“Riot” Sentences - What’s REALLY going on?

are people being pressured into pleading guilty for their involvement in the UK riots well to talk about this I've brought back our learnard friend Alan Robert Shaw from art of law we'll Link in the description below and welcome back to Secrets where we can be a little bit more relaxed shall we say l about what we say here so no none of this is intended to be legal advice or too opinionated so that it gets us into any trouble but we'll give you some thoughts on it nonetheless I've certainly had lots of comments and I know you've just said you've had the same L where people are saying quote well to quote one of your viewers why don't you just be honest and say that everyone's being pressured into pleading guilty for their involvement in the riots um and I don't really think that's the case but let's talk about it Al you had some thoughts on this well yes I mean I I did a recent video about sort of bail because people are saying ah yes well people are being pressured by being told if you plead not guilty we will hold you we'll remand you in custody for years and years and years until your trial and it's you know H has there been any evidence that that has been happening I mean as far as I'm aware there've been around a thousand arrests so far and about 200 guilty pleas and as we've discussed before if people plead guilty then matters can be dealt with very very quickly you know within you know a matter a me a matter of mere days because days yeah you yeah you are produced at the magistrates Court um if they think it is too serious to be dealt with in the magistrates Court they send it to to the Crown Court now when people talk about two-tier Justice I think one thing that you know the lawyers have been commenting on is well yes it we have proven that you can actually do things this quickly um because they've thrown a lot of funding at this um they've allocated 70 judges and just to clarify that's the Judiciary themselves who have done that um judici listing is purely a Judicial matter the government has no say in you know allocating cases or anything like that or resources uh the budget is given to the um system the criminal justice system and it's the judges themselves who allocate the work and they've always been saying look you know there aren't enough judges there aren't enough defense Council there aren't enough prosecutors and the other thing is we don't have enough courtrooms um so yes these cases have been fast-tracked and you know people have been quite open about that the knock on effect of course is is that that has just put pressure on the system generally because you know there's a finite number of courtrooms and there's a finite number of staff so when we talk about two-tier Justice I think one thing we can talk about is two tier um resource allocation but that's more of concern to lawyers but I absolutely I just jump jump in there I've I've had exactly that more than once particularly with family courts where they obviously they are struggling for resources a l of time so I've I've been there ready ready for a two-day trial or whatever or you know fact finding and the judg has just walked in and said right we've got an urgent case coming in everyone get out and that was it you know everyone was there ready and it was just kicked out because they had something else coming in so there's just no resources literally no resources so it does happen it does and um when cases are listed even for trial a lot of the time they're listed as what we call floter um first of all you get put in a warned list so say your trial will probably take place at some stage in this two week or four- week period but then they're often listed as floaters which means you turn up at court and just hang around floating around on the off chance a courtroom becomes available it's very rare to get what we call a fixture where a trial is listed and yes it will definitely start and they intend only to do that if it's something like they're are vulnerable Witnesses you know like child Witnesses or something who they don't want to mess around or there's some you know other witness availability issue or there's some technology issue you know they need particular video playback or something like that but yeah I mean the system as we've been complaining about for ages it's creaking at the edges I mean they've sold off 141 court buildings that's not Court rooms that's CT buildings and that doesn't include where they were renting buildings and they haven't renewed the lease I mean there is a Tracker that shows how many courts are sitting on any one day and I just had a quick look um on Friday and even though there are limited cours 31% of available courts weren't being used for whatever reason because they didn't have the judicial staff or they didn't have the support staff or they weren't the you know the the right number of sort of barristers available because you know because of the funding issue a lot of people now there's a massive shortage of barristers willing to prosecute or defend crime and interestingly what we call raser um and the that's the a word and it's and and then it's something offending cases you know the very serious kind of assault cases if you if you don't assault cases what's interesting now is the CPS have lowered the threshold for people to be raso qualified they basically said so long as you've attended the course whether you've actually done the assessment or not will count you as qualified I mean I think that in itself is a that's that's more of a scandal than what people are complaining about here um but yeah I mean back to the point are people being pressured by being told they won't get bail I mean I've seen no evidence of that and as we've said before um before you know