Tough Luck For Injured Criminals

ACT Justice Spokesman Stephen Franks today welcomed Judge Graeme Noble's attempt to make criminals, injured while offending, pay for their own medical treatment.

"Sadly, there are two reasons why this common sense move will get nowhere until there is a change in Government. First, Mr Goff's new Sentencing Act expressly preserves ACC lawand hamstrings judges. It doesn't authorise reparation orders for direct cost of physical injury, and only the victim is reimbursed for indirect or consequential costs," Mr Franks said.

"Secondly, the outbreak of judicial common sense will be nipped in the bud. It deeply alarms Labour activists who have been closing off all forms of personal responsibility for your own actions. To them, criminals are really victims of the system, their upbringings, the innocent who tempt them into crime by being too vulnerable, the Police and social agencies which fail to stop them before they do the crime when they hurt themselves. To them, criminals are victims of everyone but themselves.

"In effect, ACC and tax-funded hospitals mean the victims pay for the treatment of offenders who rip them off or injure them, make lives miserable through fear and security precautions. They then have to pay as well for police, courts and prisons. Recouping treatment costs is the least the Government should be doing.

Labour's surrounding cloud of activists will not tolerate such common sense from a judge, in case it erodes the excuse culture. But they need not worry. In the short term, Mr Goff's new law will keep the judges sufficiently tangled up," said Mr Franks

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