By Zac Goldsmith.
Four years ago, Craig Sweeney, a convicted paedophile who was out of prison on early release, kidnapped a three-year old girl and subjected her to a horrific ordeal. He was given a life sentence – but with eligibility for parole after only five years.
Yesterday, Frances Inglis was sentenced to a life sentence with eligibility for parole after nine years. Her crime was to end the life of her much loved son, who suffered from irreversible brain damage, needed 24-hour care and was experiencing a ‘living hell’.
The boy’s brother said that the entire family backed her, and that she had acted out of love and compassion. Frances Inglis broke the law, but in human terms, she is clearly no criminal. No one doubts that her son was in a very bad state. No one doubts her love for him or her motives in taking the steps she took.
Taken together, these two cases suggest that our criminal justice system has become divorced from both public opinion and anything resembling morality.
How have we reached a position where the law insists that a convicted, proven paedophile – a predator who has ruined the life of an innocent three-year old girl – is less deserving of punishment than a desperate mother acting out of compassion and love for her son?
Sanctimonious liberal commentators will argue that the mark of a civilised society is its willingness to apply justice in the face of public opinion. For them, this mother is a law-breaker, just like Sweeney, and she should be punished as such.
I believe these two decisions show that the system is no longer able to distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad, and has become utterly blind to common sense. Until we remedy this, we cannot regard Britain as a truly civilised society.
