A fortnight ago I posted a blog about the case of soldier Sgt Nightingale, who was sentenced to 18 months military detention for illegal possession of a pistol which he had presented to him as a war trophy by Afghan soldiers while he was serving in Afghanistan.
Last Thursday his appeal against this sentence was heard by the Court of Appeal. I was delighted to learn that the appeal was successful; Sgt Nightingale was given a suspended sentence instead and so was released immediately.
I would be bound to agree that this is a fair and proportionate result since a suspended sentence is precisely what I observed was the appropriate penalty in my previous blog. Perhaps what is more interesting is just how widely this outcome was welcomed by the media and the general public.
Sgt Nightingale is fortunate that his family had the wherewithal to generate and drive a campaign of public support for his cause. There are however many others who have fallen prey to Britain’s harsh firearms laws, often with no malicious act or intent, and quite inadvertently, yet whose cases have gone largely unnoticed by the media or general public.
Whilst the furore of media attention over Sgt Nightingale’s case won’t help those who have gone before him, hopefully it might have served to highlight the dangers of adopting such a simplistic and draconian approach as successive UK governments have chosen to do with the law on firearms.
There is indeed something deeply and inherently unjust about combining mandatory minimum sentences with strict liability offences that require no criminal intent, or even knowledge that the act or omission is an offence. In my view, the court that has heard all the facts of the particular case should surely have complete discretion to determine the appropriate sentence in all the circumstances.
In the current economic climate, where many other things have far greater political priority, a root and branch review of the country’s firearms laws is almost certainly too much to hope for. But perhaps, there is room for a little optimism that this cause célèbre might at least lead to a gear shift in approach on the part of those involved in the administration of justice, and particularly the prosecuting authorities, who can be somewhat overzealous when it comes to any offence concerning firearms.
The tendency has been to adopt a very hard line, zero tolerance policy in all such cases, quite possibly on the assumption this would be universally supported by those in Government, the media and the general public. The case of Sgt Nightingale has demonstrated that the application of some discretion and sense of proportion in dealing with firearms offences, much as in other areas of criminal law, would in fact be widely welcomed.
