I have written previously about the moral case for the reinstatement of capital punishment in Britain – that was in the harrowing case of Lucy Letby. While it was certainly questionable whether the evidence against Letby met the stringent threshold required for such a judgement, Axel Rudakubana obviates the needs for such doubts by A) gleefully celebrating the murders, B) showing no remorse and C) by pleading guilty.
In fact, I’d go further. Rudakubana is a textbook case, which deserves and undoubtedly will be taught in law schools in the future. If the Southport murderer does not merit the death penalty, then no one in history has ever done. The absolute evil unleashed on 29 July 2004, aided and abetted by the the negligence and complicity of the State, cannot be allowed to pass without a reappraisal of the law.
However hard it is to believe, this is no knee-jerk reaction on my part. I have always been in favour of capital punishment for the most heinous crimes, and have in fact (unusually) become less convinced about my position with age. The arguments against are very strong, and I do not dismiss them at all. Let’s take them in what I consider to be the order of ascending merit:
Thou shalt not kill
I’m afraid, as an atheist, the religious argument cuts little ice with me.
The State ought to conduct itself better than its worst citizens
In general, I believe this is correct. However, there is a point beyond which such lofty principles are arguably a hindrance rather than a benefit to society. Rudakubana’s crimes are so evidently lightyears away from such a point, that he exonerates us from our obligations to him. Perhaps tolerance, like diversity, is not a strength; perhaps it’s time to stop being so supine.
Is the death penalty genuinely a superior punishment to life imprisonment?
This is a good point, and undoubtedly a valid concern in many cases. I believe that a degree of latitude could be incorporated into the law in this regard, which I shall explain subsequently.
Do we really trust the State with death?
In a word, no. Incompetence and malfeasance are my main objections to the Assisted Dying Bill. However, as mentioned I believe such extreme crimes remove this concern – provided the highest possible threshold of proof is met.
There is another more crucial point here. While we fuss over the rights and lives of savages, we should remind ourselves that the State has already effectively declared certain lives expendable: namely, the countless innocent white girls it offers up as sacrifice to its’ multicultural experiment; not to mention those like Peter Lynch who die in prison, having had the gall to protest against the policy.
Human error
To my mind, this is by far the most persuasive argument against capital punishment – which is why the only circumstances where it would be permissible are those in which guilt in unequivocal. Rudakubana meets that threshold.
Let me give you my caveats for a possible reintroduction of the death penalty:
- That it could only be used in extremis, for the absolute worst crimes.
- That guilt would have to be certain.
- That the jury would need to be unanimous.
- That the judge would need to authorise it.
- That the victims or victims’ families would need to request it.
This last point could serve in some way as a deterrent, with potential murderers never knowing whether their victims could condemn them from the grave.
While there is no stomach for the reinstatement of capital punishment at Westminster, the majority of Brits are still in favour – a divide which was poignantly expressed by Margaret Thatcher back in 1987, whose heartfelt explanation I cannot disagree with:
There is another despicable element at play here, the liberal desire to find excuses for extreme criminality rather than face the ugly truth of it. I was most disappointed to read Peter Hitchens’ latest column, where he argues that Rudakubana’s behaviour can be attributed to drugs:
“Rudakubana became crazy around the age of 12 or 13, between being filmed dressed as Dr Who, cheerful, and normal, and becoming the blank-eyed, dreadlocked, masked, mumbling grotesque which he now is. That is around the point that the children of Britain first encounter marijuana.”
While I am as opposed to drugs as Hitchens, this argument is beneath him. Half the country is drugged up to the eyeballs in one way or another on any given day, but only one subset of the population appears to have such an aberrant reaction. There is a reason why 90% of the extremists on MI5’s terror watchlist are jihadis, and if Mr Hitchens refuses to notice it, that’s on him.
Such desire for excuses manifested itself via the authorities, in the denial that Rudakubana’s actions were terror related. Really?! The knives, the ricin, the genocide fixation, the Prevent referrals and the Al Qaeda manual didn’t do it for you? Funny how a karate kick to Owen Jones is more than sufficient grounds for a ‘far-right’ ideological bent, but Jihad for idiots doesn’t quite cut it. If the Southport murderer had been Whitey, caught with Mein Kampf stashed under his bed, it would have been terrorism – no ifs, no buts. You know it, I know it, and Mr Hitchens, I suspect, knows it too.
The validity of capital punishment, for me at least, is not about punishment or even revenge, but morality. ‘Revenge’, surely, would be to place Rudakubana indefinitely at the hands of the Belmarsh ‘prison justice’ he is soon likely to experience. I beseech you, particularly those opposed to capital punishment, please think of Elsie, Bebe and Alice. Tell me why Rudakubana deserves to live, when he so cruelly denied them their lives? Tell me why he deserves to breathe the air he deprived their lungs of? Tell me why their families should pay in perpetuity for the upkeep of his miserable existence? Tell me why.
