Surely no civilised person could condone the barbaric sentence meted out to Ye Ming Yuen for drug offences in Singapore.
The former public schoolboy was given 20 years after being found guilty of selling a small amount of illegal drugs to his friends; an amount that probably would have got him 12 months in a British jail; an amount that suggests a young man had taken a wrong turn in life, but that his life was redeemable.
In Singapore, they take a different view. Yuen, 31, has been in the brutal Changi prison since February 2018 after being arrested for ‘repeat drug trafficking’ in the summer of 2016.
This week he was taken from his cell, tied to a medieval contraption and given 24 lashes with a rattan cane as part of his punishment.
There is no doubt he is a criminal and a bit of an idiot — Singapore’s draconian and brutal drug laws are no secret — but thank goodness nothing so barbarous happens in the justice system here.
Ye Ming Yuen (pictured) was given 20 years in prison after being found guilty of selling a small amount of illegal drugs to his friends in Singapore
Our problem is that we have gone too far the other way. This week, Hashem Abedi, convicted of helping his older brother build the suicide bomb that devastated the Manchester Arena in 2017, was sentenced at the Old Bailey for his part in the murder of 22 men, women and children.
He was jailed for a minimum of 55 years — but refused to come to court to hear his sentence and to face the tearful relatives of those he murdered. Abedi’s sentencing trial was their single opportunity to look him in the eye as they read out their victim impact statements.
But the cowardly brute denied them even this small comfort. The judge told the families of the victims that he was powerless to force Abedi, now 23, to leave his cell at the court to hear their testimony.
But why was the judge powerless? How can a terrorist with the blood of 22 innocents on his hands and found guilty by a jury now dictate what he will and will not do?
One wonders why the wretch wasn’t forcibly dragged from his cell and into the dock and made to face the families he had so terribly bereaved. Not so long ago, that is exactly what would have happened.
After all, this is no petty criminal. Abedi helped plan one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on British soil, yet he was allowed to skulk in his cell like a sulky teenager rather than face the victims’ families.
Amid the grief they have to live with for ever, it must be hard for them to understand why his human rights and mental health are deemed more important than theirs. His absence from court is not the kind of mannered social nicety (‘No, you just stay in there, son, if that is what you feel like doing’) that would be tolerated in Singapore. Or in most countries, come to think of it.
Yet prisoners in custody or on remand refusing to attend their own hearings is an increasing problem in British courts. In December, a serial rapist refused to attend his own trial, claiming that he was ‘sleep-deprived’.
This means that many victims who have long planned for their moment in court in front of the perpetrator of the crime are denied the closure they seek. Over the years, there have been misgivings about victim impact statements — I’ve had a few myself.
They are supposed to bring comfort to victims and bereaved families. But what comfort does anyone gain from this farrago if the killer refuses to listen? Victim impact statements are an idea copied from the U.S. and were introduced into our legal system by Harriet Harman when she was minister for constitutional affairs. The premise is laudable.
The statements are read out after the verdicts but before the sentencing, allowing the victim or their loved ones a say in court, making them feel included in the legal process.
Their words will not necessarily influence the tariff or sentence set by the judge, but it is important for many to feel that their grief and heartbreak have at least been officially noted; that their voice has been heard. It is a courtesy rather than a new layer of emotional justice.
But when it goes wrong — as it did this week — does it really help a family already in shreds? Yet we must draw the line at indulging murderers and rapists who are too cowardly to face their fate. I’m not saying get out the rattan canes, but a little rigour wouldn’t go amiss.
A frocky horror show for summer
The dress of the summer? Apparently it is this £370 strawberry-print confection by Kosovo designer Lirika Matoshi.
Fashioned from pink tulle, it is a knickerbocker glory of a gown that screams out to be accessorised with ankle socks, handcuffs and an arrest warrant.
Yet this frightmare of a dress has its own hashtag, is popular across three continents and has had devotees fighting among each other.
Plus-size model Tess Holliday has complained that she was on ‘worst dressed’ lists when she wore the £370 strawberry-print confection by Kosovo designer Lirika Matoshi
Plus-size model Tess Holliday has complained that she was on ‘worst dressed’ lists when she wore it, but when skinny people posed in the strawberry monstrosity on video app TikTok they were praised to the skies.
Tess has concluded that the world simply ‘hates fat people’, but I think they just hate the dress. No one looks good in it.
