chrisp65 Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 she's not doing time for a driving conviction though is she? I think the correct answer, in the Court of Chris, is that she's lied on a legal matter and is an MP, so she needs to be used as an example. He needs to be kept away from the public until he can categorically prove he's no longer a sexual predator of children. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 24 minutes ago, peterms said: Yes, there is a racial element in this. You'd have to be blind not to see it. No? A quick google shows similar lying over “only 3 points driving convictions “ have been met with sentences from 3 months to 12 months , unless all those jail sentences have only been due to the colour of skin of the “ liar “ then , no I don’t see it I’d imagine the custodial part is about perverting the course of justice not the trivial speeding fine A child sex offender deserves a strong sentence on receiving a guilty verdict no question , however the disparity of the verdicts isn’t the fault of the judge who gave the lying MP what appears to be the going rate for her crime , that’s an issue for the Sheriff in Scotland who gave the leanient sentence for whatever reasons ... I understand what your saying but the point you are trying to make isn’t really relevant imo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 30, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 30, 2019 10 hours ago, peterms said: Until she loses her seat, same as any employee would get their pay until their employer manages to get rid of them. I'm not sure how the unusually generous pension arrangements for MPs apply in these circumstances. iirc an MP has to be elected twice to qualify, or sit in two parliaments to be more correct (hence Sinn Fien not qualifying) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 Any more news on whether she actually plans to resign? I know she was planning not to early in the process, and then seemed to be persuaded later that she would need to resign for a custodial sentence, but is that still the plan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said: Any more news on whether she actually plans to resign? I know she was planning not to early in the process, and then seemed to be persuaded later that she would need to resign for a custodial sentence, but is that still the plan? From what I read yesterday, she doesn't intend to resign. Also, from that, it seems she is still intending to appeal against her conviction which means that the recall petition procedure won't be happening immediately as that doesn't begin until legal matters are completed. I don't know how long it would take to hear her appeal. As far as the sentence goes, she got 3 months whereas Huhne got 8 months - that was down to various mitigating circumstances and that the judge viewed that it was not her intent from the start to pervert the course of justice but that at the end she did do it deliberately (which would be one of the reasons it was viewed as a lesser deal than Huhne, I believe). Sentencing remarks available here: Quote Judge The Honourable Mr Justice Stuart Smith said it was a ‘tragedy’ Fiona and Festus Onasanya were in front of him for sentence at The Old Bailey. Sentencing he said: “Festus and Fiona Onasanya, I have to sentence you for offences of perverting the course of public justice. It is a tragedy that you find yourselves here and in this predicament; but it is a tragedy that you have brought upon yourselves. The Background Facts This case concerns three offences of perverting the course of public justice by providing false information to the authorities about who was driving when speeding offences were committed. The underlying speeding offences took place over a period of about two months, on 17 June 2017, 24 July 2017 and 23 August 2017. The first and third speeding offence involved your Audi A4 car, Mr Onasanya; the second involved your Nissan Micra, Ms Onasanya. In each case I am satisfied that you, Mr Onasanya, filled out the form providing information about people who you knew would not be traceable by the authorities. In this way he hoped that the trail would go cold and the true driver of the speeding cars would not be brought to justice. On 5 November 2018 you, Mr Onasanya, pleaded guilty to each of the three charges on the indictment. You, Ms Onasanya, were convicted by the jury after a retrial in relation to what happened after the speeding offence involving your car on 24 July 2017. "I am told that you do not accept the correctness of the jury’s verdict; but as a solicitor you will understand that I am bound by it and must be true to it in passing sentence today. “That said, and as I shall make clear, I do not accept and am not constrained by the verdict to accept all of the Prosecution’s case and allegations about your conduct. Having presided over your trial, and having reviewed the evidence again in preparation for today, I have reached my own conclusions about your involvement in the second of these three offences, which I believe to be consistent with the evidence as a whole and the verdict of the jury. “In June 2017 you, Mr Onasanya, were working as a full-time driver while also pursuing a potential singing career. Your licence was endorsed with 9 points, though 6 of those subsequently went when you successfully appealed that conviction. When you received the NIP in respect of the speeding offence that had been committed on 7 June 2017, you believed that further points would probably result in your being disqualified and you feared that you would lose