standard

london is a great city; i think it is the best city in the world (but then i am biased). it is such a shame that such a poor newspaper as the evening standard serves such a wonderful city, admittedly there are a large number of local papers for the london area, but you would think that the capital city could have a decent paper.

anyway i don’t get the standard very often, and when i do i always find myself thinking i will never get it again, but i always do.
the evening standard (a bit like the independent) has a terrible website so i can’t direct you to this story, you’ll just have to trust me.
“he dunked my £700 gadget in a pint and i lashed out” screamed the headline.
warwick bergin, a yacht broker, saw red when larry power dunked his personal organiser in a pint of beer, warwick lunged for, punched, knock to the ground and then kicked larry power in the head.
this all took place in the clipper bar after a meeting of the tenants association of dolphin square (which if i read the report correctly was a council owned block of 1000 flats overlooking the thames that has just been sold to a usa consortium for £170 million which meant the tenants were also getting a multi-million pound payout). bergin was partly responsible for the tenants getting a windfall from the selling of the block to the consortium. bergin splits his time between the pimlico estate (now owned by americans) and his house in devon.
bergin is 55, power is 63 and 18 stone.

why am i even bothering to tell you all of this? you ask. lets look at it again. someone has not only punched someone but also kicked them when they are on the floor (and no doubt all while a little bit under the influence of drink). so what do you think that they got? what do you think they deserve for such actions?
or to put it another way what do you think they would have gotten if they had been youths? or if this had been over a mobile phone? or took place in a local pub?

do you think that they would have been let off? so you think they would have gotten a three-month suspended sentence, fined £200 and ordered to pay £55 costs? (the fine and the costs probably much less the cost of what it took to patch up larry power.)

if you are like me then you probably think the answer is no, and that the punishment would have been harsher. or if the sentence had been the same then the standard’s story would have been on of how we are easy on the criminal in this country.
the judge said she was sparing bergin a custodial sentence because of the “extremely irritating circumstances that led to the incident….” well glad to know that then.

looks like it is another one rule for the rich another for the poor situation.