Angry members of the police and public today accused the courts of being too lenient on rioters as many were simply allowed to walk free.

According to the Evening Standard, Deputy Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh said officers ‘were disappointed by some of the early sentences’. It was feared the lenient sentencing would have a further impact on police moral, already severely damaged by phone hacking corruption allegations and criticism of the recent rioting not to mention budget cuts.

An example of an offender who walked free was an 18 year old who admitted stealing two Burberry T-shirts. A magistrate gave him a verbal slap on the wrist telling him, ‘don’t get in trouble again’, before letting him walk free. Many lives have been destroyed by these violent thugs and yet as usual the British legal system appears to side with the criminal. The offender who was allowed to walk free was told by magistrates,’ he had a bright future’. The courts obviously haven’t considered the futures of the thousands of small business owners who have had to helplessly watch as years of their work was torn apart.

The short sentencing is yet another example of a culture which this country has been sowing in its youth for many years. The idea that your actions have no consequences. You have no responsibility and you can do what you want.