there is a presumption of bail in the Crown Court well in in all courts and to refuse bail the prosecution have to show one or more of the following they have to show they are reasonable sub sorry substantial grounds for believing that either the person will fail to attend will commit further offenses or will interfere with witness Witnesses or otherwise the ca of justice and the you know the burden is on the prosecution to do that so I mean and just asking around I mean I haven't heard you know due to solicitors who you know initially deal with these cases and just to to explain a due to solicitor they're just regular sort of self-employed solicitors who are just on a rter it's not like we don't have a public defender system um in this country per se so it's just it's just you know solicitors from local law firms who you know they know what they're doing they're highly qualified and I think if there was any sort of you know hint of this they would be the thir people kicking up a stink about it and I haven't heard a whisper absolutely and there's um if I put up on screen here there's these these are just a a few that uh with the assistance of chat GPT to pull pull some of these sentences I mean this one highlighted here is that um lady with the wheelie bin that people will remember from the news um so she got 20 months um William Morgan 32 months um Ryan 2 years 2 months Etc so lots and lots of harsh sentences but you'll notice each of these they're saying you know pleaded guilty admitted the admitted the offenses and so on um and the point here is and the question here is are these being pressured into pleading guilty for fear of being remanded into custody until their trial um obviously bearing in mind there is a a limit an overall limit um for that as well but them admitting their involvement they will clearly I mean just to clear this up they will have had advice on whether what they've done U makes out the elements of the offense therefore whether they're likely to be found guilty if they pleaded not guilty and uh bearing in mind the credit because you get a third off the sentence if you plead guilty at the earliest opportunity so all of this would have been explained would have been advised and so they do have that choice but you know there is still a degree there probably as to whether you know someone just guilty just so that they get the um the discount if they just fear being found guilty if even if they think they're not but for their involvement but all of these things they're not just um I think one thing does frustrate me is when you see in headlines that um someone was either either you know pleaded guilty or whatever and sent to prison just because they were there there's always more to it than that it wasn't they they were just walking by and then roped in it's not quite like that is it no I mean the thing with public order offenses and you know joint Enterprise and Joint Enterprise is a controversial subject but you have to do more than merely be there I mean I was very curious about there was that statement in one of the Irish courts where they said you know just mere presence and observation will count actually it doesn't you you can tag along and watch somebody commit a crime and film it and make notes and as long as you don't actually particip in that crime in any way then you know that's not an offense I mean what quite often happens with joint Enterprises people will argue and say well it was my friend who was actually doing the mugging I just stood behind him but if there's a big gang of you stood behind somebody well they say well in that case you were sort of you know adding to the intimidating atmosphere and therefore that's enough for joint Enterprise but I haven't seen any cases of anybody because you know the sentencing remarks are being published and people are taking Pine active disorder I mean the fact that you know they might do something innocuous you know man sort of senten for pushing over Wheelin or for saying you know hurty words yes and also throwing bricks and petrol bombs and breaking windows I mean you know and even even then if they are like that one lady was filmed with the wheelie bin that was as you say that was one thing among many of the others but if all of that is going on I I I still don't understand I mean I understand what people are upset about but I don't understand how they think that attacking the police in this scenario is going to help anything like I just don't get that I mean why why would like that one example of pushing the will wi towards the line of police that are trying to keep order what is that to achieve I just don't get that but um and and then there's another question that pops up which I think conveniently we can deal with here is a lot of people say well what what if I'm just filming it and say I'm a reporter and therefore they have to leave me alone well I think there's an an analysis there that can be had which is well are you really a reporter I mean first of all from the starting point of anyone can film anything generally and that by itself is not you know taking part in the the unrest and the violence what but if you are in the middle of the crowd and pushing people around whilst you're filming that might be slightly different but then again if you were genuinely a reporter you would have had a track history of uh you know selling film um filming it to sent to the papers or all that sort of stuff or you and me here are even doing these videos I mean I'm not I'm not a journalist I don't think of myself as a journalist but we we talk about the news Al so I mean where where do you define it I mean even even when I was uh emailing BBC press office for TV licensing and I said well can you tell me what a TV company is and they said well no not