Offender should try training (From South Wales Argus)

Offender should try training

2:53pm Thursday 21st February 2013 in Letters

RE ARGUS FEB 18. I read with interest the plight of a jobless teenager from Pontypool who came before the magistrate’s courts, his crime was not the focus of my attention but the justice handed out by the volunteers who sit on these benches of wisdom.

Your article stated the magistrates fined him £75 with £85 prosecution costs, a victim surcharge of £80 and £50 compensation fee to his victim, a total of £290, not one penny of which will be paid by the accused. He was also subject to suspended 34 weeks custodial sentence handed out last August, which means he has to stay in his hotel room for 12 weeks watching television while receiving an advanced course on how to commit non-custodial crime from his fellow inmates. He should have been forced to channel his aggression into a purposeful role on good pay provided by the brain reconditioning unit at The Royal Marines Commando Training Centre, Lymstone Devon. I know it happened to me many years ago.

Norman Jones Preseli Close Risca