When did it become possible for UK citizens to be jailed for significant lengths of time not for what they have done, but for what they might do? I find it troubling that Brusthom Ziamani can be imprisoned for 22 years for apparently intending to go ahead with a planned crime (Teenager jailed for 22 years for plot to behead a soldier, 21 March). I have absolutely no sympathy for the systems of thought and reasoning that publicise, glamorise and encourage the type of violence that Ziamani is alleged to have planned, but are we not at a point where we are now imprisoning citizens not for what they do, but for what they think, say and write? Commander Richard Walton of the Metropolitan police is quoted as saying, following the sentence, that the work of officers aided by MI5 had “probably prevented a horrific terrorist attack taking place on the streets of London”.
Are we now jailing citizens on probability? Other probabilities spring to mind. Might he not have changed his mind? Been bragging to his associates and girlfriend? Been dissuaded when confronted with the reality of an attack, rather than the imagining of it? These seem to me to be at least some other plausible probabilities. Are there any members of the legal profession troubled by this sentence and its implications? Any MPs? Where does this sit in the development of the law in the UK?
Chris Roome
Staplehurst, Kent