really and so even they if they can't tell us a list of TV companies how is there a list of journalist well you know so where do you draw the line so if you are just standing there filming something and then there was the whole I think you did a video on the the journalism where can someone be forced to hand over their footage well yes with a huge caveat because o only yes if it it goes through the court process to get an order which is not it's not a case of walk in and you get it it's not it's not a given no not for you to hand it over no and one thing is the courts are very much moved to the position that they do not see a distinction between quotes accredited journalists and citizen journalists and it's worth pointing out that a lot of sort of you know quotes proper newspaper journalists are not accredited a lot of the old school ones who started you know work their way up from the local newspapers I mean I know journalists because you know to be accredited you just do a course and you know pay some money and they're basically I'm not over a couple of grand just to say I'm an accredited journalist I've been doing this for 30 years but what's very interesting is in the case where they're trying to get the journalist to hand over um the footage you know they've accepted that yes he was just there as a journalist because different rules can apply you know if you are caught up in the you know the criminality yourself and just recording it for whatever reason then you lose the journalistic protection but in this case they haven't the police haven't even tried to argue that he's not a journalist they've accepted that he was just there filming it and now they're going for the application which is we need this material because it would help in the prevention or detection of serious crime because they can't just ask willy-nilly they have to show good reason for asking it and the cours have always proved to be very reluctant to interfere with journalistic protection I mean I gave the example of that case where it was under the officials prosecution under the official Secrets Act and the material they were trying to recover were allegedly stolen top secret material but the court said well once that has been handed to the journalist it becomes journalistic material it doesn't matter what its source is so yeah you can chase after the person who disclosed it because they you a public official and they breach the official Secrets act once the journalist gets it and also the journalist doesn't have to reveal their source and they were saying well tell us who gave you this material and they're going well no that's my source and the mere fact that the source may be involved in the criminality again it doesn't necessarily get you over that threshold so and and that has to be an important thing here because I I listened to um the BBC interview with I think it was that journalist in in question um where he said um well no he he would never be trusted again if he were to hand his material over to the police and I think the interviewer said well what if the police were to pay you for it just like anyone else would would pay you for it and he said well no because then it would be viewed that I work for the police and then interviewers said well what if it was a really big number well it doesn't matter what the number is you're you know do you put a a price on your credibility and your trustworthiness if someone thinks that it it would be corrupt wouldn't it it would be just like saying well you know to a barister which of course they wouldn't do I certainly hope not anyway but if you know if someone to say well you know get them to throw a case and not you know do a bad job or it just wouldn't work it just wouldn't happen and if if it did happen that'd be disbarred very quickly I'm sorry carry on yes no carry on no the C the courts have said they recognize the importance of a free and independent press and as they say the Press isn't just a watchdog sometimes it has to be a Blood Hound it has to go out there and properly investigate I mean the risk of course is that um you know journalists get killed in war zones all the time and that is because they effectively embed themselves with one side or the other and you know and you know that's the flip side it's like we recognize that journalists take enormous risks to report on conflicts and things like that so they are given this huge amount of protection because you know the the public policy is well yes this might help us solve one particular crime but then as you say and as the journalist said it would undermine everything else because who El you know nobody would ever trust this person again or any journalist and you know a lot of the time you know big stories are only broken because whistleblowers feel confident talking to journalists knowing that you know their identity will not be revealed I mean you know lots of newspapers the guardian have it the guardian have a very sophisticated system that you can report things to them if you're a whistleblower and it's all hyper encrypted and it's all super super safe and all you know the general idea anyway um and and and the courts recognize this but you know to get to the back to the point I mean these things are being documented I don't think a lot of the stories are being reported very accurately sometimes that's in the first place because you know newspapers and TV they have limited amounts of time or space to get a message across and they do tend to take shortcuts and a lot of the time they don't give all the Nuance all the background but then things get repeated on social media and people chur prick the highlights so it's very easy to say you know man sent to prison for three years after drinking bottle of water and you know that's