EQUALITY - 18 MONTHS PRISON FOR A MAN, 3 MONTHS SUSPENDED FOR A WOMAN !

We are regularly told that women must be treated the same as men in every aspect of life; equality is the watchword and, consequently, there are frequent complaints that there are too few female chief executives, Members of Parliament or whatever. A week or so ago, we had an example of the utter hypocrisy of this type of nonsense.

A woman appeared in court before a female judge, Sarah Buckingham, on charges relating to drinking and driving. The accused had a history of drink-drive offences and, on this latest occasion, had caused a serious accident in which her car are careened down an embankment and caught fire, after colliding with 2 others. In court, she admitted that she had consumed a bottle of wine and been unfit to drive. What did the eminent judge do ?

Well, Her Honour Judge Buckingham told the offender that if she were a man, she would be sent to prison for 18 months but, as she was a woman, this wasn't appropriate. Instead, the judge gave her a 3 months suspended sentence, noting that she was clearly an alcoholic and needed time to get her life in order. 

How is this justice ? The woman had committed a serious offence which required a prison sentence and yet the judge made it clear that, in her court, men and women would be treated differently. An offence committed by a man would seen as being far more heinous than one committed by a woman. Where is the equality in this ?

It is quite obvious that women are not the same as men and that they have, in general, different attitudes, approaches and desires to men, but when it comes to treatment under the law what grounds can there be for treating a woman differently from a man ? If there should be equal numbers of women MPs, chief executives, police officers, doctors, lawyers and so on, then women should also be subject to equal treatment under the law; this offender should have received exactly the same sentence as the judge said she would have handed down to a man - 18 months in prison.

By not applying equal treatment, Judge Buckingham has made a mockery of the law, done a serious disservice to the drive for equality and, one can only hope, destroyed her own prospects of serving on the bench for much longer.