Wouldn’t Most Parents Do The Same Thing If They Had to?
Monday, February 28, 2011Posted in: there's a fucktard born every minute
I just can’t believe that a mother has been jailed for restraining her daughter who was on drugs. Check out the story here.
Here’s an excerpt:
A Kent MP is calling for sentencing guidelines to be reviewed after a mother was jailed for trying to stop her daughter going out to buy heroin.
Julia Saker, from Dover, is serving a 12 month sentence after pleading guilty to false imprisonment.
Her husband, Tim, said she tried to stop daughter, Tabitha, 19, leaving the house in October last year, by taping her legs together round her jeans.
“I am deeply concerned,” said Charlie Elphicke, Tory MP for Dover and Deal.
“I have written to the Attorney General and to Ken Clarke at the Ministry of Justice to ask for the sentencing guidelines to be reviewed urgently and to ask what exactly the judge was doing imposing a sentence like this.”
Tabitha said on Friday she would swap places with her mother if she could.
“She shouldn’t have to suffer as a result of me taking drugs,” she said.
“I think most parents would have felt it was the right thing to do, that she didn’t really have much other option.
“My mother is a very homely person – she doesn’t want a lot, she just wants to be at home.”
Mr Saker said he was devastated when his wife was jailed at Canterbury Crown Court last month.
Seriously, we have repeat offenders who are lucky to get a slap on the wrist for far more serious crimes, and yet, the British justice system sees fit to jail a mother trying to save her daughter’s life? What. The. Actual. Fuck?
The law is truly an ass. What do you guys think? Would you do the same thing under similar circumstances? I think I probably would in all honesty…
FD
February 28
9:37 am
Mmmmm. While on the face of it it sounds dreadful, I can see how this happened; false imprisonment as a criminal (rather than civil) charge is an indictable offence, if convicted, you are likely going to jail, and the judge doesn’t have a lot of latitude in sentencing.
However, gotta wonder how the hell this came to be charged in the first place. Further, I wonder how CPS came to be involved – did the daughter report?
The other thing is of course, actually, the daughter is an adult, even if a deeply misguided one. Are we really in favour of parents being allowed to imprison their adult children ‘for their own good’? I’m not. That way lies really nasty things.
Interestingly, the Tory party is in favour of not allowing judges latitude over sentencing – which is part of the problem with this case. Technically she committed a crime, but there are mitigating factors. That’s what sentencing latitude is meant to be for.
Lori
February 28
4:18 pm
Seriously, we have repeat offenders who are lucky to get a slap on the wrist for far more serious crimes, and yet, the British justice system sees fit to jail a mother trying to save her daughter’s life? What. The. Actual. Fuck?
This.
We had a story in the US recently of a woman studying to be a teacher, living in the projects, who used her father’s address to get her children into a better school. She was sentenced to jail for that (judge actually said “to set an example”). Now she has a felony on her record and can’t ever be a teacher because of it. Way to help people better themselves! The worst thing about it is that people in the suburbs do this All. The. Time. Somehow, I can’t see my friends (2 of whom do this) arrested and sent to jail for it.
Anon76
February 28
10:14 pm
I want to know why children considered “adult” age now never leave home.
Back in the verra late 70’s it was our main goal in life to strike out from our parents’ homes and be self-sufficient.
Such a different world now. And you can’t say it is based on drugs alone. Remember Timothy Leary and his concoction? Still those kids wanted to strike out on their own.
Quite a puzzle.
SamG
February 28
11:01 pm
Man, I’ve told my kids (especially my son who doesn’t seem to have a ‘this is not good for me’ button) that if I find drug stuff in their rooms (not that I search their rooms, but I would if I were suspicious) that I’LL call the cops and have them arrested myself. But, I can’t imagine tying them up, that only stops it the one time.
I would rather mine get arrested and sent to a rehab place as early as possible. Maybe the rehab will work or maybe they’ll get scared straight, either way they would hopefully be stopped.
Mean Mother Sam
Shiloh Walker
February 28
11:30 pm
I’d do it. If that was my best option? Yep.
Amarinda Jones
March 2
6:59 pm
My parents tried to do everything to stop my younger brother from self destructing and each time some do-gooder with a university degree would try to tell them how wrong they were. No, they weren’t and neither was this mother. Tough love and desperation to see a child survive…I can’t see anything wrong with it.