Not being used to drinking (was there any evidence of this) is one of the weakest mitigating factors I’ve heard for racial violence:
This will end well.
Someone will say, “If the races were reversed…” and then it will turn into a hate crime discussion. And since **Chen **posted it, well.
Either way, this shit sucks. The women were caught ON TAPE beating this woman and they get away with it because they were under the influence of alcohol? wtf.
Even a blind, dumb… VERY dumb, disgusting, loathsome racist pig…
nm
I’m guessing there’s a bit more to it than this. Provocation, maybe. They should certainly be in prison though.
Why are you guessing? Did you see the video? And since when does name calling or any alleged provocation call for a serious beating?
If it were a white person who beat up the Muslim, would you say the same? 
Would I get the benefit of the doubt?
It sounded like the women who beat the girl admitted to their error.
Yeah, I don’t know why you’d assume that. Parsimony, etc.
Their own lawyer’s best effort was to say that it became self-defense (ridiculous, I know) after the victim’s boyfriend physically intervened, and that they had “overreacted” to his attempts to defend her (total BS, of course).
Voluntary intoxication is never a defense to criminal liability under the common law and in most jurisdictions of which I know. The only distinction I can see here is the Judge entertaining (rather than throwing out) the defense theory about “cultural unfamiliarity with alcohol.” Everyone has a first drunk (and I’m not going to accept at face value the suggestion, which could hardly be proven, that this was the first or even tenth time these feral harpies tied one on). There’s no get out of jail free card for Gentiles with a low tolerance or limited boozing experience. Even allowing the suggestion to be made here was, indeed, very invidious, let alone apparently giving something approaching dispositive weight to the inappropriate defense theory.
Yes, I saw the video. It shows four indistinct figures beating up another indistinct figure. I am guessing because judges are generally not stupid, and “we aren’t used to alcohol” is a ridiculous defense.
Not only should they have been thrown in prison, they should have been specifically excluded from religious accomodations (halal food, etc) that are accorded to those who (unlike these drunks) do in fact practice Islam.
Come to think of it, most religious accommodations in prison are absurd, being extended to people who wouldn’t be in prison if they gave a damn about obeying the rules of their respective faiths.
What? They don’t practice Islam because they got drunk? Are people kicked out of Christianity because they didn’t love their neighbor?
Er, you do realize that they have a religious prohibition against alcohol, right? That this fact was central to the idiotic “defense” cited in the OP?
Well, if they can break that rule, I don’t see why the taxpayers should go to extra expense so they don’t have to break the rule against mystery meat that may or may not contain pork byproducts.
Of course I realize that. Every adherent of every faith has broken some of the applicable rules. So what?
The judge acted perfectly properly. The women accepted that they did in fact attack the woman and did so at the first real opportunity. They were in fact intoxicated. They all seem to have no previous convictions. All of these are real mitigating circumstances under English law and the current sentencing council guidelines prescribe a community sentence as opposed to a custodial one n circumstances as this. You can argue those guidelines are wrong or that there should be mandatory imprisonment in cases like this but blaming the judge seems far fetched as if he had acted in the way many want, the decision would have been appealed and most likely thrown out.
Huerta88 seems to have mixed up culpability with mitigation. FinLly, please this is the Daily Torygraph. Not exactly Daily Mail levels but close enough when talking about crime.
They weren’t used to eating pork either.
Voluntary intoxication is a mitigating factor in English law? That seems… odd.
It is a mitigating factor for determining quantum of sentence not for determining mens rea and culpability unless the offence is one of specific intent (meaning requires intentions as opposed to recklessness). In this case the mitigating factor was with respect to Quantum of sentence.
In which circumstances in particular AK, just those that you have outlined?
I have just looked up some of the sentencing guidelines that are available online and while previously unfamiliar with these procedures this does not appear to be a case that would seem to be at the lower end of the scale which would thereby recieve a non-custodial sentence.
