John Young

Young, as we reveal today, smashed his way into a shop, plundered it of items including a Poppy Appeal tin and brandished a hammer at a man who tried to stop him.

Unless we are very much mistaken, Young will give no thought to the man he threatened, to Armed Forces veterans whose support fund he stole from or to the shop staff and customers he inconvenienced.

Rather, he will be commencing his nine-month sentence immersed in the loathsome self-pity to which only the truly selfish are prone.

Bearing in mind the leniency of his sentence, and of the jokeshop’s-worth of early release regulations, it would come as little surprise if he were spewed back on to our streets long before winter gives way to spring.

His offence was merely the latest in a long series he has inflicted on society. All things considered, he would have little to complain about even if the court had somehow been able to send him away for nine years rather than nine months.

There are those who say society would be a better and safer place for the innocent if the John Youngs of this world were simply locked up until they were too infirm to inflict themselves on civilisation like monstrous, pitiless parasites.

Perhaps there is a case for saying criminals prone to burglary and threatening people with offensive weapons should only be given a limited number of chances to redeem themselves before indefinite imprisonment became an option.

Some criminals seem psychologically incapable of existing in normal society without preying on fellow members of it.

That is a tragedy, but the rights of those criminals should always take second place.