Always win when you’re singing

 Yesterday Ian Oakley was warned by the Chair of Magistrates of the seriousness of the offences that he had committed. Mr Barry Northrop said that the offences were so serious that ‘custody is an option’.

These remarks drew gasps from several people in the public gallery. I can only assume that these people were not active readers of the Watford Observer.

Less than two months ago, Mr Oakley made a bid to be at the centre of the crimefighting agenda. In an article entitled ‘Soft sentences give wrong message’ he gave a series of quotes after two local youths had been given a suspended sentence and community order respectively for carrying (but not using) a knife. Oakley said:

This sends out completely the wrong message about knife crime at the moment. Everyone is saying that we have got to get knives off the street, but you can still be found with a knife and get a community order or a suspended sentence. That is the problem with the rhetoric of politicians. They say they want to get tough on knife crime and yet you can be caught carrying a knife and not go to prison.

Mr Oakley admitted in court to carrying a Stanley knife, which he used to slash the car tyres of LibDem councillors and activists. His quote in the paper continued:

They did not show the knife but they were found with knives and it is worrying. If you do not nip it in the bud it could lead to other things.

Yes! Just look what it can lead to:- abusive letters, silent midnight phone calls, daubing of homes with offensive words, letters to neighbours, falsely accusing councillors of being child sex offenders, convicted fraudsters and wife beaters …

Oakley finished with:

If the police and courts cannot protect youths by getting these people off the streets then they will start thinking ‘I have to protect myself’.

Now whilst I don’t think many of the LibDem team would describe themselves as ‘youths’, isn’t it a good thing that the police eventually caught the perpetrator. I assume he’ll be asking to be ‘off the streets’ for a considerable period?