I used sentencing guideline outlines that are available online (see links at the bottom)
They discuss a range of tests: culpability, harm, aggravating features, mitigating features and the custody threshold. Let’s see what they are and how they relate.
Firstly culpability:
“(i)has the intention to cause harm, with the highest culpability when an offence is planned. The worse the harm intended, the greater the seriousness.
(ii) is reckless as to whether harm is caused, that is, where the offender appreciates at least some harm would be caused but proceeds giving no thought to the consequences even though the extent of the risk would be obvious to most people.
(iii) has knowledge of the specific risks entailed by his actions even though he does not intend to cause the harm that results.
(iv) is guilty of negligence.”
On (i) this must be a yes. ‘Planned’ itself is arguable though, depending on how such things are decided. As a group they obviously agreed among themselves that they would attack this young lady. They then did so.
(ii) They attacked her repeatedly for 13 minutes, they even put in the last couple of blows after the police van had arrived.
(iii) No-one can attack someone so relentlessly, kicking and punching them in the head on the ground and not be aware of the specific risks of doing so.
(iv) ? pass
So on the first measure they hit at least 3 of four tests of culpability, though perhaps as mentioned it may not have been planeed if by this it means cold and calculatingly discussed it in any detail before setting out.
Harm
Of the types of harm outlined in the sentencing tests (see links below) the young lady experienced physical injury, financial loss (employment), damage to health and psychological distress.
It would seem on the additional measure of societal harm this may well apply too:
“Some conduct is criminalised purely by reference to public feeling or social mores. In addition, public concern about the damage caused by some behaviour, both to individuals and to society as a whole”
“Harm must always be judged in the light of culpability…The culpability of the offender in the particular circumstances of an individual case should be the initial factor in determining the seriousness of an offence.”
They were culpable on three of four measures. They occasioned harm in a number of ways to the victim and therefore this seems to fall into the category of ‘serious’.
Aggravating Factors
Offence was racially or religiously aggravated : YES
Offenders operating in groups or gangs: YES
Commission of an offence while under the influence of alcohol or drugs: YES
An especially serious physical or psychological effect on the victim, even if unintended: YES
A sustained assault or repeated assaults on the same victim: YES
Mitigating factors
A greater degree of provocation than normally expected: NO
Mental illness or disability: NO
Youth or age, where it affects the responsibility of the individual defendant: NO
The fact that the offender played only a minor role in the offence: NO
Reduction for a guilty plea: YES
Although who knows whether they pleaded guilty to avoid the racially aggravated element being included a an add-on to the charge.
The Custody Threshold
1.31 Section 152(2) Criminal Justice Act 2003: “The court must not pass a custodial sentence unless it is of the opinion that the offence, or the combination of the offence and one or more offences associated with it, was so serious that neither a fine alone nor a community sentence can be justified for the offence.”
Nature of failure and harm: The custody threshold normally passed where two or more aggravating factors indicting higher culpability are present
Starting Point: Custody
In the examples that they give most where declared have recived a custodial sentence.
These young Somali ladies drunkenly attack a young woman as a group repeatedly over a period of around 13 minutes, racially and sexually (‘slag’) abuse her, kick and punch her on the floor and after the court case when asked about remorse do not express any.
This seems to me to be a crime that should be considered ‘serious’ that also has many aggravating factors and reflects very badly on the professional judgement of Judge Robert Brown.
Sources I looked at here and here.
In retrospect perhaps I would leave out point ii) on culpability. While philosophically a case might be made both for intending to harm & acting recklessly, perhaps the legal process might not recognise both.
Tried to amend but the system here is quite strict I find,which is a shame as I tend to hit ‘enter’ and then do a couple of quick edits.
If you imagine the most offensive racist and anti-Muslim insults you can and then imagine the girl shouting them at the Somali girls, it still doesn’t justify that attack. The bitches need to be behind bars for a long time. If this were the U.S. and they were not citizens I’d favor deportation as well.