IN just the latest example of rather lenient sentencing handed down by the Irish judiciary, a cold-blooded youth who murdered 48 people is to be given the perfectly appropriate sentence of 12 hours community service.
The serial killer told the court he was “off me fuckin’ tits most of the time” and it is believed this was taken into account when Judge Isaac Gaye handed down his sentence.
Tommy Waldon (16), who has 456 previous convictions for a range of offences including several hundred violent assaults, is said to have benefited from previous good behaviour exhibited when he was in primary school which saw him earn several gold stars.
Those in the public galleries issued loud guffaws and cries oh ‘aw’ when counsel for Waldon produced a picture of the accused on the day of his first Holy Communion, throwing his apparent guilt into question. His defence was additionally bolstered by the fact the accused had once walked through the Dublin 4 postcode.
Waldon’s case further shocked the Nation when it was revealed arresting Gardaí found the teenager playing football with one of his victim’s heads.
“I mean, it was horrible but part of me thought ‘Jesus, this lad has very good close control with a ball, where did it all go wrong?’ Ya know,” Garda Jim Lyons said when giving evidence at the trial earlier this month.
While a penal system’s role in modern democratic societies is to rehabilitate criminals and not simply to act as a place to house them for all eternity, Judge Gaye deemed any sort of sentence to be excessive opting instead for 12 hours community service.
Waldon is expected to carry out his grueling task of picking up rubbish over the course of two days next week before reentering society a reformed person.
The sentence was expected to be more lenient but the Judge took into account the fact Waldon had murdered his original defence counsel in court after the barrister mistakenly called him ‘Thomas’.
