There’s a young man from the north-east who will be putting his best foot forward today and trying to make a big impression.
He’s not attending a job interview.
It’s more important than that: he’s trying to fight his way out of a situation which destroyed his life at the tender age of 15.
But there’s nothing tender about him.
It’s fighting that landed him in court in the first place.
Well, you can’t actually call it “fighting” because it was grossly one-sided; he launched a vicious, cowardly attack on a defenceless bus driver of mature years who was merely doing his job at Elgin bus station at the time.
But the bus driver was also a man with serious heart disease; he collapsed and died after the horrific assault by the boy, whose miserable pathetic identity is protected from public disclosure by his age.
On Tuesday a legal appeal is due to start against the length of sentence the boy was given at Inverness High Court a few months ago.
He received four years and four months in custody after pleading guilty to culpable homicide; a murder charge was dropped by prosecutors (convenient for him and the legal profession, but not the victim’s family).
Elgin killer’s bid for reduced sentence comes before anniversary
Sadly, the latest legal moves come just before the first anniversary of this sickening tragedy – as if the timing couldn’t be made much worse for the victim’s devastated family.
The death of bus driver Keith Rollinson – a kindly soul and “true gentleman” by all accounts – horrified the Moray community and other right-minded people elsewhere.
There was an outpouring of community grief on the streets for the 58 year-old.
The incident highlighted serious concerns about the safety of bus drivers, which were raised at national level by union leaders, and the continuous threat posed by drunken louts hanging around places like Elgin bus station.
The latter was blamed for people shunning public transport at night in many places, particularly weekends, for fear of putting life and limb at risk from violent fellow passengers.
I know a woman whose husband is also a Stagecoach driver.
At the time of the tragedy she told me he was filled with dread every time he got behind the wheel at the start of his shift because the authorities seemed incapable of doing anything about yobs.
And she sat at home worrying what state he’d be in when he got back. Police promised a crackdown after an outcry over Mr Rollinson, but I have no idea how effective that has been.
However, the general court process itself often raises doubts about justice being seen to be done in the eyes of the public and whether perpetrators take precedence over victims; this perception seems to have become fact in many cases.
It will come as no surprise to learn that Mr Rollinson’s grieving widow Susan is incensed by the affrontery of her husband’s killer to seek a lighter sentence.
She spoke movingly in one report about having been left with a life sentence of grief; of victims being forgotten about.
The boy didn’t intend to kill him, hence the culpable homicide charge, but that was the end result due to the victim’s underlying serious heart condition.
Nevertheless, he displayed reckless disregard for his victim’s safety by head-butting and mercilessly raining punches down on him in what judge Lady Hood described as a “frenzied” attack.
Judge’s hands are tied
Judges have to take mitigating or aggravating factors into account when sentencing.
Mitigation such as the perpetrator’s age and whether, as in this case, he pleaded guilty.
I reckon this reduced his sentence by about 18 months as Lady Hood made special mention of this factor in saving him from heavier punishment.
Even though police brought the court’s attention to the boy’s initial “arrogance”.
However, the most aggravating issue for me was that he had “form”.
Incredibly, according to published court accounts, he’d only just completed a supervision order – after an assault on another driver.
I think his blossoming penchant for terrorising bus drivers was an aggravating factor worthy of a stiffer, deterrent sentence – perhaps six years, which is below the average for culpable homicide.
It seems not enough to evade a murder charge and take advantage of a lighter sentence already; he now seeks a further reduction.
How many judicial favours does it take to make a mockery of the sentencing process?
I wonder if judges’ hands are tied to a certain extent by sentencing rules and should have the freedom to take into account local circumstances and sensitivities.
Mr Rollinson’s background in the RAF would have instilled him with a sense of public duty and self-discipline.
He crossed paths with the antipathy of that.
Mr Rollinson died protecting his bus and passengers from a drunken thug.
But that doesn’t mean justice is thrown under a bus.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal
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