It seems that I am now required, as a man, to start any article on this subject by saying how appalling the murder of Ms Everard was and how I condemn rape and sexual assault. Both should be a given but in 2021 that is not enough. As a male, I must repeat that testament of faith before being allowed to express a view. Yesterday I explained how the reaction of my wonderful daughter Olaf in her young, metropolitan woke echo chamber was wrong but she is not the only one whose good intentions make this matter far worse.
I suggested yesterday that reactionary old dinosaurs like myself who wanted those guilty of rape and sexual assault sent down for very long sentences might be onto something. And that the woke libtards who Olaf admires who have long campaigned for shorter sentences as jail discriminates against the poor and ethnic minorities had made the streets more dangerous. I want to discriminate against criminals whatever they look like or wherever they come from, so that they are locked up and cannot harm others and so that those tempted to commit crime know the risks.
In taking this view, I swim against the tide of liberal opinion, against what has been happening for years and against the sort of folks Olaf insist understand the problem. So Olaf let’s chat about 23-year-old Javed Miah who was in court last week in Lancashire. He admitted that, in 2018, he ambushed a young woman as she walked home alone at nine O’Clock at night, pulled her to the floor and sexually assaulted her.
He might have engaged in full on rape but the woman managed to use the SOS function on her mobile phone to call 999, letting out a loud beeping noise. She now says she is terrified to leave home uncertain if Miah will try it on again. Because he is not going to prison. Yes he was found guilty but he said that he was the sole earner in his family (yes he is married with a kid) and on that basis he is not serving any time at all but merely has to attend a sex offender rehabilitation programme.
What message does that send out? Olaf, it is the courts with a liberal judiciary and legal elites, your sort of buddies who went to the same sort of schools and university as you (and me), born into privilege who are letting women down. It is not old bastards like me who despair at a criminal justice system obsessed by the rights of perps not of victims.
Then there is the Government. I showed yesterday that the real danger to women is not street assault and violence, despite Mr Miah being free to reoffend, but domestic violence. Yet amid the clamour of “reclaim the streets”, a clamour from a liberal mob whose silence on Telford, Rochdale and Oldham was deafening as girls who are white trash don’t matter, the Government had to be seen to react.
Thus it announced that it was doubling to £45 million the amount it spends on street lighting and CCTV in streets near bars and in parks. This is, of course, a Government which has presided over a ruination of the nation’s finances. But hell, it is other folks cash so why not spend as fast as you can Boris? The point is that the Government is desperate to be seen to be doing something. It wants to be seen to be listening to Olaf and others. Will it do anything to deal with the vast majority of assaults on women which is where the victim knows her assailant? No. Boris Johnson and Priti Patel know that, but it is not their cash so why not spend a bit more of it anyway and be seen to look good.