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Judge Michael Stokes soft on 'another' sex offender!


Judge Michael Stokes, named and shamed in The Sun newspaper last May in a
national campaign to expose the unacceptable weakness of the judiciary.

Following his outing in May 2006, it is perfectly clear that Judge Michael Stokes QC has learned nothing about the public contempt for his hairbrained lenient sentencing of sex attackers and child abusers. The arrogant old clown has been at it again, this time at Nottingham Crown Court.

In the latest farce in the ongoing saga of out-of-touch judges, a detention officer at a police custody suite in Nottingham who was found guilty of sexually assaulting three women, was released after spending just five weeks in custody.

Police reject, Rodney McLeod, 35, was ordered to do 180 hours unpaid work for the community as part of a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. He will also be subject to supervision for 12 months and will be on the sex offenders' register for five years.

Judge Stokes told him: "You were in a position of trust and undoubtedly took advantage of that position. "It is plain to me the women found it a distressing experience." But the Recorder of Nottingham, Judge Michael Stokes, accepted that the five weeks which McLeod had spent in custody awaiting sentence had been particularly difficult given his position.

He had been the subject of stabbing threats and had been housed on the vulnerable prisoners wing, the court was told. McLeod, of Holmewood Crescent, Bestwood Estate, Nottingham, was convicted by a jury in June of assaulting the three women. He forced a kiss on the first one when she plainly did not want it, said the judge.

He touched the second woman inappropriately in two places and touched a third woman in a lift and also in a corridor. McLeod was a married man of previous good character and had an ambition for many years of becoming a police officer, said his barrister, Gulam Ahmed.


Judge Stokes' brother judge Andrew Hamilton has shown no such weakness
on child abusers so why does Stokes treat them so leniently...?

Convicted McLeod had tried three times without success to join the police, which is all the more surprising given the fact that a 12-year-old could pass the simplistic police entrance examination. Judge Stokes 'accepted' that McLeod still denied the offences. Judge Stokes said apart from the offences, McLeod was in every other respect a perfectly decent man with a wife who cared for him and a large number of friends in the community, who had only seen the positive side of his character.

In a campaign by national newspapers last May exposing the weakness and ridiculous sentencing of sex offenders, Judge Stokes was named and shamed but has again shown contempt for the public he is paid extremely well to serve.

Just months ago, Judge Stokes showed that he had no problem at all sentencing illegal immigrant Trevon Thomas to 30 years in prison for the shooting of brave Notts Police Officer, Rachael Bown. And yet Judge Stokes clearly has a fundamental problem handing down appropriate sentences to child abusers and sex offenders.

Judge Stokes should perhaps spend less time enjoying himself with his colleagues (see above) and spend more time revising his appalling record on sex crimes and crimes against children. Judge Stokes was appointed senior circuit judge and resident judge of Nottingham Crown Court on 24 April 2006 by the former Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer, the right-hand man of disgraced former Prime Minister, and former barrister Tony Blair.

The independence of the Judiciary is again in question and needs to be reviewed by a responsible Parliament but that is the one thing the three-party State gang can never furnish the people of Britain with. For decades now Parliament has been completely out-of-touch with the masses, a fact repeated time and again by the equally out-of-touch judiciary. But the time has come for significant change!

Only by organising politically against the judiciary can we end their independence from Parliament and proper democratic oversight and control. Judges in the British crimional and civil courts are quite simply out-of-control and must be reigned in and become accountable to Parliament and the people.

'Lenient' sentence for paedophile who raped 10-year-old girl

Under fire: Judge Julian Hall said
he faced a 'moral dilemma'

Keith Fenn, 24, was given concurrent two-year and 18-month jail sentences at Oxford Crown Court by Judge Julian Hall for two attacks on a 10-year-old girl in a park. But because of the amount of time Fenn has already spent in prison awaiting sentence, Fenn could be free in a few months time. The sentence was condemned by one MP as "pathetically lenient".

