Tuesday, January 20, 2009

This is what happens when the prison system becomes a joke!


I'm so furiously angry at this report from England that I can hardly see straight.


A Romanian immigrant brutally raped a young woman on a railway station so he could be sent to prison for a bed, food and English lessons at the same jail as his brother.

Ali Majlat, who has a string of convictions in his home country and the UK, punched, kicked and dragged his 21-year-old victim along the ground as she waited for a train home after seeing friends.

She briefly escaped his clutches but he caught up with her in an underpass at Wakefield Kirkgate station in West Yorkshire and subjected her to a sustained attack which was captured on CCTV.

He then stole her mobile phone, purse and a bracelet before fleeing. When he was caught five days later he admitted his guilt and claimed he did it so he would end up in jail.

‘When I was on the railway station I thought I should rape this lady in order to get a place to eat and sleep and learn the English language,’ he told a psychologist.

His bizarre explanation for the attack emerged at Leeds Crown Court on Monday when Majlat pleaded guilty to rape and robbery.

On hearing it, Judge Alistair McCallum was so surprised that he asked the defence barrister to repeat it to be sure he had heard correctly.

Hours before the attack Majlat had tried to visit his brother in Wakefield prison where he is serving a jail term for rape and attempted murder. However, he was turned away because he did not have the correct paperwork.

The 35-year-old later told police that he attacked the girl in the hope he would be sent to the same prison as his brother.

‘All he seems concerned about is being in the same jail as his brother,’ a police source said. ‘When he was told that he would be deported after his sentence, he seemed horrified.

‘He doesn’t want to go back to Romania. He just wants to stay in a British jail.’

Majlat, who is on remand in Leeds prison, entered the UK shortly after being released from a Romanian jail last June after serving time for theft and attempted robbery.

In September he was jailed for eight weeks by Horseferry Road magistrates in London for burglary. But he was not deported after being freed because he was not deemed ‘high risk’.

Convicts from the European Economic Area - members of the EU, plus Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland - can be removed only if they are highly likely to reoffend and if they present a ‘sufficiently serious threat’.

During the case, Judge McCallum demanded to know what procedures there were to stop criminals entering the country. EU citizens with a valid passport can travel to Britain without prior warning.

Even in cases where officials are aware of serious convictions, visitors cannot automatically be turned away.

After raping his victim at 8.30pm on October 12 last year, Majlat fled to London. But police were able to track him down to a homeless hostel because he was still using his victim’s mobile phone.

He was closely examined by doctors and psychologists, who insisted he was sane. During the court hearing, Judge McCallum said he was considering imposing a life sentence.

He asked the Crown Prosecution Service to investigate Majlat’s criminal history in Romania, particularly sexual offences, before he sentences him on April 6.


British jails (and jail sentences) have long been a joke. It's a very unusual convict who serves more than half to three-fifths of his sentence, and even then, much of it will be in a so-called 'open' prison, where he's allowed visits (sometimes unsupervised) to family, shopping expeditions, etc. The concept of actual hard-time 'punishment' is no longer applied in almost all prisons there.

I guess the British are entitled to elect a government that will countenance such folly . . . but when it gets so bad that a scumbag like this deliberately rapes a young girl, probably ruining the rest of her life, just so that he can get free room and board, and English lessons, in jail, there couldn't possibly be clearer evidence that the prison system is broken beyond repair.

I suggest bringing back rock-breaking, the treadmill and the prison hulks. For inmates like Ali Majlat, they're long overdue.

Peter

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hanging would be a better way to deal with scumbags like that. We ought do it in this country, too.

Anonymous said...

This happens all over Europe I'm sure.
In Sweden, it's not that uncommon that people from Eastern Europe travel here and go on crime sprees, sending home as much money as they can before they get caught, and then enjoy a prison term in living conditions that's a lot better than where they lived back home.

Some years back we even had people hijack planes and get them to fly to Sweden so they could go to jail here.

The only way to stop it is to give people the right, and allow them the means, to defend themselfes. These people know they can do anything they want with very little risk to themselfes, except a few years in a hotel style prison.

Anonymous said...

Peter, I agree with you - and I would take things further. Bring back hanging and public flogging, and let us not be so squeamish about deporting criminals.

The hand-wringers will no doubt point to the undoubted number of miscarriages of justice over the years. I point out that the standard of evidence has risen dramatically over the years, and that forensics can prove innocence as well as guilt.

I would be happy to live with such a legal system, and as someone not given to committing serious crime, I would be willing to take my chances with a much stricter justice system. Caveat : In my ideal world, such penalties would apply to what most people regard as 'real crime', not the thought-crime so beloved of British socialists....

Anonymous said...

What happened to the England that would hang him in the Tower of London, and then have the RAF drop his fresh corpse on that nice crescent-shaped area in front of the People's House in Bucharest, with a note attached by a stake through his heart reading, "No thanks!"?

Jim

Anonymous said...

Has anyone stopped to realize the cost of keeping killers and rapists in jail is part of the reason we are in a recession. If illegals commit crimes in the US we should ship them back to their own country, wherever that may be. When a US citizen repeats crimes for rape, murder and those which ruin cause death to innocents they should be given ONLY one chance to change their ways or when returned to prison they receive the death penalty, no long expensive trial just a law that says death if you rape, murder and return to jail a second time. We provide food, lodging and education to these criminals and it is costly. Stop standing up for them and stand up for the decent people who have no rights anymore. Things will change if the laws don't, and people will be desperate enough to protect themselves. Focus on eliminating the killers and murderers not trying to help them when they do not want to be helped. They don't take us seriously when they are allowed to return over and over to jail after commiting the same crime. Help American take control.