technically true that you know this thing happened after that thing but then they forget that you know drinking bottle of water that was looted through sh from shop during middle of Riot to go back to the you know 2011 riots where you know that yeah there was there was a fantastic example of that from a major new news Outlet just recently about a teacher and said you know she she was sacked for saying something to the children which people then in inferred to be racist that was the headline but gave that impression that she was sacked for that reason but actually when you look into even the article but then when you look further into the tribunals ruling which I did before I formed judgments on these things the tribunal judge said well saying that wasn't enough to sack her that was that was just immaterial really I mean it wasn't immaterial it was you know it was something she probably shouldn't have said Etc but it it was immaterial in the respect of sacking her from the position so the headline doesn't give you the impression that actually she assaulted one of the children and that's what she was sagged for not what it appeared from the headline so that's what really frustrates me with the headlines because that's all sometimes that's all people read and I know you you should read the headline and the body um and again you you've discussed that at Great length with with defamation but um just while we're going on make sure um if you're wondering where El come from he come from uh art of law over here so make sure you go and subscribe over here as well uh we'll be linked in the description below but let's talk about the sentencing guidelines because we've got various um offenses here and the the big thing the big change was when judg was were well SE seen to be encouraging the prosecutors to actually charge for the offense that they believe they should have been charged with and this this is this a bit of a bon of contention because very often in in my li limited experience at the in criminal practice um things are charged much lower than they perhaps could have been and that's usually to secure a conviction but also the the possible sentence is much lower as well so um you know violent disorder versus Riot obviously are very different and you wanted to chat about these as well yeah I mean it's interesting that a lot of people have been charged with violent disorder which has a maximum sentence of five years whereas Riot it's 10 years now I know some people have been cynical and said ah yes because if it's a riot um anybody who has any property damaged can claim compensation from the police but it has to be an actual quot Riot and a lot of people have been saying Ah that's why they're only doing this I me I think the thing is with violent disorder it you know the only differ between Riot and violent disorder really is the number of people taking part for it to be a riot it has to be uh at least 12 people um but when we're looking at these sentences um and like I said what's been very helpful is first of all they've been publishing the sentencing remarks you know what the judge says but also more importantly they've been televising a lot of the sentencing and I think that's a relatively recent Innovation is showing tele I sentencing but what I I think it is useful because if people want to sit through first of all they see that you know it takes 20 minutes sometimes to sentence somebody because the judge will go through and explain exactly their reasoning for the sentence and how they have applied the sentencing guidelines and what factors they've taken into account what factors they've considered irrelevant what they've thought were aggravating factors what they thought were mitigating factors um and I think you know I'm a big fan of trans Arcy I think the more people can see about the criminal justice system first of all I think it will increase confidence in the system but also it will also highlight where there are genuine problems there's a very interesting exercise that people repeat a lot which is where and you can actually do this on the sentencing Council website they've got like a you are the judge thing where you get to sentence people um but they sort of you know say here's a set of facts from a real case you know here's what actually happened here's the agreed facts and then what sentence do you think the Judge gave and what sentence would you have given and what's very interesting is it's almost Universal that in both cases people go less than what the judge said so they they they underestimate what the judge actually imposed as a sentence but when they impose their own sentence that's usually less than what the judge sentenced as well so when people say oh the Judiciary is soft actually the public perception seems to be that judges sentence a lot more leniently than they actually do in in practice and usually when you know I mean don't get me wrong sometimes judges do sentence in a way that even the lawyers go how did they come to that conclusion but a lot of the time when you see a bizarre set what seems at first glance to be a bizarre sentence when you actually look at the facts of it it's like ah right they never said that in the newspaper now it makes sense um you know it might be that they're sentencing for an offense I mean there were recently where people I could see at first glance why people were up in arms about something um but it turned out the person had actually committed the offense when they were themselves were 14 it was 10 years ago and what they'd actually been convicted of was failing you know they were under a reporting condition because they were on the register you know this was and it was like 10 years ago now I'm not saying obviously you know it's still serious you know a breach of