The Attorney General Lord Goldsmith acted after Tory backbencher Mike Penning wrote to him protesting about Fenn's treatment. A spokesman for Lord Goldsmith said: "He has asked for the papers from the CPS so he can consider whether or not to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient."

But the real villain of the peace is Judge Julian Hall, at the centre of a storm over the "pathetically" lenient sentence he imposed after hearing that the girl had appeared much older than her age. He said Fenn's young victim had "dressed provocatively" – a statement which sparked public condemnation. Fenn could have been jailed for life after twice attacking the girl in a riverside park but Judge Hall took pity on him after hearing that the girl had appeared much older than her age.

The same judge caused uproar earlier this year by setting free another paedophile and telling him to give his victim money "to buy a nice new bicycle". What on earth a bicycle would do to alleviate the victim’s mental anguish is quite beyond reason and the judge’s own state of mind should be examined.

In this latest case, Oxford Crown Court heard chilling details of the assault on the ten-year-old girl. She was attacked in a park in Henley-on-Thames, South Oxfordshire, by Fenn and his accomplice Darren Wright, 34, on October 14 last year.

Fenn removed all her clothes and raped her, then Wright took her to his home in Mount View, Henley-on-Thames, and sexually assaulted her. Yet Judge Hall - who referred to the girl as a "young woman" - said the case was exceptional because she had been wearing a frilly bra and thong. Judge Hall needs to be reminded, after he is sacked, that 10-year-old girls are children not young women!

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons has been in local authority care since the age of four, and was on her own when she met the pair in the street. They enticed the girl to the park where she endured most of her horrific ordeal.

Sentencing, the judge said he faced a ‘moral’ dilemma, he said: "Here is a very ‘young woman’ of ten who is taken to the park and within three-quarters of an hour of meeting a 24-year-old man, they have sex together. That is not a good idea. It is an absolute crime because she was only ten. In my experience this has been the most difficult sentencing exercise I have ever had to decide on."

The court heard that the young girl regularly wore make-up, strappy tops and jeans but the judge decided she looked far older. He said: "It is quite clear she is a very disturbed child and a very needy child and she is a sexually precocious child. She liked to dress provocatively. Did she look like she was ten? Certainly not. She looked 16, that was a matter that was accepted."

He gave Fenn concurrent two-year and 18-month sentences but he will be free in just weeks after spending eight months in jail awaiting sentence. And unemployed Wright is a free man already because the same judge gave him a nine-month jail term for inciting the girl to engage in a sex act. He too had served eight months on remand.

Dr Michele Elliott of Kidscape, said: "This sentencing is beyond pathetic, it is utterly derisory. For the judge to say that the way she was dressed in any way excuses a 24-year-old man having sex with her is disgraceful and ridiculous. This judge clearly is not aware of the damage done to kids. He feels that children can contribute to their own abuse in some way."

The NSPCC added: "There's no excuse for having sex with a ten-year-old, no matter how she dresses." And in February this year, Judge Hall caused uproar when he suggested to Eric Cole - who admitting putting his hands down the trousers of a girl aged just six - that he buy his victim a new bicycle to cheer her up.

He described the convicted paedophile's actions as "quite mild" and gave him a nine-month suspended sentence. Judge Hall’s ludicrous sentencing sets a dangerous example to would-be sex offenders who see such leniency as an invitation to commit their heinous crimes, mindful of the knowledge that the judiciary will treat them with kid gloves.

This comes on the back of a national furore last May, when over a dozen judges were named and shamed in the press for handing down lenient sentences to paedophiles and child abusers. In the year since it is clear that the arrogant and out-of-touch judiciary have not listened. The views of so-called ordinary people are irrelevant to the overpaid judiciary.

If you have been on the receiving end of injustice in Britain’s laughable ‘Criminal Justice System’, we want to hear from you and we will do whatever we can to cover your story.

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