Judge defies Reid over jails crisis

A crown court judge has defied Home Secretary John Reid's plea to cut prison numbers, saying politicians should wake up to the fact prisoners were reoffending "because judges can no longer pass deterrent sentences".

Judge Richard Bray, sitting at Northampton Crown Court, spoke out over Mr Reid's advice, saying he would pass whatever sentences, including jail terms, he felt appropriate.

He said: "I am well aware that there is overcrowding in the prison and detention centres. That is not going to prevent me from passing proper sentences in each case.

"The reason our prisons are full to overcrowding, and have been for years, is because judges can no longer pass deterrent sentences."

He went on: "What message does it send to criminals when they are told in the dock they will only have to serve half the sentence the judge thinks appropriate? Until politicians wake up to this fact, criminals will continue to reoffend and the prison population will continue to rise ever higher."

Judge Bray, a constant critic of what he sees as government interference in the legal system, spoke out as he sentenced three young men for a drunken street fight in Northampton in January last year.

The court heard that the three men, Brodie Dickson, 18, Wayne Davidge-Denton, 20, and a 17-year-old, were involved in a fight outside a pub in the centre of Northampton late on January 24 last year, in which Mr Dickson's father, Neil, was kicked to the ground by the other two and suffered a broken ankle.

Jailing Davidge-Denton, of Pembroke Road, Northampton, and the teenager, Judge Bray said: "These offences clearly cross the custody threshold and there have to be custodial sentences in this case."

Davidge-Denton was given a 12 month sentence. The teenager received a 12 month detention and training order. The two defendants were captured on CCTV cameras fighting with Dickson and then beating his father when he tried to intervene.

Both were shown kicking Mr Dickson as he lay helpless on the floor. Dickson, who pleaded guilty to affray along with his two co-defendants, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service.