Sycamore Gap. An appropriate sentence ?

[DaveReading]

I was being rather fatuous, but on what's been reported the best the defence could come up with was "it wasn't me". On the other hand there was absolutely overwhelming evidence of their guilt. It's hard to imagine a more watertight case. The only puzzle was why it tool the jury 5 hours to reach a verdict.

When two or more defendants are jointly on trial, the "it wasn't me, it was him/her" defence is SOP.

Friendships tend to disintegrate pretty quickly when the possibility of heaping all the blame on your mate arises.

[PH]

There isn't a penalty for pleading not guilty. There is potential for a reduced sentence for pleading guilty (dependant at what stage). Not being pedantic here - that's the law

If a custodial sentence seems inevitable, there's an advantage to the defendant to serve as much of that as possible under the relaxed conditions of being held on remand - No uniform, no work, telephone access, your own money, better visiting hours... That then comes off your sentence day for day.

[Carlton green]

The only puzzle was why it tool the jury 5 hours to reach a verdict.

I fully expect them to face a prison sentence, but probably not as long as many would wish.

It maybe that there is due process in a jury reaching a verdict, and that jury members wanted both to be seen to be observing due process and to have time to ensure that everyone had a similar awareness of and understanding of the evidence. Of course a member might have been concerned that if the Jury gave a guilty verdict then stupid people would spend a long time in jail; such thoughts have to be set aside as the Jury is there to decide guilt - or innocence - and the Judge is there to decide what happens after that.

In the eyes of the law ignorance and stupidity are no defence, so most of us had better never be caught then .

It is most unlikely that they’ll get the length of sentence that I’d consider appropriate for their crime.

[Cugel]

Bathroom visits over, stomachs settled let’s get to talking about a verdict.
The case I was on I had the little scrote guilty from day 1 but you’d then be very wrong to expect other jurors to think the same way. Among your fellow jurors there’ll be a Jonathon examining minute detail and ensuring every t is crossed and every I dotted as per the rule book. There'l also be an Al and you’d wonder if he had been in the same room as you and had been awake. Just as you win those two over up will pop a Mary who won’t sleep at night if she’s punished an innocent man.
The above is just my experience and names have been changed to protect the jurors on my case.

************
A trawl through this thread reveals something of the mob, some with pitchforks and burning brands. All seem anxious to have these two yobs hung, drawn and quartered - or at least as near to that as modern times allows.

However, it was but a petty act of vandalism commonplace in a million times and places across any nation complete with the sort of socio-economic conditions as ours, with its herds of resultant yobs of many stripes. Yobs are a nuisance alright! But .....

The yobs who are better-dressed, well-orf and generally regarded by others of their ilk, not to mention the glassy-eyed fans of all things posh, as "good chaps" commit acts of vandalism far from the mere petty. Many of the ilk known as businessmen (which includes women, now that some have learned how to yob) commit vast acts of vandalism that wreak huge and lasting damages over a wide swathe of the planet. Politicians commit their own yobbery, often to an extreme degree as they start a war or bolster a businessyob in their planet-raping "enterprise".

And all we consumers and voters .... we're complicit. How much vandalism did our car and its fuel commit, of at least 27 kinds in 45 places about the planet, including our own street? What was done to supply out breakfast, lunch and dinner?

In practice all we humans are vandals, on a daily basis and without a care. Chopping down a twee petit-bourgeoise emblem of nice-us with a petty act of vandalism seems a very, very minor matter in comparison.

***********
Will we all be tried and sentenced for our vandalisms? We already have been. We're already in a sort of virtual gaol wherein gangs of yobs go about predating on the weaker prisoners whilst outside in reality Mother Nature is erecting a Very Large Gibbet.

[Nearholmer]

I was thinking about this yesterday evening, and I came to a similar, but different, conclusion from Cugel: that this is a sort-of super-symptomatic, or super-symbolic-of-our-times crime. Although people might not articulate it that way, they feel it in their bones, and thats probably why it arouses such ire.

It was utterly nihilistic in many ways, but it expresses how the utterly unvalued, those whose self-respect has been drained-away, or never bloomed in the first place, feel about things that the valued, or at least self-valuing, value. They don’t value them, and resent their existence. It goes with the self-defeating politics of Brexit and Reform, with various hates, including our old friend the hate of cyclists (in part because cyclists represent physical fitness and self-confidence). It’s all about feeling miserable inside, and wanting to drag everyone else into the same miserableness.

If anyone remembers how several big transport accidents (Herald of Free Enterprise; Kings Cross Fire; Clapham Junction Crash; Marchioness sinking; etc) at the end of the 1980s were symptomatic and symbolic of a particular slack-buttocked (I wrote ar$ed! When did that become a banned word??) rot in the way things were run and managed in Britain at the time, this has the same symbolic character, as Grenfell Tower did for a later era.

It’s not that it’s by any means the only crime like this, but it stands a for all of the crimes like this; the things that the dispossessed do to express their loathing of the world and themselves.

Hanging, drawing, and quartering won’t cure it, only healing society will cure it.

[marquis26]

Can I just say that I had never heard of this tree until it was cut down…

I recognised it from that Costner film, but hadn’t realised that it was a gen-u-wine landmark.

