Monday 1 September 2008

Hounding Chindamo.

On Saturday the Sun was quivering with outrage at the thought that Learco Chindamo, the teenager convicted at 15 of murdering headteacher Philip Lawrence, had been released from prison and provided with a new identity:

"He has been moved to a secret address away from London where he grew up — and where his mother, stepfather and brothers lived during his 12 years inside.

He has also been given a living allowance and a car, and has been provided with 24-hour police protection via a panic button."

That perhaps Chindamo might not have needed such protection had the tabloids not whipped up such hate towards him after he won his battle not to be deported back to Italy, a ruling which they incidentally initially (and still are, as both article and leader claim he was not deported due to his right to a family life, when it was in fact a result of a 2006 EU immigration directive) misreported as being a result of the Human Rights Act, is of course not worth mentioning.

The Sun's editorial was even more forthright:

"FANCY a free car? How about somewhere new to live? And while we are at it, a living allowance courtesy of the taxpayer?

All you need to do in Broken Britain is murder a headmaster as he tries to protect one of his pupils.

It is reckoned that it will cost us all MILLIONS to make sure that scumbag Learco Chindamo can live free from any worries that his crime will come back to haunt him.

...

No-one wants vigilante “justice”. But it’s a pity our laws were unable to protect the family life of Mr Lawrence, his widow Frances and their four children."

Tonight the Sun reports the following:

"THE killer of headmaster Philip Lawrence is back behind bars after being let out of prison for a week, it was revealed yesterday.

Learco Chindamo, 27 — who was jailed for life for the murder in Maida Vale, North West London, in 1995 — was given seven days’ home leave to help him to prepare for his eventual release."

Does this mean that the Sun's story was completely and utterly wrong, or does it mean that Chindamo was moved back to prison because the Sun had broke the story, or is it that the story was right but that he was only on seven days' leave? I don't know; my sources are obviously not on the level of the Sun's which confidently informed the newspaper that he had been released with such "perks". What is known is that Chindamo ought to be a model for prison rehabilitation, which is so often an oxymoron. Instead the same newspapers which allow comments calling for Chindamo to be hounded to his own death and which fall far short of condemning vigilantism complain that public money will spent on his protection. That my friends is the most disgusting hypocrisy.

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