As far as I can tell from this Daily Mail story, 17-year-old Chloe Goodman doesn’t have any history of violence or, indeed, juvenile delinquency. And yet the Manchester Crown Court sentenced Ms. Goodman to three years in prison for hiding guns for a “viscous criminal gang.” Not to mention a lecture about gun control from Judge Timothy Mort: “A gun is used to reinforce a culture of territory or drugs and therefore it has no place in our society. That is why Parliament brought in mandatory sentences. The reason for that is because everybody is so concerned about the availability of guns in the community. From access to your computer it is clear that at the time you saw it was cool to be associated with lads who were on the fringes of gun culture in the area.” One can only imagine her sentence if she’d been in the mainstream of local gun culture. Oh sorry. He’s not done . . .
And it does seem to me that when you were asked to take this gun you were not that reluctant because it was seen as cool. I am satisfied that there was no intention to use that gun. You probably didn’t give much thought to the fact that it was intended to shoot people.
So, if she didn’t think about the fact that a gun shoots people, why did Ms. Goodman think it was cool, then? Never mind. At least The Old Bill wasslightly sympathetic . . .
Det Chief Insp Chris Packer, of Greater Manchester Police said after the case: ‘This case highlights the very real dangers young women face when they are persuaded by either their boyfriends or male friends to store guns.
‘These sorts of criminals coerce young and impressionable girls, asking them to stash weapons and take the heat off them.
‘In many cases they probably have little or no regard for these women, but simply use them to hide weapons or drugs and try and stay under the police radar.
Unfortunately, Ms. Goodman posted Facebook pictures of herself holding a gun [see: above]. As we reported previously, UK police and courts take an extremely dim view of that kind of gun glamor gig. [NB: In this case, the Facebook imagery was discovered after a police investigation. In the previous example, it led to the arrest.] Whereas they’re OK with gun-intensive movies. ‘Cause that’s different.
