Teeside thugs Corey Savory and Thomas Vernon do not represent a judiciary in crisis
The Press have been going mad for Corey Savory and Thomas Vernon who “wept in the dock but later left the court grinning with arms aloft and thumbs up”.
Two days ago, the Teeside Gazette reported on a case at Teeside Crown Court. The headline summed things up:
‘Utterly remorseful’ duo walk from court after admitting ‘ferocious’ attack
Savory and Vernon lauched an unprovoked attack on a man minding his own business on Redcar High Street. They they ran away. The victim gave chase. The pair went inside a home. They shut the door. The victim kicked on it. He was then hit from behind by a third person, who has yet to be identified. With their target now on the ground and bleeding, Savory and Vernon opened the front door, stepped out and beat him. The victim says he might have blacked out.
Savory and Vernon are cowards. That much is clear. They are also violent thugs. Cowards often are. But the Press has built their story into a sign that things are falling apart. Before we get to the editorialising, the Gazette report went on:
A pair of violent thugs who attacked a defenceless man on the ground walked free from court laughing and celebrating their freedom. Corey Savory and Thomas Vernon may have wept in the dock, but the 23-year-olds’ mood changed abruptly once they learned their fate. They left Teesside Crown Court grinning with arms aloft and thumbs up, unable to contain their delight at receiving suspended jail terms for a “ferocious” assault… Just minutes earlier, a judge had accepted they showed “genuine remorse” for their crime…
In the courtroom, Savory put his head in his hands and did not watch as CCTV footage of the assault was played…
Joyous: The vicious thug did not have a care in the world when leaving court
And the victim:
The man later said he had a permanent scar which was a “constant reminder” of the attack. He said the assault contributed to him losing his job and he felt as if people stared at him in the street. He told how he feared another attack as friends of his assailants had called him a “grass”.
A grass? No. He was brave. The cowards got justice.
Or did they?
The duo admitted assault causing actual bodily harm.
Each received an eight-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months with supervision. Each was ordered to pay £100 compensation to the victim.
And then the story becomes a cause, a sign that the justice business has gone mad, that the victim was badly let down. And it’s all to do with how Savory and Vernon behaved when they emerged from court. They looked delighted. Anorak saw the picures and thought that understandable. Avoiding prison after the ordeal of a crown court is no small relief. And if you’re guilty – as they are – it must be surprising, too. Clearly idiots, the pair then stare down the barrel of the photographer’s lens and big it up, perhaps failing to realise how it might play out. Now when every employer, friend, relative or child looks up their names online they will see the pictures and read of the crime.
The Daily Express accuces them of “hoodwinking” the court. This would mean that Recorder Sarah Mallett is a fool. Not so. She told the pair, in words not repeated in the Express:
“You could simply have returned to your home, shut the door and stayed there. You could have and should have retreated back inside. But you didn’t do that. He was already on the floor and he wasn’t doing anything provocative. They are nasty injuries. This was a ferocious attack by two men who had the advantage of having their victim put on the ground for them by a third party.”
Was that too soft?
The Daily Express produces a loaded phone vote hotline (who in their right mind uses these things?):
As the Express tries to emualte Saddam Hussein and capture 100% of the popular vote, the other newspapers step in:
The Northern Echo columnist writes:
COREY Savory and Thomas Vernon are a pair of thugs. They are also clearly a pair of actors… during a hearing at Teesside Crown Court, they put on a stage-managed show of remorse and duly escaped with a suspended sentence and a £100 fine. But their real feelings were exposed when they were photographed as they emerged from the court building…
It is no wonder that the vast majority of decent, law-abiding people in this country get so angry about the criminal justice system when barbaric violence results in a mere slap on the wrist, and the thugs responsible are able to react as if they’d just won the lottery…
It is clear from their reaction that this pair of yobs have not learned their lesson…
Is it? Did they act? We can’t see photos from inside the courtroom. Their real feelings are ours to guess at. Did they cry? Were they afraid in court? We don’t know. We were not there.
The Mail invites anyone who knows the victim to call:
The Telegraph notes:
Savory even took to Facebook, posting a press cutting of the court case and describing his joy at escaping a harsher sentence.
It doesn’t show this from Facebook:
So. A violent idiot happy he’s not being jailed for his crimes is not a sign that the country is sot on crime.
Posted: 13th, February 2015 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
