Tory Mayor hopeful Shaun Bailey: send thugs carrying acid straight to jail

Tory mayoral hopeful Shaun Bailey at City Hall
Alex Lentati
Undefined18 September 2018

Thugs caught carrying acid with intent to injure should be sent straight to jail, Tory London mayoral hopeful Shaun Bailey demanded today.

As part of a crackdown on crime, he wants judges and magistrates to impose automatic jail terms of at least six months the first time that an offender is caught with acid with intent to use it as a weapon.

Ministers are currently proposing under the Offensive Weapons Bill that mandatory sentences apply for a second offence of possessing a corrosive substance in a public place with no good reason.

But Mr Bailey wants a tougher approach following the spate of horrific acid attacks in London which has left many victims disfigured for life.

He told The Standard: “Acid is often the weapon of choice for criminals in the capital and too often it feels like a consequence-free crime.

“The number of acid-related offences is soaring and we need a zero tolerance approach to offenders. It’s time to take control of our streets.”

Mr Bailey, who was a youth and crime adviser to David Cameron, is also demanding that all “moped criminals” caught with intent to commit a crime should face mandatory jail sentences on first offence.

He believes it is not “preventative enough” for such offenders only to be imprisoned if a crime, such as robery or burglary, is actually committed.

The mayoral hopeful wants the police and courts to do more to bring criminals to justice to tackle rising levels of violence against individuals, burglaries and thefts from people.

Mr Bailey, a London Assembly member who previously sought to become MP for Hammersmith, also pledged to recruit 800 more detectives in the capital’s battle against crime.

He claimed £15.4 million could be saved at a “bloated City Hall”, which could be used to fund an extra 261 detectives, by cutting £2.8 from PR & marketing, £9 million from the culture budget, £1.8 from the Mayor’s own office and £1.8 million from promotional agency London & Partners.

His team also say there are currently in circulation 40,000 free Travelcards for “friends and families” of Transport for London employees and calculates that axing them would mean an additional £31.9 million in fares revenue which could fund 541 detectives.

Mr Bailey said: “If Mr Khan focussed on cutting out the waste and non-jobs in City Hall he could fund more police on the street and protect communities across the capital.”

However, Mr Khan accused the Tory mayoral hopeful of “a load of deliberately misleading nonsense”.

“Shaun Bailey oversaw the implementation of the huge cuts to London’s police and youth services that caused this mess when he was a Downing Street adviser on youth and crime,” said a spokesman for Mr Khan.

City Hall also claimed Mr Bailey was hugely over-estimating the possible revenue from his Traverlcards restriction, saying Transport for London estimated it would be no more than £7 million.

It also stressed that the culture budget was providing young Londoners with “constructive activities” and argued that £1.5 million of the claimed rise in the PR and marketing budget was a change in the way it is recorded, not an increase.

Mr Bailey last month unveiled plans which he said would allow 1,000 more police officers to be put on the frontline by shifting resources from back offices.

Two other candidates, Andrew Boff and Joy Morrissey, are vying to be the Tory candidate for mayor for the 2020 election.

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