The toxic effects of the Sensible Sentencing Trust's hate-campaign against criminals has been rammed home today with a ruling in a Palmerston North court that the face of a man accused of murdering a child cannot be revealed due to a "lynch-mob mentality" in the city. The man has not applied for bail - a basic right of any accused - due to death threats, but may apply in future. The judge agreed that photographs would place him at risk if this happened, and ordered their suppression, saying
It's abundantly clear that a lynch-mob mentality is alive and well in Palmerston North.And that's where the "hang 'em high" brigade has got us: to a place where open justice is undermined because we have to protect the accused - who remember has not been convicted of anything yet and deserves a fair trial - from their vigilantes.
But its not just "crims" these thugs are targeting. Death threats have also been made to members of the accused's family, while his parents' house has been vandalised. These are innocent people. But in the eyes of the ordinary "decent" New Zealanders who follow the Sensible Sentencing Trust's creed of vengeance, merely being related to someone accused of a crime makes them deserving of punishment.
This is not decent. And it certainly isn't justice. But it has become increasingly clear that the Sensible Sentencing Trust and its ilk aren't actually interested in justice. Instead, they're interested in vicious, sadistic revenge. And they're clearly no longer that fussed about whether the person they inflict it on is even guilty.
