Courting trouble

As Tim Hollis, the Chief Constable of Humberside Police, stresses today, the public have been reassured by different elements of the justice system working together to bring thousands of thugs before the courts at the earliest opportunity.

Mr Hollis is the second of this region’s police chiefs, after West Yorkshire’s Sir Norman Bettison, to make this point. For once, the courts have also used the full powers at their disposal rather than issuing half-hearted sentences. That justice is also being dispensed speedily means the victims of this destruction can see offenders being punished rather than waiting endlessly for cases to be progressed.

As such, it is Eoin McLennan-Murray, the head of the PGA, that has lost all sense of proportion. If the issue is one of capacity, then it is a matter for the Government and not the magistrates who must continue to treat each case on the evidence before them rather than the availability of prison places.