your livelihood as a driver if you were disqualified. So you decided to submit false details. I also accept that you deliberately selected details that would lead the prosecuting authorities up a blind alley but would not get anyone else into trouble. However, you persisted when the authorities questioned the information you had provided. “The circumstances surrounding the capturing of the Nissan Micra on camera on 24 July 2017 were examined in minute detail at the trial. Having heard the evidence I am sure that it was you, Ms Onasanya, driving away from the DeFeo’s house when the camera was activated. I am in no doubt at all that, whatever the original time for the meeting, it took place later than originally planned and finished shortly before your car went through the camera with you driving it. In any normal circumstances it would be incredible that you would not have realised that the NIP you received some nine days later related to a time when you were driving. But the evidence at trial showed that these were by no means normal circumstances for you. You had been elected to Parliament as the Member for Peterborough on 8 June 2017 and had first gone to Westminster on 12 June. Initially you had no staff, with your first member of staff being recruited at the end of June. You had no constituency office in Peterborough and were initially hot-desking or squatting on benches in the corridors at Westminster. Within four weeks you were appointed to the select committee for housing. You had to install additional security at home by the first week or so of July and were completely swamped by emails and post. You had no proper diary system in place. On all of the evidence, you were living a life that was extremely hectic and pretty chaotic. I also accept your evidence that others would frequently drive your car, particularly when you were in London and it was left in Cambridge or Peterborough. In these circumstances I find your evidence that you failed to check properly what you had been doing on 24 July and that you passed the NIP to your mother’s home to be credible, supported as it is by your brother’s evidence that he was passed the NIP by your mother. What matters is that I am not sure that you passed it to your brother (directly or indirectly) with the intention of perverting the course of public justice. Similarly, Mr Onasanya, I find it credible that you were passed the NIP for 24 July 2017 by your mother. At that stage you would rightly have considered that it would have been totally out of character for your sister not to take responsibility if she had realised that she had been driving. Though in some respects it stretches credulity almost to breaking point, I sentence you on the basis that you therefore assumed it was you who had been driving your sister’s car and that you filled out the NIP with false details that were designed to prevent the investigating authorities identifying you as the true driver without getting anyone else into trouble. In doing so you set in train the sequence of events that ultimately led both to your conviction in relation to the second NIP and to your sister’s. However, there was no conspiracy between the two of you at the outset. Your next involvement arising out of the 24 July 2017 incident, Ms Onasanya, was when you received the letter from Mr Williams dated 14 September 2017 raising questions about the details that had been provided. I accept that you were recently out of hospital having received a confirmatory diagnosis of relapsing and remitting MS. I have seen medical evidence today that confirms the timing and the nature of that event. Your letter of reply, dated 20 September 2017, was inaccurate; but it needs to be seen in the context of your personal situation immediately after receiving your diagnosis and coming out of hospital and the evidence you gave about asking your brother what it was all about and receiving assurances from him that it was all sorted. Once again, though it is unsatisfactory and infinitely regrettable that you, a qualified solicitor and Member of Parliament, did not take your responsibilities more seriously or tackle them more effectively, I am not sure that you sent the letter of 20 September 2017 with the intention of perverting the course of justice. You may have done; but I am not sure of it and must therefore give you the benefit of the doubt for the purpose of sentencing. However, even if you had not realised that something was seriously wrong by 20 September 2017, the Jury’s verdict and the evidence compels the conclusion that by 2 November 2017 you knew that false information had been supplied. I have no reason to doubt that Mr Williams’ note was accurate. On that basis the information you provided to him must have been knowingly untrue. Even if I take the most charitable interpretation, which is that you now realised that there was a serious mess and stupidly chose to support what had initially been done by your brother, at this stage I am compelled to conclude that you deliberately committed the offence with which you were charged and of which you stand convicted. It was a disastrous decision; but it was a decision which, on the evidence and the verdict of the jury, you took. I can deal with the facts of Count 3, arising out of the capture of Mr Onasanya’s speeding Audi on 23 August more shortly. When you, Mr Onasanya, received the NIP, you did what you had done twice already: you deliberately provided false information with the intention of putting the authorities off the trail while not causing trouble for anyone else. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 (edited) 12 hours ago, peterms said: As an aside on sentencing policy, compare and contrast This is tabloid level stuff, Peter. I'm rather astonished, tbh. Edited January 30, 2019 by snowychap 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted January 30, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 30, 2019 3 hours ago, snowychap said: This is tabloid level stuff, Peter. I'm rather astonished, tbh. Me too. Taking one criminal and their punishment and then a different criminal and their punishment, making a comparison and drawing a conclusion of racism/sexism/anyism a la Daily Mail or Express or Sun is bonkers. Admittedly they do it the other way round - they'd (say) compare Chris Huhne's treatement with hers and say it shows how white men are treated harsher than ethnic minorities or some such, or women more leniently than men, and it too would be groundless bollex. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 Another vote for "Blimey Peter, what *WERE* you thinking?" An MP rightly brought to book for lying about a driving conviction. It's not like there haven't been other high profile cases involving MPs that should have served as a serious warning as to the consequences. No racial element that I can see at all. She seems to have got quite lightly, if anything. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 Most of us here would lose our jobs if convicted of a crime, let alone continue to draw a £77k salary to serve the public while being locked up. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 She's a stupid cow. That said, I've been in court with a senior Mason. 'Justice' does work differently for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 The masons are mostly just a bunch of middle aged/old blokes meeting in provincial halls to enact daft ceremonies. The father-in-law goes along, tails of favours and letting fellow masons off in court are massively wide of the mark. I think you have to be at least 21 anyway, so that 18 year old nonce couldn't be one in any case. That case does look extremely suspect, but there doesn't appear to be enough detail to see what's gone on and why. I would put good money on the court of public opinion in Scotland not letting the matter lie though, that twisted bastard will be sleeping with one eye open for the rest of his life I reckon. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 The masons are not just old blokes doing daft ceremonies. They are pernicious. Pernicious including, able to have friendly side chats with the police to stop their own kind being subject to those silly laws that any lodge member could accidentally stray the wrong side of. Which rightfully gives people insight in to who the law is there to protect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 14 hours ago, Risso said: The father-in-law goes along, tails of favours and letting fellow masons off in court are massively wide of the mark. Nope. I've sat in a public gallery and watched a judge wilt when he clocked who was sat next to me. The accused was bang to rights, had a previous as long as your arm and should have got 4 years. He walked. Well he didn't, I drove him home then he was put on a flight to the Caribbean. I don't know who was more surprised, me or the arresting officer? You wouldn't know anyone that high in the Masons though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 I'm calling "chinny reckon" on that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Couldn't give a toss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Which court was it, and when? What case was it? Who was the judge? A case of that seriousness would require a jury, no? So the jury found him guilty, and the judge failed to follow sentencing guidelines, because both he and the defendant were both masons? How did you arrive at this information? And having put his career in jeopardy for a fellow mason by not following sentencing guidelines, the prosecution didn't think to follow up on the leniency of the sentence. Right you are. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Ha - Not going to tell you all that on a public website, obviously. The family are still friends. Will tell you this much - No way was the defendant a Mason It is a good story though. I'll maybe tell someone you know over a pint someday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 They’ll have your tongue cut out and buried at low tide! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Suppose it is a secret of the Masons! Wish I'd been watching my companion in the public gallery more closely. Will never know if there was some clandestine communication or he was simply recognised by the judge? My masonic friend was wonderfully talented. He had a beautiful home in fabulous location that you never would have guessed was there. He was surrounded by beautiful and talented people and had friends in the very highest places. Yet last time I saw him was at the funeral of his oldest child. A couple of years before that he'd buried his youngest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 31, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 31, 2019 A proud moment in my life was getting rid of the Masons from the Student Union back in the '80s Tried a number of direct manoeuvres aimed at them directly which were all blocked by the university. Then we decided that every meeting held in the building had to be open to both sexes. They just upped an left. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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