your reporting conditions on the register and that's the one where the judge said you would have gone to prison but for the fact that you know the prisons are full at the moment I mean that that is very that's a genuine legitimate concern a lot you know I've been speaking to my judge friends and they have been told that if they are thinking of imposing a custodial sentence could they list the sentencing hearing in a couple of months Time by which time early Dawn should have kicked in and there will be the spaces available so you know people are being and you actually people are being you know people by definition are out on bail pending sentence so when people say oh people are being pressured by the threat of being held on remand the ca you know I mean politicians aren't supposed to tell judges what to do but the you know they can drop hints I mean the judges could turn around and said no we're just sentencing straight away it's your problem to fund the prison service say that actually um all of that explanation there runs contrary to the common belief that people are being pressured into pleading guilty else they'll be remanded into custody for a year or whatever because if there isn't the space and the the courts are genuinely trying to put people off coming into court if they know that there's a likelihood they'll be sentenced to a custodial term then that runs counter to that argument anyway and again as you say with um when you read the sentence of remarks which is why I always say if I if I see a headline that you know out of Interest or for whatever reason I do read then I'll read the article and then I think well there is more to this and then so sometimes I'll go away and actually read the Judgment or whatever it is and then you get so much more detail and so there's there been countless stories over the last year or two that have been so sparely reported and so much detail left out that when you actually read these judgments which are invariably 30 40 50 pages long you get all of the detail of usually exactly what happened which you'll never get an understanding of so I mean as an example that Springs to mind without using YouTube triggery algorithm words but um when people are accused of doing something to somebody else but it transpires actually it wasn't without their permission or consent or whatever actually they were in a relationship for several years and that you know they just thought it was okay because they were in a relationship but the way it's reported as you can probably guess is is quite the reverse it makes it sound sort of dark and and really aggressive whereas when you actually read the case it was nothing of the sort doesn't make it right because we have laws against certain things for a very good reason but when you read the facts of it it's not how it's portrayed and I've been guilty of of reading a headline before now and thinking well that's really bad but then I always I have to stop myself and think well you know take my own guidance and go actually go away read it if I'm upset about it because it will explain it to you well as we've said you know I I've said because you know I've worked in the media and I I'll do this you know I'll ask people to do this themselves think of occasions where you have had firsthand knowledge of a story that ends up in the Press how accurately was it reported and I think most people say well actually yeah um it wasn't quite you know I know what actually happened and what was in the Press wasn't quite right well do you think they're getting every other story right you know that is the you know that is the filter you have to apply is you know don't get me wrong the Press do a you know we need the press to report on things but perhaps exercise some critical judgment and maybe check you know you know if you do want to know more about it then maybe you know do a little bit of research yourself because I I guarantee that if you have personal knowledge of a story that's in the Press you'll be saying well they got that wrong the other thing um to remember about all these sentences cuz I you know want to address the questions and like I say the two things are people are being pressurized by being threatened with loss of bail and like I say I've I've seen no reports from that and trust me you know you know Lefty lawyers would be kicking up a stink if that was actually happening and the other thing is they're saying oh well people are being told they'll get a non-custodial if they plead and then they're being stitched up we now officially have judicial indications of sentence that always used to be frowned upon officially never happened because we've got this idea that we don't engage in sorted things like plea bargaining and if people you know if people plead didn't do it they plead not guilty and they should only plead guilty if they did it now what you could always do was pop off and have a little word with the judge in his room or her room and say look judge you know hypothetically if my chap was to plead what would they be looking at and you would actually get off the cuff indications now that has been formalized and you can actually request and say I would like an indication now the judge can say well I need to hear I can't give you one now because I need to hear more about the facts of the case but more often than not they will say right well let's just say that if this were a contested trial and your client was to be convicted because you know they eliminate the we're putting pressure on people if this was to be a contested trial and it was pleaded and based on the facts that I know unless there was any you know particular mitigation or aggravation I think the sent to would be X and then you can do the calculation yourself and go well you know if they plead