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BLACK-SHEEP COMMENTARIES by VICTIMS ORGANIZE FOR JUSTICE July 4, 2007 - North Shore News - Vancouver, BC THE aftermath of criminal violence is unrelenting trauma, despair and anguish. Striking among us, the cold, merciless hand of mayhem and murder metes out sentences to its victims at random, far, far in excess of any punishment presently imposed on convicts. In the words of renowned British psychiatrist and author Anthony Storr, “Man is uniquely violent and cruel. When murder or other violent behaviour occurs, man is behaving only like man, and not at all like any other living creature.” Storr also said that “men … seem to enjoy subjecting their own kind to violence and cruelty even when their victims are helpless and totally at their mercy.” There must be some kind of maniacal glorification of power and cruelty in dominating acts of violence. Though I can understand violence in aggressive psychopaths, I cannot explain the conduct of otherwise normal men who become lethal when confronted by sexual rejection or humiliation, when maddened by alcohol or drugs, or when caught up in the cauldron of a verbal confrontation. In my years in criminal court, I heard countless case of violence where there was no indication of an aberrant mental process. One representative case, Regina v. Cookman, reveals this dark side of non-psychopathic men. On August 17, 1996, Frederick John Cookman stole a chocolate bar from a small corner store in Skid Road. Within seconds the theft escalated into a violent assault on the proprietor. Though violence in the Cookman case was an act of aggravated assault, the Crown chose to downgrade it to assault causing bodily harm. Worse still, it was prosecuted as a summary case reducing the maximum punishment from five years to eighteen months. At the end of the trial I found Cookman guilty, and sentenced him to eighteen months in jail. I recall looking down from the bench on a man about thirty years of age, muscular and stocky, in the prime of his physical life, his self-indulgent face almost expressionless but for a sneer of contempt for a justice system that, for its own convenience, had treated his most recent violent felony as a misdemeanour. He knew what was in my mind – that if the case had been proceeded with by indictment carrying a maximum five-year sentence, I would have put him away for at least three years. The victim was in court and I let him know that I empathized with him. Here are some of my extemporaneous remarks: “The principle purpose of the justice system … at its least, is to give some assurance, more than symbolic, to those citizens in our community who are fearful of violence when they are out in public. The criminal justice system has been failing in that regard over the last several decades. The whole sentencing process seems to reflect a more benign approach and disregard for the trauma that is caused by violence. “Mr. Awan is a middle-aged man doing his best to engage in business in one of the most difficult parts of Vancouver. What the defendant did to him was to beat him badly. He was hit hard enough to lose five teeth, and in the aftermath has difficulty to chew, and is still in pain long after the event. He was badly injured. “And what causes me great concern is that if Mr. Galbraith, a witness to the crime, had not been there and yelled out, it could have been not just two stomps on the face or on the head, but many more.” Cookman was silent as he swaggered off to jail to serve his sentence of 18 months. He knew that he could be released in less than one year – a mere tap on the wrist compared to the punishment he had imposed on Awan. The whole process left me angry and frustrated. A decade later I sense that victims of crime are making their presence felt by confronting prosecutors, judges and politicians. They are beginning to stand together as activists in a fight to have true enforcement of the Criminal Code in terms of the sentencing of violent offenders. A most amazing coming together of victims was triggered by the July 2, 2005 murder of diminutive 16-year-old Mathew Martins. Young Martins was beaten to death by Robert Forslund, a frenzied psychopathic criminal, urged on by his co-accused girlfriend Katherine Quinn. It was barbarism so fierce it would make a terrorist quake. It was a murder that justified a death penalty. Somehow, grief-stricken Sandra Martins-Toner and David Toner galvanized themselves to perpetuate the memory of their son Mathew through a public crusade for justice; first, in the case against Forslund and Quinn, and beyond that in coalescing with other victims in “an organization of families who have lost loved ones tragically, or for those who have survived a violent crime.” They are FACT: Families Against Crime & Trauma, a group to be reckoned with, a grass roots organization that is in the ascendancy and has caught the attention of judges and politicians. FACT members are truly one for all and all for one. They will not settle for a “purple heart.” Their goal is an end to lax sentences and the revolving-door court system. They want hard-nosed prosecutors and law-and-order judges. I will never forget my first meeting with them in the Martins-Toner home. It seemed like a gathering of a clan. As our discussion progressed, I realized that I was the only one in the room who had not suffered the murder of a loved one. I left in awe and with a feeling of optimism that victims of crime will succeed in restoring balance to the scales of justice. Yet I will always feel deeply for them over their circumstances: that in the quiet of solitude and dreamy reverie there will be moments of whispering melancholy and tears. Wallace G Craig - wallace-gilby-craig@realjustice.ca – NSNews – July 4, 2007 |
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