Assets of John and Anne Darwin frozen as police try to reclaim stolen money


Punishment should fit the crime, has it in this case?

freeze all the assets, sell all their properties, raid all their accounts, make them pay for every single penny, police costs, court costs, the cost to her employer who told her to take more time off work, even the costs of the RNLI, plus interests that would have accrued, make them pay for the cost of their prison stay, from the monies they defrauded, but a prison sentence of a couple of years each to serve the whole term.

The man is an ex teacher use him in jail to give some grammer lessons to other inmates, and make him work for a living when he leaves jail, a teacher for the prison service so as the tax payer does not have to support him and his wife.

Also consider though if another persons was in distressed and the RNLI valuable time and limited resources could have casued the RNLI not to go to promptly to the aid of someone else that day, or even that the RNLI may have tried to go on a search and rescue mission in very rough waters searching for him, putting crew in a high risk situation, if that did occurr what price the judge to put on putting youself in a high risk dangerous situation, with possible tragic out come?

luckily this did not occur but it did cost the emergency services, they devoted 36 hours, at a cost of £150,000 - to the search for the missing man and his red kayak,five lifeboats, an air-sea rescue helicopter, the coastguard and the police.


They did not help themselves when both tried to cover up lie to the police lawyers judges, jury etc, him by saying he had lost his memory and her trying to say she was not a part of it.

They should have come clean, when your backs against the wall, to try and save yourself, by dishing out more deceit to the authorities, will do you know favours, it just confirms that you have no intention of letting yourself become remorceful and thats want the judge may consider when issuing a sentence knowing whether some humility was displayed by the accused.

But for me, in this case, the sentence should have been based on the law of restitution than imposing a long prison sentence, but it seems the judge wanted to give them near the same sentence they gave their sons he disappeared in 2002 and emerged at the police station in december 2007, 5 years of deceit.

source The times

quote:

Financial institutions were the only victims listed on the indictment against the Darwins. No crime on the statute book covers fooling your sons into believing that their father is dead. Nor is any punishment listed for allowing a 91-year-old man - the decorated war veteran Ronald Darwin - to spend more than five years grieving for a lost son who was actually living a few miles away.

compare the sentence to this guy who used deception to financial insitutions
Body Shop 'snoop' John Shevlin fined for insider dealing

quote:

The City regulator said yesterday that it had fined John Shevlin £85,000 after he was found to have gained inside knowlege by snooping on confidential e-mails between executives.borrowed more than his annual salary to bet that Body Shop's share price would fall, having obtained a sneak preview of an unexpectedly bleak Christmas trading update.
According to the FSA, Mr Shevlin borrowed £29,000 on January 10, 2006, for short-selling. He offloaded 80,000 shares in Body Shop that he did not own in the hope of buying them back more cheaply at a later date

Compare the sentence to Conrad Black US sentence which involved huge sums of money and many people affected with his deception defrauding millions

Black faced a total of 12 charges for defrauding shareholders of $84m, with a maximum sentence of 95 years in jail. Conrad Black sentenced was 6.5 years for fraud by a US court

Conrad Black sentenced to 6.5 years for fraud

quote:

Fallen media mogul Conrad Black was today sentenced to six and a half years in a US jail, following his conviction earlier this year for embezzling millions of dollars from his Hollinger media empire. Black, who arrived at court accompanied by his wife Barbara Amiel, and his daughter Alana, could have faced 24 years in prison.Chicago judge Amy St Eve also fined former media tycoon $125,000.Black will spend Christmas at home - he has been given 12 weeks to put his affairs in order and report to prison in March.

The day Conrad Black became a social leper

quote:

Ostracised in New York and an object of curiosity in London, Black was reassured by a group of sympathisers in Toronto who seemed to accept his patiently pleaded arguments that greed was not criminal, and that surely capitalists were entitled to cut corners to create wealth.
In response Black looked for a stage from which to mount a revival. There was no better venue than London, where nobody had lost money on his account and many recalled his good company.
Although he had barely attended the House of Lords since being made a peer, he contemplated a star performance to prove his respectability.
“The only person who will take me away,” Black once boasted, “will be the undertaker, and when they open the coffin it will be empty. I’ll be gone.”

This does highlight how the law can be one big bottom!


Time for them to enact that law me thinks, with the abolition of the defence of “marital coercion”.

quote:

The coercion defence

Anne Darwin hoped to escape jail with the defence of “marital coercion”. Used only five times in the past 75 years, the law provides that a wife has a defence to any charge other than murder or treason if she committed it “in the presence of, and under the coercion of, her husband”. In 1977 the Law Commission recommended the abolition of the defence, saying that it was no longer “appropriate” - but this was never enacted.

Gary Slapper, director of law at the Open University, said: “It is unsustainable for the law to set apart wives. Teenagers who commit crimes in the thrall of tyrannical parents are given no special defence; nor are life partners.”

quote:

Originally posted by Deus ex machina:
..but then jails a couple of fraudsters for six years who did not physically hurt anyone, nor break into someone else's their property where anything could have happened.

More back to front BS in the 'fairer' UK.

And refuses to extradite preachers of terror but wouldn't spare a second thought to extraditing computer hackers who has never harmed anyone.

quote:

Originally posted by Deus ex machina:

Do you ever add anything useful to any discussion here?

I tend to add facts and erudite contributions to all the discussions I enter. Why am I not surprised that you fail to grasp any of them?

quote:

What kind of a country tells judges not to jail burglars..

