A test of justice
I’m writing this on the evening of Thursday 05 November, but I won’t post it until the morning of Wednesday 11 November, because I don’t want there to be even the slightest chance that I might be accused of either seeking to, or actually affecting, the judicial process.
This morning (Thursday 05 November), the aunt of the now infamous Shannon Matthews was sentenced to a jail term of one year for benefit fraud of nearly £36,000. My understanding is that she made an early guilty plea, which often leads to a lesser sentence than would otherwise have been the case.
This morning also, Tom Wise, an ex-MEP for UKIP, entered a guilty plea for fraud amounting to – quite coincidentally – £36,000. He entered a guilty plea after two days of court proceedings and protracted discussions with this legal team. While he can expect to have his guilty plea taken into account in terms of sentence, normal procedure would be that the delay in pleading guilty will lead to less of a sentence cut than would have been the case for a prompt guilty plea.
Mr Wise will be sentenced on Wednesday 11 November. I will publish this post on that morning at the point when I know that it cannot possibly be picked up by the sentencing court (not very likely anyway) but before a judgment is announced.
Shannon Matthews aunt, who is noted only for being Shannon Matthews’ aunt, has not had many advantages in life, I think it’s probably fair to say. Mr Wise has had had more advantages.
I bear no malice towards Mr Wise, but I wonder what his sentence will be in comparison to that of Shannon Matthews’s aunt.
Just as an initial matter of comparison, another former UKIP MEP Ashley Mote was sentenced to 9 months in jail two years ago, for benefit fraud amounting to £65,000. Nearly twice the amount, three quarters of the sentence of Shannon Matthews’ aunt.
We’ll see.
Good post Paul.
This is definitely a tale of social class intertwined with gender inequalities and sexism, the judiciary reflects those power relatioships. Will be interesting to see what sentence Tom Wise gets. And there’s this whipped up sensationalism and stigmatisation created by NL in attacking the poor as when it comes to benefit fraud it’s ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key’ mentality. Yet the more ‘invisible’ crimes and depending where you are in the social class pecking order you are more likely not to penalised as much if any.
The travesty that still garners little media/government attention (wonder why?!) is tax theft, evasion and avoidance. Benefit fraud is a drop in the financial ocean compared to what gots ‘lost’ in tax theft.