Soft sentencing from our courts....not any more!

[Dave_Obsession]

Hear it all the time (especially here in Victoria) about how Magistrates are out of touch with the public, and continually handing out 'soft' sentences to perpetrators of violent crimes.

Perhaps they should take a leaf out of this Queensland Supreme Court Justice's hat!!

http://www.news.com.au/national/teen...-1225971626599

A TEENAGE boy who bashed a man to death with a fence paling in an unprovoked attack has become the youngest person in Queensland history to be sentenced to life.

The boy, then aged 14, and friend Roderick James Weazel, then aged 17, murdered Henry Thomas Chalker, 52, near Musgrave Park in Brisbane's West End, on July 6, 2008.

The boys had been sniffing paint and drank a bottle of bourbon before launching the attack on Mr Chalker as he walked down the street. The 14-year-old - who cannot be named - then used a fence paling to strike Mr Chalker in the head seven times, while Weazel stomped on his upper body. Mr Chalker died at the scene from massive head injuries, including a shattered skull, a ruptured brain and internal bleeding.

The two were convicted of murder on October 22.

The 14-year-old boy, now aged 17, was sentenced to life in jail today in the Queensland Supreme Court. He maintains his innocence.

Sentencing Justice Richard Chesterman applied the maximum penalty, saying the attack was unprovoked, the violence gratuitous and no remorse had been shown.

"It was an attack marked by ferocity," he told the Brisbane court. "You ignored ... Mr Chalker's plea for ... life. "You are a danger to society."

The court heard the boy lived an irregular life: he left home in Cherbourg at 14 to live on the streets in Brisbane, and fathered two children to older women.

About two dozen friends and relatives packed the public gallery for the sentencing. Some gasped, others began crying and one started swearing when the sentence was read.

The boy's defence barrister David Shepherd unsuccessfully urged Justice Chesterman to be lenient and take into account the boy's age at the time of the offence. He said no one could find a case where the convicted murderer was so young. "I have not been able to find any instance where a person of that age has been sentenced for this offence," he said.

He asked for a 12-year sentence, saying the attack wasn't a premeditated one, it was a spur of the moment thing, and the teenager had been affected by alcohol.

The youth will be transferred to an adult jail when he turns 18 next July.

Weazel was earlier sentenced to life in jail.

Well done Your Honour. If there were more people like you in the justice system handing out sentences to fit the crimes, the public may actually regain their faith in the justice system as a whole...