“I didn’t know what to do, so the next morning I rang the Chief Superintendent, Adrian Harper, and asked if I could pop in and see him.
“At the police station, I took the gun out of the bag and placed it on the table so it was pointing towards the wall.”

This just doesn’t ring true to me, few Police stations now have numbers, its all 0845 call centres, and he asked for the Chief Superintendent ? The facts are not all here to make a a judgement, but this doesn’t ring true. If anybody here has done jury service, you’ll know how concise and detailed the judges summing up is, and needs to be. There is more to this, the comments field is disabled on the newspaper www site as its ongoing, but I would say that at some stage more info will come out about timescales, what was said, what was done etc.

I agree with you that there is probably more in this story than meets the eye, but whether that justifies the sentence remains to be seen.

‘568 crew – I have been following this thread with a degree of disinterest, although I did read what you wrote, without any enthusiasm, but also with little specialist knowledge.

It seems to me that you are lucky enough to have the benefit here of a bunch of extremely helpful, patient contributors, many with specialist knowledge and as professional writers. But instead of taking all this advice with you to a writers group to learn how to write and to search engines to get all the facts correct you are trying to build your stories peicemeal through this forum.

Why don’t you take away everything you have learnt and come back with completed stories in a few weeks/months for a critical assessment? I will certainly read them then, with interest.:):)

Wow -what a terrific collection. I think the B36 blew me away the most although the Spit in left bank head high set the blood racing. Technically the digital photo outscores but there is at “atmosphere” to these which somehow is missing with modern technology. Perhaps an analogy is the similar difference between an old 78 and its CD counterpart. There is a place for both and of course we can all look at some of the finest gigital aviation photos ever in this forum.

I’d hardly call it monumental stupidity.

So let’s see now, somebody throws a bin liner into your garden…

…are we to phone the police just in case there is a firearm inside it? :rolleyes:

And if there is, doesn’t the fact that it is on our property make it ‘in our possession’? In this case I don’t see how this man could have avoided prison.

How can there be ‘no defence’ against this crime when if he had taken a kitchen knife gone into a nursery and butchered half-a-dozen three-year-olds he’d have been protected by the law?

Ridiculous! The law is an ass and if the Judiciary cannot be allowed to interpret the spirit, rather than the letter, of the law we should replace them by a computer; it would a least save us some money.

I entirely endorse your last sentence but I agree with Jonesy, however morally wrongly he appears to have been treated. The only thing he could have done and should have done was to gingerly open the bag enough to note it’s contents, leave it there and call the police.

Firstly he is not a good samaritan and secondly he has behaved with monumental stupidity. Having said that, a custodial sentence of 5 years is utterly ridiculous. Sometimes the law really is an ass, or at least it’s practitioners are.

I would love to address your first point Sky High, but alas that would leave me and the webb site open I would fancy to potential legal action.

You are correct that I have somewhat diverted from the main theme, so let me just say this.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. I cannot see how it can be right for any civilised society to use the death penalty.

Secondly, there are countless cases of innocent people being found guilty. A death penalty would result in the deaths of innocent people.

I have no faith in the UK legal system, I think it is open to corruption and is restricted only to those people who can afford it.

Never ever trust a jury. I have been on one and the other people on it freightened me. All they were interested in was getting home, down the pub etc and were not interested at all in the arguments/evidence in question.

Fair point, Waco.

As for the rest you and I are in complete agreement. You have experienced the realities of jury service, as have I and I have also had personal experience of miscarriage of justice.

Not only do I find the “ultimate sanction” morally insupportable but the risks of error all the way through the judicial process are too great.

Ok, there have been a number of disasters in the UK where loss of life has occured. Yet the people responsible for running the business’s concerned are never prosecuted.

It’s different rules for different folk.

Away from corporate matters, what about our Brazillian friend on the tube. The state walked away from that one.

Firstrly I think you need to be specific regarding your first point and name the cases where individual fault was found. Your second point is a fairly sweeping generalisation without evidence and with no disrespect to another poster here, your third point addresses a very “grey area”.

And in any case our exchanges have moved us away from the kernel of this topic which is about capital murder and the punishment thereof, as I understand it. Manslaughter is entirely different, in law.

Coraline – with my grandson. Weird and not recommended for under 10s. I suppose the moral is the grass is never greener on the other side, despite appearances.