Too Privileged
“I don’t think he’d last very long” in jail, said Magistrate Jack Vandersteen of Liam Sweeney, 27, who had pleaded guilty to smashing Richard Huiswaard in the face with a wine glass and punching him at a birthday party. According to prosecutors, Huiswaard had ignored Sweeney’s offer of a handshake hours earlier. Huiswaard got a scar on his forehead, and the injury cost him three weeks of work. But Sweeney, who had gone to a prestigious school and had a well-known lawyer for a father, got Vandersteen for his judge at Melbourne, Vic., Australia, magistrates’ court. And Vandersteen, after talking to Sweeney’s lawyer about how upset the criminal’s parents were, how hard it would now be for him to become a lawyer, and how few people with Sweeney’s “privileged background” are in jail, decided to spare him jail time and instead gave him a suspended sentence. (AC/Melbourne Herald Sun) ...That’s more privilege than anyone should have.Original Publication Date: 11 August 2013
This story is in True’s book collections, in Volume 20.
This story is in True’s book collections, in Volume 20.
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