Britain's diabolical multi-tier justice system
How is it right that the Norton Motorcycles fraudster who stole £14 million in pension funds gets no jail time, while violent rioters get less prison time than peaceful environmental protesters?
One of the big complaints among the far right is that Britain has a two-tier justice system, with the implication being that extreme-right rioters are suffering unduly harsh sentences.
They’re not wrong about Britain’s justice system being profoundly unfair, but they’re wrong that there’s only two tiers to this iniquity, and they’re wrong that the extreme-right rioters are suffering the most unfair punishments.
This week the compensation for the 200 victims of Stuart Garner’s enormous £14 million Norton Motorcycles pension fraud has finally been released.
Garner declared Norton Motorcycles insolvent as soon as he was ordered to pay back the money he stole, so the £9.4 million in compensation is being paid by the Fraud Compensation Fund, out of money raised from a levy that’s charged on all contribution and defined benefit occupational pensions in the UK.
Garner tricked 200 people into transferring their pensions over to his company, then fraudulently used their pension savings to fund his own business ventures.
At the time he was doing this, he was feted by the Tory government, appearing in photo shoots with then-chancellor George Osborne, and accompanying Theresa May on a UK government trade mission to China while she was Prime Minister.
Astonishingly Garner served absolutely no jail time, despite ruining the lives of so many people, several of whom died before the Fraud Compensation Fund payments were released.
The judge gave Garner the slap on the wrist of an 8 month suspended sentence, meaning he got to walk free.
Now let’s compare this absurd non-punishment with some of the sentences handed out after the August extreme-right riots.
Ellis Wharton pleaded guilty to burglary and assaulting an emergency services worker, after he was caught looting the wreckage of Spellow Library, then assaulting a police officer at the scene. He received an 11 month sentence.
Cole Stewart was handed an 18 month sentence after lobbing rocks at police officers in Darlington, and wildly celebrating with hands in the air after one of his projectiles hit a police officer.
Amer Walid, who had no prior convictions was jailed for 20 months after extreme-right thugs shouted racist abuse at him, and lobbed alcohol at him. He responded by throwing four beer cans back at the thugs. The judge gave him a 20 month sentence, and told him that he should "rise above racism"!
Almost all of the extreme-right thugs to have been sentenced so far have received significantly shorter jail terms than Roger Hallam, who was sentenced to 5 years earlier this year for participating in an online Zoom meeting to plan a peaceful Just Stop Oil protest to disrupt traffic on the M25 by climbing gantries.
On the face of it there’s no rhyme or reason to any of this, with extreme punishments for minor crimes, minor punishments for major crimes, and no real punishment whatever for the biggest and most premeditated crime of the lot.
0 actual jail time for defrauding £14 million out of people’s pensions.
11 months for looting a library and assaulting a police officer.
18 months for repeatedly lobbing rocks at police, and hitting one of them.
20 months for throwing beer cans back at racist thugs, who started the alcohol throwing in the first place.
60 months for planning an entirely peaceful environmental protest.
But these ridiculous discrepancies make a lot more sense if we consider how Britain’s multi-tier justice system actually works.
The pension fraudster gets off pretty much scot-free because of his connections to top Tories and the political establishment. It doesn’t matter how much you steal, or how premeditated your actions, you’re going to get extraordinarily favourable treatment if you’ve been palling around with the likes of George Osborne and Theresa May.
The guy throwing beer cans back at the racist thugs that went after him in the first place gets a longer sentence than the degenerate throwing rocks at police because he’s a Muslim, and the rock-thrower is white.
And the peaceful environmental protester gets by far the longest sentence of the lot, because his non-violent protest could actually have been effective in disrupting greedy capitalist interests, and Britain’s establishment order simply cannot abide that.
Setting up a small monthly GoCardless subscription really helps too.
This is not just appalling and terrifying but a sign of the depths of alienation in a crumbling capitalist madhouse.
At some point the poor, the working class, the people of colour, the Muslims, the people trying to save the planet will realize their peaceful protests, their appeals to politicians are being ignored and whenever their protests disrupt profit making they are punished. They will retaliate, eventually, with violence whether against infrastructure or people and the political leadership and the media will pretend it came from nowhere, just as they pretend October 7th in Israel came from nowhere.