Time for a classic British tragedy: Overcrowded prisons, a convicted child rapist, and a judicial system run by Monty Python.
Rees Newman — a 33-year-old man convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl in 2005, when he himself was 14 — has managed to dodge jail twice because Britain's prisons are apparently being overrun by grannies who said something mean on social media.
Last December, a judge handed Newman a suspended sentence … for the rape of a minor back in 2005. All he was required to do was sign the sex offenders' register and let the police know if he planned to go on vacation!
But it turns out that you just can't trust child rapists! This May, he decided to fly to Egypt, presumably because Afghanistan was just too expensive. So he was dragged back into court, and the judge actually sentenced him to two months in prison.
That's the good news. The bad news? The sentence was suspended for 18 months. Why? Prison overcrowding!
Here's what the judge said: "If we had been in different times, it would have been virtually inevitable that you would have gone into custody."
"The only reason you have escaped immediate custody today is because of the prison overcrowding crisis," he said.
What he means by "different times" is when the United Kingdom had even a shred of self-respect.
Remember, this was last week:
The government's big plan for handling this "crisis" (beyond putting child rapists back on the street) is Operation Early Dawn, which sounds more like a strategy for pre-rinsing your bowls before putting them in the dishwasher.
It's essentially a "one in, one out" policy, which might as well be "we're full, try again later."
Newman's lawyer said that his client was "terrified of the prospect of custody."
I wonder if his victim was available for comment?
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