In the Court of Appeal yesterday Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, freed Munir Hussain as an “act of mercy”. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson later said that people who tackled criminals should be applauded, but said it was not a comment on this particular case.Munir and his family had been subjected to a nasty crime in their own home by knife wielding thugs. Munir managed to get away, found his brother and chased the burglars down the street. They, with two unnamed ‘helpers’ gave the criminal, Waled Salem, a beating splintering a cricket bat over his head causing brain damage.

At the initial trial in the cold light of day and 20/20 rear-view vision Munir and his brother Tokeer were put away. Tokeer got a harsher sentence because he had not been subjected to the ordeal that Munir had. Lord Judge has now reduced Munir’s sentence to a suspended one, which allows him home. But Tokeer has had his sentence merely reduced to 2 years but must remain locked up.

The burglar had a string of 50 offences behind him and was waiting for trial on a credit card fraud case.

Whatever your feelings about the nature of the attack on Salem, one must wonder why Munir’s family was ever put in this position by the system that should arguably have put Salem behind bars for a lengthy period before this.

I wonder what my response would be if a member of my family was subjected to this sort of crime. Would I hold back like Tokeer was meant to do? Or would the blood run as hot in my veins? Who can place a limit on how much one cares for one’s family and friends?

I am glad that Munir has been freed, but I think Tokeer should be let out too. Not because what they did was necessarily right, but it shows whose side the law is on.

But this does also send out a dangerous message to both burglar and resident. Residents may now be tempted to over step the mark based on this case without fully understanding it, which in turn may tempt burglars to go ‘tooled up’ and ready for the job.

Related Article:

The law in the UK is an Ass (2)

------ Other articles of interest ------

• Munir Hussain and brother Tokeer jailed for beating up intruder
• The law in the UK is an Ass (2)
• Councils snoop using DVLA database
• Insurance fraudsters beware!

Tags: appeal court, law, lord judge, munir hussain, News, the law is an ass, tokeer

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 10:16 am and is filed under News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.