Jokes and Crimes.

 If I were to ask readers which is worse, a casual remark or shoplifting - I wonder which you might choose?

After all, shoplifting increases the outgoings of every single adult person by some 2% annually. (You didn't really think that it was the shops which take the brunt of the pain from shoplifting, did you?)

Perhaps you may have stated the discomfiture you feel about the burka, for example, in a private conversation with a friend at an outdoor coffee table - tragically, the waitress overhears you and calls the police!

So no comparison whatsoever between the two matters. Is that what you would say?

Well, you are right.

One of these can get you arrested for a putative 'hate crime' and the other matter is almost considered today, to be unworthy of any prosecution at all.

I am glad that I am no longer a magistrate. I have threatened some shoplifters with prison in my past - and on several occasions have actually jailed people for the offence.

'Hate crimes' formed part of the reason why I quit the Bench more than a decade ago. They were just being introduced and were clearly an absence of thought processes.