Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Labour Party's use of knife crime victims and their families for political gain is disgusting, obscene and should be stopped













Dear All

One of the most disgraceful ways that the Labour Party uses people is to further their ends of regaining political control of Holyrood.

To do so, in various locations the Labour Party has sought the victims and families of knife crime.

Not to help, not to make things better but for petty political point scoring.

Three Labour Politicians stand out as being heavily involved in this dreadful sick scheme, Labour MSPs Margaret Curran, Duncan McNeil and the Labour MP William Bain.

Each one of them has used the knife crime issue for political gain and to introduce by the backdoor a change in Scottish law.

A person is guilty until they prove themselves innocent.

Despite trying to force the anti human rights measure in public, they refused to follow through with it when the Crime Bill was doing through the Scottish Parliament.

One of the victims used by the Labour Party is John Muir from the Greenock area, his son Damien was stabbed 8 times by Barry Gavin who had two previous convictions for carrying a knife and was on bail charged with three separate assaults.

John Muir has said that Prisons must be reinvented as places of punishment.

And he has a point that they should be but that is not enough, the Scottish Government must try and break the cycle of crime before offenders get sucked into a lifestyle that eventually leads to them committing serious offences.

John Muir told Holyrood’s Justice Committee that “all we hear” is that they’re being sent to prison for rehabilitation.

He added;

“Damn the rehabilitation, what about the punishment part of the sentence? I would like to see a prison reinvented as a place of punishment.”

It is easy to understand his feelings that he wants people punished, as a victim of multiple stab wounds myself, you don’t forget, you remember the blood gushing out like a fountain, the coldness of your face, the feeling of being sick, the pain as light hurts your eyes.

Lying on a cold floor bleeding out you don’t know if you are going to die, you feel like a burst balloon with your entire body sagging and lacking in energy.

After they sow you up at hospital, the physically injuries heal but you never forget and relive the experience for years.

And you have permanent reminders which you always carry.

John Muir wants people punished but his angry shouldn’t be solely directed at Barry Gavin, the people who really failed his son were the local authority, the Fiscal Service, the Court, the Police and the welfare people.

These are the people who systematically failed his son; his anger is best directed there were change is so necessary.

People like Barry Gavin should be in prison and sentences for people who use knives should be so draconian that people know if you use one you will spend most of your life locked away in a cell.

The call for mandatory sentences for knife crime is wrong; it is anti human rights and anti fair trial.

It is political interference of an independent judiciary and must be opposed.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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