Editorial: System throws up inconsistent sentences

Northern Advocate editor Craig Cooper.

How is it that we have a justice system and Sentencing Act that allows a methamphetamine manufacturer to be jailed for 16 years and a child rapist for nine?

Because if a child rapist and a P-cook are both sitting on a bus with vacant seats next to them, and they are the only two seats on the bus, I know which one I'd sit next to. Actually, I'd probably take the next bus, but you get what I'm saying.

Between them, Anthony Mangu and Jaydean Hura made about 7.245 kilos of meth, or P, with a street value of between $2.5 million and $3.5 million.

Yesterday, Mangu was jailed for 15 years. Hura was last month sentenced to 16 years and eight months in jail for making at least nine kilos of methamphetamine.

I feel sorry for neither but I can't understand how a man who raped a 3-year-old was jailed for nine years and nine months, and he gets name suppression.

In any sentencing, there are differing factors. For example, the rapist was sentenced in the district court, the meth cooks were sentenced in the High Court.

The courts of New Zealand website notes that "imposing a sentence can be one of the most exacting tasks undertaken by a judge".

And exasperating.

Judges are working within a system that allows individualised sentences to be imposed upon criminals. This is for the ultimate benefit of the victims and the most appropriate penalty and rehabilitation for criminals. But they are also working within a flawed system.

The court of public opinion has no legal powers, but it should be demanding someone review a system that is throwing up perplexing inconsistencies that are eroding the tenets and foundations of justice.