If the price of a ‘civilised’ society is that we accept the random slaughter of our most treasured members, then that is a price I am not willing to meet. Sometimes, civility is not the appropriate response.
So do tell me, dear liberals, how ‘civilised’ you are. I hope however, you will have the grace to do so when it’s your daughters’ turn at the multicultural lottery.
Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West, and The Frank Report.
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The appalling injustice of Lucy Letby’s prosecution ( with no witnesses or forensic evidence against her) rather works against capital punishment. But the Southport murders seem somewhat clear cut. I suppose the question comes down to do you trust our legal system, or any system for that matter. Incidentally “You shall not murder” is the correct translation.
The strongest argument for re-introducing capital punishment is that it is just. It differentiates murder from other serious crimes as it ought to be differentiated.
I don’t know whether or not “Thou shalt not murder” is the correct translation (of the Hebrew? the Greek?) but the state certainly thinks and acts as if it were. With good reason, it doesn’t treat as crimes killing in self-defence or defence of another or in war and neither does it treat killing as a crime when it is done for the sake of a woman’s ‘reproductive rights’. And, if not, why shouldn’t it sanction killing for the sake of justice?
No UK parliament will ever vote for the return of capital punishment and there will never, ever, be a Referendum on this because the public just aren’t trusted to vote correctly (Brexit showed this).
However, if you look at MSM comments on this case there are an alarming number of bleeding heart ‘poor boy, he has mental issues’ believers. Yet again TPTB and in particular the RF have convinced the sheep that almost everyone has mental issues and it’s now almost a badge of honour to be a sufferer with a acronym syndrome.
It’s also clear the Judiciary no longer have the ability to differentiate between clear uncontestable evil and the less clear, as in possibly not guilty or extenuating circumstances or convenient establishment set ups. I think we can also assume that a death penalty would see barristers and judges refusing to take high profile cases as the legal profession has been captured by woke (except of course for ‘far-right’ indigenous deplorables).
The USA still has capital punishment and even the uber progressive liberal Biden didn’t attempt to revoke this punishment.
Are the British political establishment being hypocritical when they declare no one has the right to take a life via capital punishment yet give a knighthood to a man who lied to Parliament so he could join in with the mass indiscriminate bombing of Baghdad leading to the deaths of some 100,000 (Conservative estimate) civilians.
The British state takes peoples lives at will.
True but how many who receive a death sentence are dealt with expediently? Years on death row isn’t a good model.
As for state sanctioned killings, it’s like Stalin(?) said, one death is a tragedy but millions is only a statistic. The UK also applied this rationale to covid, one 88 year old OAP death was a tragedy best avoided by the death and disablement of thousands via Vaxxes.
Biden had no power to intervene in state laws that permitted capital punishment.
My memory is that he pardoned plenty of murderers on federal “death row”.
A strange business: why not all?
It is worth considering whether Rudakubana’s pure evil is in some respect due to his upbringing, cultural and family heritage. There is information in the public domain that suggests he was simply following in the footsteps of his antecedents. Add to this a cultural bias against the sanctity of human life & you begin to get a clearer picture of who this animal is and the absolute justification for instituting the death penalty for him – specifically. Such an even might spare the world of further scum reproduced from his genes. Ultimately I doubt he will survive for long in prison – the fate of Sara Sharif’s father suggests some rough justice might be coming his way!
Seriously and dangerously wrong in the Lucy Letby case and the suggestion that she should have hung is very upsetting particuarly as evidence indicates that some of the deaths were down to bad doctoring. Not impressed.
As a very minimum this Rudabanka and ALL his immediate family should be rounded up and sent back to Rwanda, it is immoral that British taxpayers are expected to keep this POS alive for the next fifty years and support the family which bred him. In fact any gimmegrants who fall foul of our laws should expect immediate deportation.
Frank spot on as usual, we let to many go under the radar, we need to stand up for what is correct in our society.
I’m all for bringing back Corporal Punishment, but in this case, I would prefer he had some of the treatment that others incarcerated in Bellmarsh are likely to give him. Going back to who should have their lives finished, Rudakubana, as you said, is a text book example, for visciousness, premeditation, pleading guilty and being caught at the site of the murders. His past record also shows he has a predilection for mass violence and murder. So how about 5 years in the rough and tumble of prison, and if he survives that, then the jab?
Whilst ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’, in cases like these swift justice, swift execution (not by ‘novel’ US methods), and swift delivery of ashes to next of kin surely is best?
Leaving justice to other inmates will only lead to compo claims and pity for the attacked by the bleeding hearts and inquiries into the lessons that must be learned.
BTW mandatory cremation of all executed prisoners might focus the minds of certain types of criminals who have other burial practices.
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