doubts about the conviction of a 14 year old boy whom could not afford to buy more than a packet of crisps and a bottle of pop to be portrayed as the “mastermind” of the “SPECTRE”. the evil genius who is then caught on yet another anniversary of yet another Martial event. This time in Aus and New Zealand.
Just how much was spent on wigging on this child by the very expert cadre of personnel enjoying their overtime as they sat and read the fantasies of a young child on the Internet? Then how much was spent on Justice Saunders sitting and doing his; me la’rd bit, and then passing the life sentence for playing “terrorists”?
Even Mccarthyism at its height left the children out of its cross hairs. Unlike the current WOT hysteria. As the usual racist cretins are queuing to defend the life sentence handed to a fourteen year old child, never mind he is fifteen now! Fact that legally he cannot drive, or drink but lo and be hold he can be sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of five years recommendations.
This is the sad state of our affairs in the twenty first century Britain, history shall not be kind to those whom fomented such racist hatreds and extended these to physical incarceration of Muslims on trumped up charges based on flimsy evidence around fantasies.