John Hunt and his daughter Amy have had the rest of their family stolen.
John’s wife Carol and daughters Louise and Hannah were murdered in a crime of horrific brutality. Louise’s ex-boyfriend Kyle Clifford raped and shot her with a crossbow. He had already stabbed Carol to death and then shot Hannah when she returned home.
But this week John and Amy had something else stolen: their final opportunity to tell Clifford of the agonising consequences of his actions. And the message they wish him to take to his grave and beyond.
“The screams of hell, Kyle. I can hear them faintly now,” John said in his victim impact statement read to the court. “They’re going to roll the red carpet out for you. At that point, when the person you could have been meets the person you are, you will realise your miserable fate will last for eternity.”
What incredible words from John, a BBC racing correspondent, which could not have failed to permeate the self-pitying shield Clifford has built around himself. If only he had been forced to hear them.
But Clifford was just the latest case in a happy trend for killers and rapists – of refusing to enter the dock for sentencing and to hear testimony from their victims’ loved ones about the consequences of their actions.
Lucy Letby failed to do so, as did Thomas Cashman, the killer of little Olivia Pratt-Korbel, and Jordan McSweeney who murdered student Zara Aleena. There are many, many more, both for equally serious and for less serious crimes.
John Hunt told the Cambridge Crown Court: “I so wished to deliver these words eye to eye, Kyle.” For surely he must have felt it was his final duty to his dead wife and daughters to tell Clifford what damage he had done – and the failings in his character which caused it.
Clifford should have been dragged by his bleeding fingernails into that court. He should have been tipped out of his wheelchair and hauled there. He should have been shackled to the biggest, hardest prison guard in HMP Belmarsh and escorted in terror to that dock, then made to endure every piercing shard of truth John Hunt spoke.
For we cannot permit a “take it or leave it” justice system. The reason no-shows for sentencing have become a trend is because criminals have seen others taking the easy option not to appear – so they don’t bother either.
Such behaviour is all too frequently dismissed as ”cowardly”. Of course it’s cowardly, but do you seriously think such a slight bothers a multiple killer? He had already tried to dodge accountability for his actions by shooting himself with a crossbow, which left him paralysed.
And such courtroom avoidance is way more than cowardly – it is another means of exercising control and inflicting pain on those already suffering. It should be punished as such.
Killers like Kyle Clifford are often control freaks. For justice to be done they must have all control stripped from them. They, finally, must be the ones forced – and I mean with the use of force – to do things they do not wish to do.
But why are not more politicians and members of the criminal justice system calling for this? Why aren’t they demanding that something so obviously, clearly, vividly wrong, is made to face their fate?
And if you found my deliberately brutal suggestions for dealing with a man like Clifford a little graphic, why is that? Did talk of bleeding fingernails and tipping him from his wheelchair, and words like “shackled” and “terror”, seem a little shocking to you? Are they words you feel unused to reading in media columns such as this? Had you been thinking: “Well, I agree it’s not really acceptable, but in all reality, what can be done? And we wouldn’t want to cause a scene in court which might be upsetting for families?”
Or were you simply thinking: “This is outrageous?”
Mr Justice Joel Bennathan and members of HMP Belmarsh had discussed using restraint to get Clifford into court. But he said: “I’ve declined on the basis that the idea of a man in a wheelchair being put in restraints and potentially disrupting these proceedings is simply not appropriate.”
square ALISON PHILLIPS
JD Vance's downfall is coming – and soon
Read MoreThe judge then added: “If the defendant simply lacks the courage to face today, then so be it.”
No. So not be it.
It seems to me that large swathes of our society – among the lawmakers, the justice system and the media – have lost a sense of moral outrage. Gut responses to bad behaviour have become weighed down and smothered by tediously rational but emotionally unfulfilling arguments. I’m not saying we have lost the ability to distinguish between right and wrong – just that we have lost a visceral, emotional anger about it. Perhaps about anything.
And yet for so many of us, moral outrage remains a guiding force. It is something the radical right is expert at manipulating to its advantage.
Morality stories and morality plays have been within us since time began. They are a force for social cohesion – shaping behaviours and constructing a set of norms around which people can coalesce.
But while moral arguments remain heartfelt among the mainstream, they are too often intellectually overshadowed by those with money and power and influence. It’s an argument made by Jonathan Haidt in his 2012 book, A Righteous Mind, which highlights the diverging morality of conservatives and liberals.
In the 13 years since publication it feels that divergence has only grown wider between the masses who feel that moral outrage and an elite which have scrubbed it from their soul.
And yes of course morality has historically been used as a tool for oppression, public shaming and control. And I am not suggesting a return to moralistic policing of every aspect of our private lives. But at a time when we have never needed social cohesion more, when it comes to clear differences between right and wrong, our shared morality needs to be visible and vivid.
Alison Phillips was editor of the Daily Mirror from 2018-24; she won Columnist of the Year at the 2018 National Press Awards
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Kyle Clifford should be dragged to court to face justice )
Also on site :
- Nike’s Jordan brand chairman hid his criminal past for 40 years. Now he wants CHROs to consider second chances
- Israeli embassy: Slain staffers 'were in the prime of their lives'
- Diddy Trial Recap: Kid Cudi Testifies About Home Break-In and Porsche Molotov Cocktail Explosion