The sentence imposed on Claudia Webbe MP for harassing a female friend of her partner which culminated in Webbe threatening the victim with an acid attack does look to me to be decidedly lenient. As well as the threat of an acid attack there were also aggravating factors such as Webbe continuing to harass the woman despite being warned by the police to cease from doing so.

Webbe got ten weeks imprisonment, suspended for two years with an additional order to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work. She was also ordered to pay the victim £1000 compensation and to pay court costs of £150. She got this sentence despite being described by the judge in the case as having given an unreliable account of her actions, Webbe continuing to see herself as the victim in this case and having her counsel playing the race and ‘I’m skint’ cards during sentencing mitigation.

So how does Webbe’s sentence stack up against other similar cases? Just how overly lenient was the sentence on Webbe? Well if we compare the sentence dished out in another similar case where a threat of an acid attack as made in 2017 by a man in Lancashire then we can see just how lenient Webbe’s sentence truly is.

The Lancashire Telegraph said:

AN obsessed man threatened to get someone to throw acid in a woman’s face after she blocked him on social media.

Mohammed Ibram Saleem, 23, bombarded the woman with WhatsApp messages telling her he loved her and wanted to have a child with her. But when the woman cut off their online relationship, Saleem sent threatening messages talking about guns and drugs, and hurling insults at the 18-year-old. When he was unable to contact her on her own phone, Saleem turned to her cousin to make threats through him, in a bid to get to the woman.

On three separate occasions, Saleem, who lives in Bradford, was seen driving past the woman’s house in Blackburn, in a bid to intimidate her. He later told police he was visiting friends in the area. He pleaded guilty to harassment and appeared at Preston Crown Court to be sentenced.

In this case there are several similarities between this Saleem case and the Webbe case. One of these similarities is the extended nature of the harassment, then there’s the acid attack threat and the intimidation of the victim over the phone. Saleem pleaded guilty to harassment and was eventually gaoled for 19 months. Webbe on the other hand pleaded Not Guilty and created the need for an expensive trial which put the victim through the difficult necessity of having to give evidence. About the only difference between this case and the Webbe case was the Webbe case did not involve getting others or attempting to get others to continue the harassment.

When you compare the Webbe case to the Saleem case it is very easy to discern just how leniently the judge in the Webbe case treated her. Webbe should have got a stiffer sentence after all she is in a position as a law maker where she should setting an example and not committing crimes. She didn’t plead guilty and tried to paint herself as the victim in all this. Webbe has been treated in a disgracefully lenient manner which will only help to encourage the view that Britain has a two tier legal system where members of the Establishment get lesser punishments than those who are not.