You Can't Coach That

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Back in March I wrote about the the sleeping drug Stilnox and stupid criminals. As a follow up I can report the following from my local area.

Two former New South Wales policeman were recently jailed for a violent armed robbery at a Queensland tavern after using the widely publicised Stilnox as a defence. You see both these gentlemen were apparently taking this medication at the time they commited the armed robbery. It is not clear from the reports I have read whether they have claimed that they were asleep at the time but I doubt it somehow. The reports also indicate that the judge hearing the case noted that one of the men was suffering from “financial strain” at the time and the other was suffering from a major depressive order and post traumatic stress syndrome.

Suffering financial strain!? How on earth can this be mentioned by a judge when discussing a case of armed robbery. One can only assume that he has taken this into account when sentencing the pair. Come on - we all suffer financial strain to varying degrees and most people don’t resort to armed robbery.

It was also noted that the offender suffering from mental illness also was a substance abuser and this led to his impaired judgment displayed through the robbery. While I have all the sympathy in the world for anyone suffering a mental illness it is diminished somewhat when that person then abuses illegal drugs. It evaporates completely when that person then commits an armed robbery to support this habit (my interpretation).

Finally, the judge was reported as saying that the armed robbery was a serious example of it’s type. Ok, so we could expect once convicted that these individuals would be sentenced to a significant jail term. How does 12 months sound? Both were sentenced to four year terms to be suspended after 10 months and 12 months.

I feel so much better knowing that we will have two more criminals on the streets in a year ready to again commit a violent crime.

“You can’t coach that”