Leo McKinstry's ignorance about 'equality under the law'

Leo McKinstry in his column in the Daily Express yesterday wrote to convey his disdain at what he perceives as ‘political correctness’ in the judicial system and its ability to dispense “Britain’s traditional concept of justice”, in response to the suspended sentenced handed down to a gang of Somali women who committed a drunken racist attack against a white woman.

McKinstry writes:
 
“Our ruling elite are so deluded by the ideology of cultural diversity that they have lost the ability to protect the innocent and punish the guilty.

“That is the only conclusion to be drawn from the outrageous leniency shown by a court this week towards a gang of Somalian Muslim women who savagely beat up a white woman in Leicster [sic] city centre. In a brutal, unprovoked assault, the thugs knocked Rhea Page to the ground, then repeatedly kicked in the head while calling her a “white bitch” and “white slag”.
 
 “Incredibly, despite the ferocity of the attack, the judge gave the girls only suspended sentences, even though he could have jailed them for up to five years.

“We can be pretty sure that if a Somalian Muslim girl had been kicked to the ground by a group of white brutes, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Police would have taken a tougher approach.”
 
“The case makes a mockery of the idea of equality before the law – one of the cornerstones of liberal democracy.”
 
His statement that had the race of the attacker and victim been reversed, the sentencing would have been harsher is highly dubious. Take, for example, the disproportionate effects of stop and search on ethnic minorities, or the harsh judgements handed down to young Muslims for public order offences committed during demonstrations against the Israeli offensive on Gaza in December 2009 – January 2010. Or to use examples more  directly related to the question of inversing ethnic identities and comparing the judges’ decisions – take the case of the four men who were given suspended sentences for their drunken attack on a mosque in Scunthorpe last month, or the community service sentence given to a young white teenager who committed a religiously aggravated attack on a Muslim police officer. Did any of these cases merit a column from McKinstry on the justice system and its upholding equality under the law? The answer is, of course, no.
 
The racism inherent in the judicial system– which traditionally is more likely to stop and search ethnic minorities, more likely to imprison them for certain crimes and more likely to hand out harsher sentences to people from certain ethnic backgrounds, is well documented and is reflected in Government statistics as well as studies which look at the judicial system’s record on race and ethnicity.
 
Moreover, all four women pleaded guilty to the charge of actual bodily harm, and it is not uncommon for a guilty plea to result in lenience in sentencing.
 
McKinstry continues,
 
“The reluctance to imprison Ms Page’s attackers is so indicative of the supine, guilt-ridden mindset of our modern ruling class, where cowardice is dressed up as cultural sensitivity and self-loathing masquerades as tolerance.
 
“The same is true of the hesitancy in tackling so-called “honour” attacks on women in Muslim communities.

“Only last week, it was revealed that the total of these appalling incidents, some of them fatal, is approaching 3,000 a year.”
 
As we pointed out in our coverage of the data to which McKinstry refers, honour attacks are not a Muslim issue something which police forces and groups working with female victims of ‘honour’ killings explicitly acknowledge. But such facts haven’t prevented certain outlets from misreporting the story to peddle anti-Muslim bigotry.
 
The article then states,
 
“In a similar vein, the police and social services have long been terrified of talking openly about the growing problem of Pakistani gangs preying on white girls in northern towns.”
 
He also states, “Somalian gangs, most of them peddling drugs, have helped to create a climate of fear in parts of our cities through their enthusiasm for violence and contempt for the law.

“As one Somalian youth from the notorious Woolwich Boys says, “We’ve come over here with one thing on our mind – money. We don’t care how we get it. The Government doesn’t stand a chance.””
 
Gang culture is something which cuts across all ethnic groups, by definition, and all gangs which partake in criminal activity possess contempt for the law. Again, far be it for the facts to stand in the way of McKinstry’s anti-Muslim diatribes.