Britain's justice system has failed Andrew Clarke |
In 42 months’ time we will be at the start of yet another summer that Andrew Clarke will never see. That’s the amount of time the law has decided Mr Clarke’s killer Demiesh Williams, convicted of manslaughter, should spend in custody before being released on license. Our sentencing guidelines and the judge interpreting them have failed to deliver justice that is recognisable to many people outraged at that leniency. That is a dangerous place to be in an already low-trust society.
The facts are that Mr Clarke and Williams got involved in an altercation at a south east London Sainsbury’s in March this year after Williams pushed into a queue in front of him. The location and context could not be more banal in contrast to the devastation that followed. Williams left the store, put on a balaclava, waited for his victim to emerge and smashed Mr Clarke in the face with such force that he fell to the ground suffering a ‘catastrophic’ brain injury from which he did not recover. He then fled the scene. You might say Andrew Clarke was executed for the crime of standing in line. There’s a bigger metaphor in there.
Mr Clarke is yet another statistic of a sentencing regime that has become detached from reality
There is clear and........