they get the third off discount and I've got a little bit of mitigation here so people can actually the the people who are pleading to these will have had a very good idea as to what they were looking at their lawyers will have said you are likely to get 32 months or 28 months or whatever because first of all the sentencing guidelines as I've mentioned before my judge friend who called it sentencing by flipping spreadsheet he didn't actually say flipping obviously and there is a lot of Truth to that you know judges have a lot less discretion now than they might have done in the old days but you know that that is deliberate the idea is it should be consistent you know it doesn't matter whether you're sentenced at one end of the country or the other or by a soft judge or a grumpy judge you should be looking at about the same sentence and I have to say I haven't seen any sentences that depart radically from the sentencing guidelines and if they do there are two options if the S people think the sentence is High um the test is Manifest manifestly excessive you can Appeal on that now you know like that manifestly does a lot of heavy lifting the mere fact that the sentence is a bit higher than you know other judges might have done won't get you an appeal and and don't forget you can appeal against sentence even if you've pleaded guilty you can say I pleaded guilty here's the sentence I got I think it's manifestly excessive and you can you can appe that also if the sentence is quot unduly lenient it can go the other way the Attorney General is allowed to appeal the sentence but again the test is unduly lenient not just it's a bit lenient or other judges might have sentenced higher it has to be so in both cases to appeal the sentence has to be extremely wrong not just slightly outside the guidelines and the attorney general you know they don't run these cases lightly I mean I remember a previous attorney general bringing attorney general's reference that was purely for political reasons because the judge had got it absolutely spot on and the court of appeal were very dismissive um o of that you know they dropped big hints that H don't you know this is a procedure that you do as your role as the Minister of Justice not just to make headlines and look like you're trying to do something we an example here Al We've Got U and this is under the violent disorder not the not just not not riots but this is just violent Disorder so if we take here um and just for for those that are not familiar from my previous videos as broadly and this is not true for every single offense but for most offenses you've got culpability and harm how involved were you and how responsible were you for what happened and then what harm did it cause to anyone or anything else and so these categories so you'll get you know a category 1 a or you know 2B whatever uh and then you come down here and this is what Al's talking about with the the spreadsheet from the comment from the judge and it falls in here somewhere where the judge decides where it starts and then you come to all the mitigating factors or aggravating factors what made it worse what made it sort you know what goes in favor of the defendant exact Etc and then it goes up or down based on all of that very broadly so let's take an example let's say we've got someone who's involved in these riots and they let's say they were just um throwing something but didn't actually cause serious harm or whatever they were just throwing something but then a lot of these are going to fall right in the middle because it isn't just the threat of violence they're actually doing something and yet it isn't as serious as using one of these things up here which I won't um Say on YouTube but a lot of these are going to fall right in the middle so they participated in an event involving serious Acts or widespread or large scale which of course all of this was so a lot of them we going to fall right in the middle here and then when we go down to you know the the categories uh multiple or extreme factors that appear in Category 2 or at the bottom end um only threats and lower level so nothing nothing really to speak of other than the threats of the violence or low level so again a lot of them are going to fall in the middle here so it's going to you know result in serious physical injury or serious disruption Etc and all these sort of things um and then so then when you come down to here you'll see that they're actually quite harsh these sentences Because by the nature of the offense it's a serious offense and it's to be looked at seriously it's to be dealt with seriously so this has been around for a long time it's not like they've just suddenly decided these um offenders are going to prison for years out of the blue at the drop of a hat this has been around for a long time so when people are saying that the judges are you know quote unquote siding with the government and sentencing harshly because they're doing the government's bidding Etc that's not really true because all the judges are doing is sentencing for those that have either pleaded guilty or eventually will be found guilty of what they've been accused of and sentencing according to the guidelines and so these guidelines you can see even if we go right to the bottom at a category 3 C uh the range still up to a year in prison and so all of the rest you are looking at serious custodial terms so that's why people are being sentenced quite harshly it's not because judges suddenly decided to be really harsh it's because they are genuinely those are the sentences and then when you when when you look at Riot as well the maximum goes up to 10 years and then when we come down to here um there's two categories It's A and B and one and two and so you know write down at the