[Cowsham]

A large person consumes 740kg of oxygen per year a large mature sycamore can produce 225kg per year. Doing the maths let's say each defendant consumes 600kg per year so if each defendant plants six sycamore to replace the oxygen they used in one year by the time it reaches mid maturity ie producing 100kg of oxygen per year. This would equate to about 30 years in jail while the trees grow to half size but if anyone cuts one down they'd have to plant another to replace that tree and time is added onto their sentence while that happens.
That could be a good deterrent.

Edit -- they'd have to plant about 3 times the number of trees for 30 year sentence to make up for the oxygen they've used till the trees mature. If any of those trees get cut down or dies their sentence will increase pro rata.

[Bonefishblues]

Can I just say that I had never heard of this tree until it was cut down…

I recognised it from that Costner film, but hadn’t realised that it was a gen-u-wine landmark.

It's been covered globally, which is an indication it's pretty well-known. 'Two blokes cut down a tree at night in the middle of nowhere' wouldn't have been covered in quite the same way, one suspects

[Cugel]

A large person consumes 740kg of oxygen per year a large mature sycamore can produce 225kg per year. Doing the maths let's say each defendant consumes 600kg per year so if each defendant plants six sycamore to replace the oxygen they used in one year by the time it reaches mid maturity ie producing 100kg of oxygen per year. This would equate to about 30 years in jail while the trees grow to half size but if anyone cuts one down they'd have to plant another to replace that tree and time is added onto their sentence while that happens.
That could be a good deterrent.

Edit -- they'd have to plant about 3 times the number of trees for 30 year sentence to make up for the oxygen they've used till the trees mature. If any of those trees get cut down or dies their sentence will increase pro rata.

A tree dictatorship! Perhaps a good idea, since the humans have failed so miserably at dictating the way things should be. (They never are as planned, except in the worst possible way).

Were I a tree with a 'carcery full of humans from whom their axes and chainsaws had been confiscated, I would grow one or more gibbet-branches. These would be a motivation to dig & plant faster, faster; and to nurture the saplings carefully. Also, those who end up swinging will feed many crows and ravens, eventually providing something of a compost for the struggling saplings.

Some vandals (I'm thinking of business men and engineers, for example) will never be reformed and redeemed, though. Straight to the compost heap with them! I have a list but you may have your own. As long as I'm not on it, we could combine them into a larger list. Have you ever seen the last episode of the serialised drama "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell"? A malevolent faery is absorbed by a tree as punishment for his many bad acts. This seems a suitable fate for those on our lists.

[Cowsham]

A large person consumes 740kg of oxygen per year a large mature sycamore can produce 225kg per year. Doing the maths let's say each defendant consumes 600kg per year so if each defendant plants six sycamore to replace the oxygen they used in one year by the time it reaches mid maturity ie producing 100kg of oxygen per year. This would equate to about 30 years in jail while the trees grow to half size but if anyone cuts one down they'd have to plant another to replace that tree and time is added onto their sentence while that happens.
That could be a good deterrent.

Edit -- they'd have to plant about 3 times the number of trees for 30 year sentence to make up for the oxygen they've used till the trees mature. If any of those trees get cut down or dies their sentence will increase pro rata.

Have you ever seen the last episode of the serialised drama "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell"? A malevolent faery is absorbed by a tree as punishment for his many bad acts. This seems a suitable fate for those on our lists.

No but I'm a big fan of the Little Shop of Horrors -- the musical one with Rick Moranis Steve Martin and the gorgeous Ellen Green. " Feed Me and the World shall be yours"

"Does it have to be blood -- does it have to be my blood ?"

[marquis26]

Can I just say that I had never heard of this tree until it was cut down…

I recognised it from that Costner film, but hadn’t realised that it was a gen-u-wine landmark.

It's been covered globally, which is an indication it's pretty well-known. 'Two blokes cut down a tree at night in the middle of nowhere' wouldn't have been covered in quite the same way, one suspects

True. It just hadn’t been on my radar, I guess.

[Cugel]

Have you ever seen the last episode of the serialised drama "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell"? A malevolent faery is absorbed by a tree as punishment for his many bad acts. This seems a suitable fate for those on our lists.

No but I'm a big fan of the Little Shop of Horrors -- the musical one with Rick Moranis Steve Martin and the gorgeous Ellen Green. " Feed Me and the World shall be yours"

"Does it have to be blood -- does it have to be my blood ?"

Feed me! Feed me now!!

************

When we're all dead of weather, fallout, pandemic, worldwide crop failure and the predations of our more desperate and so vicious neighbours looking for some long pig to roast ..... well, all the uneaten bodies will make a rich loam for the trees. They will drink deep and flourish .... I imagine.

Somewhere will be info about the effects of battlefield carnage upon subsequent growth rates in this or that field, pasture or copse. Modern warfare does damage the flora as well as the fauna but the flora seems able to return toot-sweet to degraded places. Even some of the fauna manages it.

Will the "lucky" humans who escape the various dooms somehow make a come-back? We can only hope not. Or, if they do, let us hope that they won't be scientists, engineers, businessmen, priests or demagogues. Yet even the basic human animal seems a bit of a nasty little ape. There but for Clement Attlee go you or I, swinging our club and looking for trouble.