Do the crime, do the time

November 16th,

Given the tragedies our community has suffered in recent years, we need no reminder of the danger of carrying knives.

But anyone who read of the sad death of Kunal Mohanty this week will have got one.

He was just 30, married, about to become a father and was visiting Scotland from India to sit exams at the Nautical College in Glasgow.

By all accounts, he was a pleasant young man who had been going out for a meal with friends when he was stabbed to death in Glasgow.

One moment he had a bright future ahead of him, the next he was dead after a flick of his attacker’s knife.

This senseless murder was highlighted this week for its racial motives – which were appalling – but it was the presence of a knife that escalated this from a nasty confrontation to a sickening tragedy.

If his assailant hadn’t been armed, Kunal would probably have went home to his pregnant wife with just a black eye or a story of a bad experience in Glasgow.

This week, Christopher Miller was handed an 18-year sentence for Kunal’s murder, scant consolation I am sure for his young family in India coping with their loss.

That same day, UK justice secretary Jack Straw announced plans to raise the mandatory minimum sentence in England and Wales for knife killers to 25 years.

On the back of that, I have written to Scotland’s justice secretary Kenny MacAskill asking him to follow this lead and set a similarly high penalty for people like Christopher Miller.

In Inverclyde, we are fighting a strong campaign against knives, a campaign that has regularly topped the news agenda and found favour all over Scotland, with the exception being the Scottish Government.

That campaign recognised that to make our streets safer we need tough penalties for those who carry knives.

And it stands to reason that those who take someone’s life with a weapon should face our toughest sanction.