It is the kind of dress that makes every woman look utterly mad, as if she has escaped from a high-security facility and is on her way to settle a score with that boy in school who once gave her ‘a funny look’ in geography class.
Ladies, wear the dress if you must — but only if you want to look like a summer pudding.
Try it in French, I beg of you. Vendredi soir, les lumières sont tamisées. Gorgeous!
How about Italian? E’ venerdì sera e le luci sono basse. Divine.
It even sounds wild in German. Freitag nacht und es dämmert.
Although you perhaps know it best in English — altogether now! ‘Friday night and the lights are low…’
Yes, it is one of the opening lines of Dancing Queen, the mega hit from Abba which has just been voted the best ever song to dance to, beating Beyonce, Marvin Gaye and all other no-hopers in the process. Of course it has!
Those irresistible opening bars could get a corpse on a dance floor, never mind all the red-blooded boomers who love it still. Evacuate the dance floor, here we come.
Sandwich short of a picnic, Heston
Yum, yum, barf. Following the Greggs vegan sausage roll, plant-based burgers, sea bass ham, pea milk and fruit flours, save a space for Heston Blumenthal’s new English breakfast sandwich.
The snack (£3.80, available at Waitrose) features baked bean-flavoured bread, bacon, something ominous called ‘smoky crumbed sausage’, cannellini beans, sliced egg, coffee-flavoured mushroom ketchup and coldpressed mayonnaise. Cold pressed! There’s fancy.
It sounds horrific — and not just because only savages have baked beans in their Full English.
Heston Blumenthal’s new English breakfast sandwich (pictured) features baked bean-flavoured bread, bacon, something ominous called ‘smoky crumbed sausage’, cannellini beans, sliced egg, coffee-flavoured mushroom ketchup and coldpressed mayonnaise
It is also a bit, well, dull. UK diners don’t think twice about scoffing things like macaroni pie, boiled rhubarb, jellied eels, mushy peas, Scotch eggs, brown sauce, mustard, fish-finger sandwiches and even pork pies somehow impaled with hard-boiled eggs.
What was his inspiration for the wacky brekkie? ‘I realised the solution was in a sandwich,’ said Heston.
Just like a million mums who prepare lunch boxes every day
Tragic and quiet desperation behind Britain’s closed doors
Who among us is not haunted by the plight of the mother accused in court of suffocating her profoundly disabled son with a sponge? The Old Bailey heard this week that the burden of the 24-hour care needed for victim Dylan Freeman, ten, had fallen on the defendant, Olga Freeman, after she separated from her husband, celebrity photographer Dean Freeman.
Dylan was severely autistic and neighbours claimed his mother had been struggling to meet his care needs as he became older, bigger and more difficult to manage.
Six months ago, the court heard, his behaviour became especially challenging.
The lockdown may have made things worse, as Dylan was not able to attend his special school. We shouldn’t forget that lockdown has brought heartbreak and huge pressure to many families.
In the discomfort of their own homes, a great number of people are living lives of quiet desperation, cut off from their usual safety lines, adrift and feeling hopeless. The Freemans were divorced and it seems that the mother took on the bulk of Dylan’s care. His father was in Spain when he was told of the tragedy.
We cannot know what went on behind the doors of this blighted family’s home. Only that the boy’s body was found beside his toys after Olga Freeman walked into a police station. I hope the courts treat her with understanding.
No guarantees in this lockdown life
Thousands of holidaymakers rush home from France to avoid self-isolating for two weeks. Some travellers are trapped in Malta — but Portugal has just been given the all-clear, hurrah!
Meanwhile, fears grow for those Brits whose holiday plans are up the chute after the World Health Organisation warned the Balkans is a ‘hotspot’ for the coronavirus; and Croatia has just been put on the UK’s quarantine list. I have my sympathies.
Of course I do. Yet huge numbers of people took it upon themselves to book holidays and travel abroad in the middle of a pandemic. They knew the risks, they took a chance, perhaps they were even right to do so.
But if and when it all goes wrong, please don’t start whining about the inconvenience or the airport queues or the return to lockdown or the idiot government. Please. Accept the consequences of your actions. And think of those you may be putting at risk, too.
I don’t blame anyone for making a dash to the sun in this hellish year, but the only guarantee in this fastmoving situation is that there are no guarantees