Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Why be fair?

Bystander, in The Magistrate’s Blog, points to what, in my opinion, is an extremely unfair aspect of the sentence imposed on the lady who put the cat in the bin.

She has to meet “a costs order of a whopping £1171” on top of a fine of £250 – because the case was prosecuted by the RSPCA, who come very expensive - if the CPS had prosecuted this, their costs for a plea would have been around £70.

We are all supposed to be thinking hard about what is fair these days of financial stringency.