15 months for Stuart Hall, pleaded guilty to 13 assualts

Associate
Joined
30 Oct 2003
Posts
1,387
Location
Aberdeen
Mental note, if I choose to molest and abuse minors, I'll keep it to under 13 victims. No real harm is done then !

With this kind of sentencing, is it any wonder our legal system is rapidly losing credibility.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Oct 2011
Posts
21,590
Location
ST4
15 months for noncing up 13 children, one aged just nine? I wonder if he played his joker card to get such a pathetic sentence? No doubt he'll be out in time for Christmas dinner.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
17 Nov 2003
Posts
36,743
Location
Southampton, UK
Some more info:

Facts

EDIT: Stuart Hall was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment on 17 June 2013. More to follow.

Stuart Hall, 83, pleaded guilty to 14 offences which occurred between 1967 and 1985. There is one count of rape which will lie on the file – this means that the charge will not be proceeded with without the leave of the Court of Appeal. This usually happens where the offence is not admitted by the defendant, the judge agrees there is sufficient evidence to have a trial., but the prosecution decide (usually as a result of pleas to other offences) there is no need to secure a conviction on the matter, but do not want to offer to evidence. The matter can be reinstituted but this is rare.

You may remember that Mr Hall had previously referred to the allegations as “pernicious, callous, cruel and above all spurious”.

The BBC report was as follows: “Preston Crown Court previously heard that in the 1980s Hall molested a nine-year-old girl by putting his hand up her clothing.

He also kissed a 13-year-old girl on the lips after saying to her: “People need to show thanks in other ways.”

CPS Chief Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal described Hall as an opportunistic predator. He went on to say that Mr Hall’s victims did not know each other and that although almost two decades separated the assaults, the victims provided strikingly similar accounts.

Sentencing

Sentencing in historic sex cases can be complex and difficult.

Here are some basic principles from the guideline case on sentencing historic sexual offences, R v H 2012 2 Cr App R (S) 21:

1) The offence of which the defendant is convicted and the sentencing parameters (in particular, the maximum available sentence) applicable to that offence are governed not by the law at the date of sentence, but by the law in force at the time when the criminal conduct occurred.

2) Article 7(1) of the European Convention of Human Rights prohibits the imposition of a heavier penalty than one “applicable” at the time when the offence was committed.

3) Although sentence must be limited to the maximum sentence at the date when the offence was committed, it is wholly unrealistic to attempt an assessment of sentence by seeking to identify in (2013) what the sentence for the individual offence was likely to have been if the offence had come to light at or shortly after the date when it was committed.

4) Similarly, if maximum sentences have been reduced, as in some instances, for example theft, they have, the more severe attitude to the offence in earlier years, even if it could be established, should not apply.

5) As always, the particular circumstances in which the offence was committed and its seriousness must be the main focus. Due allowance for the passage of time may be appropriate. The date may have a considerable bearing on the offender’s culpability.

http://ukcrime.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/stuart-hall-sentenced-for-historic-sexual-offences/
 
Permabanned
Joined
29 Aug 2003
Posts
31,330
Not condoning the offences, but if the guy is 86 - what difference would it make if you sentenced him to 1 year or 1000 years - he wont be around for much longer looking at the state of him!

The punishment is based on a tariff, it applies to all, and rightly so. You can't get to the point where crime becomes a reasonable risk due - it may in reality "I've only got a month left" etc but it can't in terms of the judicial process. With his generation he may not live much longer, but future ones will. It could also run the risk, as you yourself note, that it could be seen to justify it by leniency. It is hard to say without details, but the punishment would seem unduly lenient here particularly because of the nature and number of offenses.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Jun 2007
Posts
9,621
Location
Buckingham Palace
The repeated sexual abuse of young children, too young to consent and in no position to resist your advances, even if the individual acts are relatively mild, is a serious crime and it must be made clear to anyone tempted to take advantage of young children and other vulnerable victims that they face condemnation and punishment.


Count 6 was significantly more serious. It involved a 13 year old girl who was subjected to a series of sexual indignities at your hands at her home on Boxing Day 1976. The victim had been drinking and was sick and you took advantage of the situation when she was in the bathroom and bathing to touch her naked breasts, inserted a finger in her vagina and kissed her upper body and touched her all over.


So was it serious or mild ?



After reading the judgement, I don't think 15 months was unreasonable.

Fan of his are you ?
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,188
So basically if you're rich and/or famous, you can assault a bunch of children, plead guilty, get sent to prison and be let out again in 5 minutes?

Where is the justice in that? :mad:

This is how rich people and justice has been since time began. Rich have always gotten away with more, with the odd person thrown to the wolves to appease the masses... like Madoff, but even then its because he stole lots of VERY rich people's money, while other rich people who commited horrendous financial fraud only took poor peoples houses and basically got away with nothing.


We treat famous people like they are better, or most people do, and they live by a different set of rules. We "the people" allow it, this fascination with rich/famous people, turning nobodies into stars because they are on TV, big brother/xfactor, that crap. Begging for autographs or little kids screaming at pop stars, girls feinting and going mental queing up just to see famous people. Its sickening, but its entirely in our control.

I mean, don't forget that literally thousands of people knew what Saville was doing, thousands AND thousands AND thousands, and no one did anything for 50+ years till he was dead. The guy should have been in jail for over 50 years and died in there, but he was "famous" and lived the life of luxury and fame for his entire life before dying, at which point everyone did their best to cover their asses over protecting him for so freaking long.

If he wasn't famous, no one would have protected him at any stage and there would have been what, 1250 less victims.

THe outrage over Saville seems to have disappeared, people should be in jail over what he was allowed to get away with, MANY people should be in jail over what he got away with. But they seem to be scapegoating Saville, maybe even inflating the numbers so other people still alive seem less bad by comparison, so other people caught up in the scandal seem to be getting away with FAR less punishment than they deserve.

Oh well, I refuse to buy into this fame culture, no one else should, but most do.
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,929
Location
In the sticks
The maximum sentence the Judge could have ordered was 5 years (before considering any guilty pleas). After reading the judgement, I don't think 15 months was unreasonable.

Burnsy mate that has to be the stupidest thing I have ever read on here. I have no doubt you wouldn't be saying that if one of the victims was to be any of your kids! :rolleyes:
 
Back
Top Bottom