Tom wasn’t the life and soul of the party, but he was a decent, modest and highly intelligent student who got on with with life in his own laid-back and charming way.
Tom got the first class degree his talents and commitment deserved. He stayed on for an extra year to study for a masters and then converted to law. He ended up in a high-flying job at Linklaters, the top firm. I lost touch with him after we graduated but Tom and I had one of those university friendships lots of people enjoy. Even though you may lose touch for a while, there is always the assumption that a quiet drink after some years will cover the lost ground.
Our paths crossed again last year when I received an e-mail from him out of the blue. I had contested Brent East at the general election in 2005 as the Conservative candidate and Tom had picked up my election literature. Bathurst Gardens, where he was attacked and killed, is on the border of the Brent South and Brent East constituencies and Tom, after learning of my being a candidate, had written an encouraging e-mail. He suggested that we meet up for a drink. I was very pleased.
The drink was never arranged. I travelled abroad while he was involved in his wedding preparations. I always assumed that we would eventually meet up and discuss old times. His brutal murder on Thursday night destroyed any chance of this.
I still can’t believe that a man who was so gentle, mild and considerate could meet such a violent end.
Advertisement
The shocking thing about Tom’s murder is the savagery of the attack. In this mindless violence I detected something strange. Yes, there were muggings 10 years ago, and people were sometimes killed. In those days, however, my suspicion is that killings would happen in a struggle which ended up in knives being drawn, a few panic-stricken and desperate thrusts and then, tragically, death.
But Tom’s attackers, it seems, already had his possessions. What followed was a completely pointless, insane spasm of violence, in which the muggers stabbed his head, body and hands. The brutality of the attack had nothing to do with their initial crime. I don’t know what drove these young men to attack Tom. I will never understand the fury and hatred that must have driven them to it. What I do know is that a decade after the phrase “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” was coined, we are still no nearer to solving the causes of such violent crimes as this.
During the last election, crime, especially violent crime, was an issue in Brent. There was a feeling that the situation had got out of hand. Violent crime, particularly gun crime, had increased by more than a fifth in the past year. People felt helpless.
It became clear to me that the fear of crime was in many ways more important than the crimes themselves. Violent crimes, particularly, created an impression that lawlessness was rampant, regardless of the actual number of crimes committed. This means that the nature of the crime is often more important in creating panic and unease in the community than the mere statistics.
Perception, in this case, is reality. Tom’s murder confirms this. The peculiar violence and savagery of his murder, coming so soon after the conviction of John Monckton’s killers, who stabbed him in his own Chelsea house, will give people the impression that we live in an age more brutal and violent than most. It will make more people more worried.
Advertisement
To combat this fear, we have to restore confidence in the justice system. There must be a strong feeling that the killers will not only be caught but will serve appropriate sentences. My worry is that after many decades of liberal sentencing, the sentences passed in no way reflect the horrible nature of the crimes committed. Many people now feel that the punishment, to adapt an old saying, no longer fits the crime.
Sophisticated liberals will say that we should never appease the mob baying for blood and retribution. Clever barrister friends of mine are always defending liberal judges on the grounds that they have more wisdom than the rest of us. Yet if people on the street feel unsafe, and feel sentences are not tough enough, then surely urgent attention should be paid to the views of the people whom the law is meant to protect.
The law was made for the people, not for lawyers or judges. If people no longer feel safe, then surely sentences should reflect that. Tom would perhaps have remembered the Latin tag, “salus populi suprema lex” — “the safety of the people is the supreme law”.
If that is the case and if people now feel more unsafe than ever, then much tougher sentences and more prisons would be the first steps in making people feel safer. It would at least restore more confidence in our justice system.
Advertisement
Kwasi Kwarteng is chairman of the Bow Group