When gangsters are allowed to reign in society and kill with impunity, law-abiding citizens may be forced to retreat out of fear behind barbed wire fences or into gated communities.
Crime will skyrocket, people will be afraid to testify and the justice system can fall apart, says Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Alliston Seale.
And it is for those reasons, he said, that the court must send the strongest message possible to gangsters: that extraordinary crimes will be visited by extraordinary sentences.
Seale was explaining why the Crown had asked that Ryan Omar Samuel be given life in prison for pumping seven bullets, at close range, in an unarmed shop attendant who supposedly disrespected his boss. (HLE)
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Ryan Omar Samuel (FILE)