..blame this hopeless government and all those who to continue to vote for them.

quote:

Originally posted by teamy:

quote:

Originally posted by Babar:

quote:

Originally posted by teamy:

quote:

Originally posted by Babar:
The tabloids, and particularly the self-styled "World's Greatest Newspaper", were so very misleading about this, that it must be deliberate. The only time custody is not the starting point for sentencing for burglary is a first time burglar, unforced entry, and low value stolen. That would be walking through a door left open, and picking up something worth only a few pounds. Anything more than that merits custody.

Really?

"A BURGLAR with 31 previous convictions became one of the first criminals to escape jail under new sentencing guidelines for judges yesterday after he told the court he wanted to be a professional poet."

Link

Your link is to this thread!
I have given a link to the guidelines above, judges are not compelled to follow them, but have to explain why they have not. Newspapers do not have to report the explanation, of course, and what it can be in a case like that I can't think.

Sorry Link

Well, that was a case from 2003, not under current guidelines. The judge was following remarks by Lord Woolf, the then Lord Chief Justice, to the effect that "burglars should only be imprisoned if it was necessary and that courts must try to deal with the underlying causes of their offending." so he sent him to a drugs rehabilitation course. That and other pronouncements by Lord Woolf were very controversial, and Lord Woolf retired somewhat earlier than expected. And we now have the Sentencing Guidelines Council.

Telling lies to your children isn't a crime- The way the Darwins treated their sons may be cruel. But it doesn't deserve a harsher sentence

Totally agree with this article

quote:

Originally posted by Babar:

It depends on the burglary, it depends on the fraud. How long would you lock someone up for leaning in through an open window and stealing a bottle of milk?[quote] 6 month

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Babar:
How long would you lock up a Robert Maxwell for stealing the pension funds of thousands of his workers?

6 mounth per item/victim standed sentancing so two pension funds 12 month two bottles of milk 12 month. 1000 pension funds 500 years

quote:

Originally posted by Louboutin:
This does highlight how the law can be one big bottom!


Time for them to enact that law me thinks, with the abolition of the defence of “marital coercion”.

quote:

The coercion defence

Anne Darwin hoped to escape jail with the defence of “marital coercion”. Used only five times in the past 75 years, the law provides that a wife has a defence to any charge other than murder or treason if she committed it “in the presence of, and under the coercion of, her husband”. In 1977 the Law Commission recommended the abolition of the defence, saying that it was no longer “appropriate” - but this was never enacted.

Gary Slapper, director of law at the Open University, said: “It is unsustainable for the law to set apart wives. Teenagers who commit crimes in the thrall of tyrannical parents are given no special defence; nor are life partners.”

Given that the defence of marital coercion was not found to apply in this case (given that she was convicted) it seems a strange case to use as the basis for an argument that the defence should be abolished.

quote:

Originally posted by Nephilim:

quote:

Originally posted by Louboutin:
This does highlight how the law can be one big bottom!


Time for them to enact that law me thinks, with the abolition of the defence of “marital coercion”.

quote:

The coercion defence

Anne Darwin hoped to escape jail with the defence of “marital coercion”. Used only five times in the past 75 years, the law provides that a wife has a defence to any charge other than murder or treason if she committed it “in the presence of, and under the coercion of, her husband”. In 1977 the Law Commission recommended the abolition of the defence, saying that it was no longer “appropriate” - but this was never enacted.

Gary Slapper, director of law at the Open University, said: “It is unsustainable for the law to set apart wives. Teenagers who commit crimes in the thrall of tyrannical parents are given no special defence; nor are life partners.”

Given that the defence of marital coercion was not found to apply in this case (given that she was convicted) it seems a strange case to use as the basis for an argument that the defence should be abolished.

'Hoped' was the operative word in the quote given

Anne Darwin: 'marital coercion' defence extremely rare


I do not think it strange at all seeing as this case highlighted something that I, and probably others have not heard of, and I can inderstand why I have not heard of it, and why it is not strange to use this case as for an argument that the defence should be abolished, as this case brought this to the publics attention as Mrs Darwin tried to use it for her defence.If this defence is not availavble to other cohabitants why for wifes? so we all should be able to use this as a defence on no one should, Mrs Darwin, her case, and her defence lawyers, and the judges comments have brought this to the publics attention.

source - Times
“Teenage children who commit crimes in the thrall of tyrannical parents are given no special defence; nor are life partners, whether heterosexual, gay or lesbain, who are dominated by a menacing other half.”

There are many documented cases of husbands being bullied and coerced by violent wives.”

quote:

The defence of marital coercion used by Anne Darwin is extremely rare with only five reported cases in the last 75 years.

One involved a drink-driving case against Ashley Fitton, 37, of Unsworth, Bury, who was acquitted at Manchester City magistrates’ court after she successfully raised the defence under section 47 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925.

The legislation provides that a wife has a defence to any charge other than murder or treason if she committed it “in the presence of, and under the coercion of, her husband”.
Mrs Flitton was three times over the limit when caught driving her family in a Jaguar but claimed that at the end of the evening out she had been forced to take the wheel by her husband. Professor Gary Slapper, director of law at the Open University, said:

“It used to be a legal presumption that an offence committed by a wife in the presence of her husband was committed under his coercion.

Jury retires to consider Anne Darwin's defence of 'marital coercion'

quote:

She denies the charges on the basis of “marital coercion”, claiming that her husband forced her to take part in his plan. Mr Darwin, a former teacher and prison guard, has pleaded guilty to fraud.

Summing up the case this morning, Mr Justice Wilkie told the jury that it had been “both dramatic and emotionally charged” but told them that they must now put emotion to one side. It has been a “highly unusual case” involving a “highly unusual defence”, he said.