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 Why bother with laws? No really. What’s the point if most of the time they’re either ridiculous or the sentences imposed on those who break them are so incongruent to the crime that it makes you want to spit?
I refer to the story in Monday’s Sydney Morning Herald titled ‘Satanic goat killer to say sorry’. In a nutshell, Tracey Lee Arnold, 26, of Coorparoo, Brisbane, and a group of friends (or should that be fiends?) stole a pet goat called Maddie, which was grazing at the front of a church, dragged the animal to a raised platform and slaughtered it. According to the SMH, the goat’s head was later found by police in the freezer of Arnold’s home, along with a camera containing photos of members of the group with the head. Her sentence for this heinous crime? Two years probation and a requirement to apologise to Maddie’s owners. What’s up with moronic magistrates who give monsters like Arnold a break because it would “affect her ability to find employment”?
As for what drove Arnold to such a despicable act: Arnold’s solicitor John Jacob said his client suffered from an “alcohol addiction” but that psychiatric reports indicated she did not have a “macabre predisposition” to commit violent offences. “[But] when she drinks alcohol she makes poor decisions.” No kidding!
Just where is the accountability? Lord knows many of us make poor decisions when we’re sozzled. It’s one of the reasons I avoid alcohol. I’ve mentioned in an earlier column how I become a crazed harridan after too much booze and even threatened to commit arson if I didn’t get sex from a gorgeous woman on one occasion. But if I’d gone ahead and burned down my friend’s flat, possibly turning her and the gorgeous woman who eventually became my girlfriend (and who, deep down, surely must harbour a hint of masochism!) into chargrilled humanburgers, would I have got away with simply having to apologise to their relatives? Exactly what message is Judge John Costello (yes, let’s name the stupid bastard) sending out in Arnold’s case? Do what the fuck you like, blame drink or drugs and you’ll get off.
I’m sick of reading about people who use ‘addiction’ as a shield to get away with murder – literally. Why is it that so many men get away with brutally raping, beating or killing their wives because they’ve got a drink/drugs ‘problem’ and saying ‘sorry’ somehow mitigates the crime and entitles them to leniency? Why is it that women such as Sara Thornton in the UK, who, after years of suffering domestic violence at the hands of their alcoholic husbands, strike back and kill the perpetrators and end up with life imprisonment?
Now the NSW police are to introduce on-the-spot fines for ‘minor’ offences that include shoplifting or breaking into a car. Great. Why not just ban laws altogether and let anarchy reign? From where I’m standing it won’t necessarily be a much worse scenario.
Katrina Fox:
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