Nothing short of outrageous

I wrote the following letter to the Gibraltar Chronicle after they published a story that a man who was caught in Gibraltar distributing thousands of the most extreme images of child pronography was sentenced to only 18 months in prison, due to a “glaring gap in Gibraltar law” (!) :

Dear Sir,

NOTHING SHORT OF OUTRAGEOUS

It is nothing short of outrageous that in a society like ours a man convicted of a gross crime against the weakest of all should be sentenced to only 18 months in prison.

I am not well read in the intricacies of law, but common sense surely dictates that aiding and abetting a crime must carry the same degree of guilt as the crime itself. So for example, if I purchase and supply the gun that is subsequently used to commit murder, I must be as guilty as the person who pressed the trigger.

Most readers will agree that this man has been an accomplice to the kidnapping, prostitution, physical and sexual abuse of minors, and the human trafficking otherwise known as the sex slave trade. He must be as guilty as the perpetrators of these crimes. For this catalogue of offences, Mr. Klinkiewicz will spend 18 months behind bars.

In sentencing, Mr. Justice Dudley said that “unfortunately” it was not an offence to process these images in Gibraltar. I would not call this unfortunate, I would call it scandalous. That our judges do not already have the tools in place to deal decisively with these heinous crimes constitutes negligence at best. At worst it sends a signal that we are soft on a perversion of the darkest genre, and we send out an open invitation for the breeding, cultivation and perpetuation of this deviant exploitation of minors. Somebody, it seems, has been asleep at the switch. The legislation in question must be fast-tracked into law now.

I also propose, that after this man has enjoyed the comfort of Her Majesty’s hospitality for 18 months Government buy him a one-way ticket to a dubious destination far away from our shores.

Yours faithfully,

John K. Baw.

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