Vocal Voices

I see that Ant McPartlin has been fined £86,000 for driving under the influence of alcohol.

This seems a hefty amount of cash.
I didn't know that punishment fines varied according to the wealth of the offender, although I admit it does make sense.
Has this always been the case?

I don't know but it still seems light ,after all he could have killed somebody

It's less than a week's income for someone as ridiculously overpaid as he is! He will pay up easily, and get a chauffeur to ferry him around until he gets his licence back. That's no punishment. It seems we are going down the US route of being able to buy your way out of trouble

I think the law changed in 2015 to give Magistrates greater powers to impose heftier fines.

Mind you, regarding the cost, he got a 20 month driving ban as well, so given the chauffeurs costs etc. - and the bad publicity - this little episode will be costing him well into 6 figures ....

Yes, but that's nothing to someone with his income. The widow's mite comes to mind. I would have liked to see some community service or something.....

I wouldn't Kaz, all you'd get would be gawpers, hangers on, hand shakers, do gooders, all patting him on the back and saying there there. I'd have like to have seen a suspended custodial

Yes, I suppose so!

The trouble is that our system of punishments for crimes is all wrong.

Punishments for breaking laws need to be much more severe.
This would act as a deterrent for anyone thinking of breaking a law, and anyone sent to prison should find conditions
so unpleasant that they would come out swearing not to re-offend again, The number of ex-convicts who reoffend is
proof that our system of punishment is "not fit for purpose." If we did what I am suggesting we could reduce the time
spent in prision, as the message to criminals could be well put across in a shorter period of sentence, instead of giving
them what could almost be described as confinement in a Holiday Camp. It would also help if some forms of corporal
punishment, such as the Birch, were reintroduced. The present levels of crimes is unacceptable, and is a result of the
fact that punishments are quite inadequate. It's time we looked at law-breaking as unacceptable.

Can fines now be based on how much you earn?

I do feel a bit sorry for him - but only a bit. He looks in a right state and he needs to sort himself out. If he's not capable of that then things are only going to get worse for him. Being twice the drink drive limit in the middle of the day is not good.

I'm glad nobody got hurt when he crashed.

Whilst I agree with the suspended custodial, it would not fit with norms for sentencing for the crime. Witness the father of the Grahams (family from hell), in Glenrothes, who was finally jailed for 6 months for his fifth incident of DUI; whilst banned from driving. Then they let him out after a month because, I quote, "His Children needed him".

Personally I would like something more interesting. Forced rehab and then 12 months general ban on alcohol with forced random sampling for drink and drugs on a weekly basis. If, by the end of that, he hadn't got the message, then the next offence should be custodial.

Of course that would never stand because it would breech his uman wights to get blasted on drink any time he wanted. So long as he did not drive...

Aggers, I do agree with you on that but it won't happen. They're not arguing about stronger sentences. More the opposite, more media and a vote in elections is what they are arguing about. I must admit I liked the old West in America and their term for these people. Outlaw. People who were outside the law. So when they had finished their "penance" and come back inside the law, they could receive the benefits of a law abiding society. Giving people the full and absolute protection of the law that they wilfully disregard, as it suits them, only teaches them contempt for the law. I must admit I long for the day that we hear that a Judge say "any more and I will hold you in contempt of court", to which the response should be "you have no idea how much contempt I hold this court in, because it's actions are so contemptible".

Cromwell, I don't feel sorry for him at all. Ant is in this mess due to his own actions. He was paid a lot of money to entertain the people. To do which, he needed to be fit to entertain them. That is the part he fell down on, believing, perhaps, that he could do whatever he wanted and things would just keep on going the same way. I don't have any more sympathy for him than I would have for myself in the same situation. Ant needs to buckle down, dig himself out of the hole he has put himself in and readjust his life. Forever more, now, he's going to have to stay away from alcohol and watch whilst others do what he wants to do himself. It is a consequence he will have to live with and the faster he faces up to that, the faster he will get back to doing what he does best.