OVER the years the judicial system has gone through many changes, not always for the best.

I always read the Oxford Mail’s Scales of Justice column and I am still astounded by the lenient sentences given out these days by magistrates and also by the judges in the crown courts.

Whilst researching my mother’s family tree, I discovered that my great-grandfather Alfred Thornett was given a few months hard labour in 1909 for poaching.

I believe that he was hunting for rabbits to provide for his large family.

Sadly he developed a mental condition whilst in prison and was transferred to Littlemore Mental Hospital in 1909 and died there in his mid-40s.

Moving forward over 100 years, one example of present day “soft sentences” is the recent case of three brothers who brutally beat a taxi driver in Oxford, punching him in the face, dragging him from his taxi, causing bleeding from the nose and mouth along with other injuries to his head.

This has left him very nervous and he now worries about picking up further dangerous passengers in his taxi. So, what did these yobs receive as punishment?

They got 23 months, 14 months and 10 months in prison, which are these days equipped with colour TVs, pool tables and computers and, with good behaviour, they will probably serve half those sentences. How times have changed!

STUART COOPER
Watermill Way, Headington, Oxford