Swinging on the Cenotaph

Several (mostly female) commentators have expressed doubts about the 16-month prison sentence imposed on Charlie Gilmour, a Cambridge history student who is notorious for swinging from one of the flags on the Cenotaph in Whitehall, later saying that he didn't know what the Cenotaph was.

Oddly enough Gilmour wasn't actually charged for this action, but was on trial for various other acts of stupidity and destruction at a student demonstration. Was the sentence too harsh?

Well, first of all, I would imagine that Gilmour will serve nothing like 16 months. The most he could possibly serve will be eight months, since almost all prison sentences are frauds on the public. They are in general automatically halved as soon as they are passed. And given the overcrowding of the prisons, I would expect him to be out and tagged in a surprisingly short time. Watch out for news of this.

In plain legal terms, I think the sentence may be too long – simply because the Cenotaph desecration wasn't technically involved (though the maximum for his offence is five years) .

But did the court really ignore this incident? Could it?  Many people were affronted and distressed by his behaviour, and thought it particularly inexcusable in a history undergraduate at one of the world's greatest universities. They were (and I was) unimpressed by his claim that he didn't know what the great and famous monument was. The trouble with this claim is that it might possibly be true, even for a Cambridge history undergraduate. The study of history nowadays is sketchy and often quite deliberately directed away from narrative forms or from any national preoccupation. Even so, it must have been fairly easy to guess that the structure was important and serious, and that swinging on the national flag in a public place might not be a good plan.

And (again also in my case) some observers weren't terribly mollified by his admission that he had fried his brains with whisky, Valium and LSD, supposedly because he was upset about being snubbed by his natural father.  I'm sorry for his trouble, and his natural father doesn't sound very nice, but in the grown-up world, someone who takes mind-altering drugs is not less responsible for his bad actions under their influence, but more responsible. He decided to take them. He must have known they would unhinge him.

And there are in this world many people who have far greater griefs than this, who do not respond by swallowing rocket-fuel. As a plea in mitigation, it lacks power.

The judge may also have been influenced by Gilmour's behaviour in court. According to one account in an unpopular newspaper, Gilmour giggled as film footage was shown of him prancing and squalling about the place like a cut-price Robespierre. I have only seen this in one place, but if it is true, then I would expect the judge to have been unimpressed by it.

The most telling argument against his treatment is that he is the victim of some sort of Toff Tariff, under which he is punished harder because he comes from a more comfortable background. I am not sure I am against this. I think that public figures can expect to be hit harder if they land in the dock, especially if they are the sort who influence others. So why not also fortunate and favoured people who reject the laws and customs which protect them and their way of life?

And there is the old rule that from those to whom much is given, much is required. Speaking as a former teenage troublemaker, I think I would have deserved a pretty hard time if I had been in court for something like that. I would probably have got it, too. Some older readers may remember the Garden House Riots in Cambridge, in 1970, when a protest against the Greek Colonels got out of hand. Some of those convicted on that occasion got 18 months, and probably served a good deal more of than Gilmour will serve.

One commentator compared Gilmour's treatment to the suspended 15-week sentence given to the appalling Wendy Lewis, who relieved herself, while smoking, on Blackpool's majestic and august war memorial (one of the finest structures in that place). Deputy District Judge (don't you long for the days when we still had magistrates?)  Roger Lowe told her that he had spared her custody to 'allow her to get help for her drink and drug problems'.

Hmph.  Her problems look pretty self-inflicted to me. What other factors might influence this difference? Blackpool's memorial,  important as it is, is not the National Cenotaph. . And the pictures of Lewis committing her desecration are not such as can be shown on TV or reproduced here or in the newspapers, so although her behaviour is in fact worse, we are not as shocked and angry about it as we would otherwise be.   I am inclined to agree with Blackpool war veterans that she got off far too lightly, rather than that Gilmour was too heavily punished.

I would be much happier with Gilmour's sentence if he was going to spend it in an austere, disciplined prison run by the authorities, rather than in a modern British jail which will be none of those things and where he may well find himself being persecuted by other inmates because he has been on TV and is posh.

But in an age where we have ceased to believe in punishment ,and pretend instead to believe in the will o' the wisp of 'rehabilitation' ( and I would guess that the people complaining about Gilmour's sentence think I am barbaric for believing in punitive prisons) , that option is not open.  And can any serious judge really have such a person before him and not pass an exemplary sentence?

It's all very sad. But I cannot join the chorus of protest.