bottom end you're looking at 3 to six years so these are very serious things yeah I mean people say you know when people are saying these people are being overcharged I think there's actually a lot of undercharging because there's a lot of cases here where people could have been ACC you know charged with riots and they've offered them violent disorder um I mean that that is sometimes something that happens where uh you know on the indictment they will put you know this you know Riot or alternatively violent disorder and it's like well if you plead to one we'll drop the other I mean that that that does happen the the CPS are discouraged from doing that though because they recognize might be a pressure and this is very common in American cases where they will absolutely ridiculously Overlord an indictment with like a million different offenses on it and then you know they have an official plea bargaining system which we don't have over here it is considered to be very very bad form to Overlord an indictment and to put on and judges will actually criticize people of this they will actually say why have you put that on as an alternative offense because on the evidence it's either the more serious offense or they're innocent you know there's no halfway house here and judges will say you know take that off the indictment I'm not having that but I think actually that there has been a bit of undercharging because a lot of these probably could have been charged as Riot and have been charged as violent disorder or AF Fray and similarly with that judge's comments came in isn't it when the judge was saying you know a lot of these things should have been charged as Riot because there's there's a reluctance it seems to label things as a riot but you only need 12 people I mean 12 is a lot of people to be involved in something but you only need 12 people and when you've got a crowd of 30 40 50 people it's quite clearly a riot oh it's like with that counselor the counselor who you know suggested that people take certain action and he has been charged with I mean like said we don't call it incitement anymore it's a serious Crimes Act 2007 but effect he's been charged inciting violent disorder now on those facts he was actually inciting something more seriously now I'm not saying whether he actually did incite or not and he's got all his article 10 stuff and there'll be lots of defenses as to whether it was a a real threat of imminent harm and whether it was real incitement etc etc but on that K you know on the facts as the crown seem to be alleging them then that's not what he was suggesting well yes it would amount to Violent disorder but it would also amount to a more serious offense if proven so again I think exact yeah if if purely based on the video and if if everything that was alleged from that video were true it's much more serious than that yeah I mean like I said you know we you know Justice must take its course and he must be presumed to be innocent and you know there's lots he can probably say about that and you know there will be arguments and it'll be interesting to see how the court deals with this but yeah I mean you know it's interesting that you know people are saying that you know they're really throwing the book and they you know exercising the full force of the law I'm not convinced that's actually right I think they're offering people some very sweet deals here and also there will be this you know one eye on the fact that the prisoner estate just cannot cope it can't cope with the numbers we've got already and it certainly can't cope with another thousand people suddenly you know being dropped into the system yeah so so there we are I think that's a nice rounded discussion there and so hopefully if you've stuck with us through through all that well done first of all but hopefully if you if you have you can probably understand now that it is very much more nuanced there's a lot more to it there's a lot more explanation to it and so if you've heard all that and then think are these people really being pressured into pleading guilty probably not because they're probably advised properly that what they did amounted to these offenses uh and as I say I still don't understand why I I I understand the frustration I understand what they're frustrated about and that the conversation needs to happen but but I don't understand how um it could be understood that all of these actions can can assist any of that I I don't get that but you know there's a lot of things I get frustrated about I don't go around smashing things up and I would like to think that the vast majority of people would would agree that that's just not a good way of doing things but hopefully if you've if you've heard all of that um I I think that's a nice rounded discussion with some real experien there we thank um Al for your experience here uh do make sure you go and check out art of Law and it will be linked in the description below um let's get l through 30,000 you're well on your way to 100,000 now Al yeah well as you know I mean I just enjoy doing the videos don't get me wrong I am exceptionally grateful when people do subscribe I really appreciate it like I said people have been doing memberships now which is look you know I just enjoy walking and rambling so I do this anyway so you know you're under no obligation you have to sit through the adverts that's enough as far as I'm concerned but I do very much appreciate when you do subscribe so thank you fantastic well have a great Sunday everybody if you're watching today and um thanks for watching make sure you subscribe and uh don't forget we're on secrets so make sure you subscribe here as well but um that's been great Al thanks for your time and uh let's do this again definitely thank you take care all