DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Race killer's mockery of Britain's soft cells

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Race killer’s mockery of Britain’s soft cells

The sickening sight of Stephen Lawrence’s killer swaggering around his cell, taking pictures on a smuggled mobile phone, illustrates the shambles in our prisons.

We report today how David Norris, one of two racists convicted of the student’s 1993 murder, has been illegally calling and texting friends and using social media like anyone on the outside.

The snaps, taken inside HMP Dartmoor, show Norris wearing designer clothes, a gold watch and sunglasses, and with an Xbox games console to stave off boredom. What on earth is becoming of our jails?

Nobody is advocating that prisoners should spend their days breaking rocks. But as well as being a place of rehabilitation, prison is also supposed to be a punishment.

Daily Mail Comment: The sickening sight of Stephen Lawrence’s killer swaggering around his cell, taking pictures on a smuggled mobile phone, illustrates the shambles in our prisons

Our investigation raises serious questions about the justice system. The regime seems so lax in most jails that it’s no more traumatic than being sent to boarding school. And the ease with which inmates can get smartphones into prison (and the failure of wardens to keep the devices out) presents a major security headache.

Gangsters use them to trade drugs and guns, to intimidate witnesses and even plot murders beyond the walls.

Yet scanning devices and phone blockers do not cost a fortune. Nor do old-fashioned body and cell searches.

Thanks to the Mail, Norris faces a fresh criminal probe, longer behind bars and moving to a maximum-security prison.

But while he bragged on WhatsApp about getting out of jail in two years, Stephen’s heartbroken family suffer a life sentence.

The mask slips again

In his conference speech, Sir Keir Starmer made great play of the claim that he had rooted out anti-Semitism from Labour.

But this is far from the only form of bigotry lurking in the underbelly of his party.

In describing Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as ‘superficially black’, Labour MP Rupa Huq yesterday exposed herself as the worst kind of racist hypocrite.

She has since had the whip withdrawn, but there are many in the party who support her toxic views. They demand racial equality and social justice, but only for those echoing their Leftist orthodoxies.

Daily Mail Comment: Whatever faults the Tory Party may have, its record on minority recruitment and promotion has been exemplary. All are judged by merit and on talent – exactly how Mr Kwarteng became Chancellor

The truth is that black and Asian people who have the effrontery to support the Conservatives are vilified and treated as hate figures. But by portraying them as ‘race traitors’, the Left reveal their own abhorrent prejudices.

Whatever faults the Tory Party may have, its record on minority recruitment and promotion has been exemplary. All are judged by merit and on talent – exactly how Mr Kwarteng became Chancellor.

By contrast, far from being progressive, the Left is fixated on skin colour – and keeping ethnic minorities locked into a perpetual state of victimhood.

With Miss Huq’s sickening outburst, the mask has slipped again. Despite Sir Keir’s protestations, Labour has proved beyond doubt it truly is the nasty party.

A blitz on burglars?

How refreshing to hear a police chief acknowledge that burglary is a serious crime that often blights victims’ lives.

But how appalling that this statement of the obvious has taken so long.

With national clear-up rates at a paltry 3 per cent, the fact is that burglars are being allowed to invade people’s homes with virtual impunity. Even getting a police officer to attend the scene and take statements is a rare privilege.

Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has now signalled a more assiduous approach.

He has pledged a blitz against hundreds of serial burglars and that from now on every victim should receive a police visit.

This is welcome, but talk is cheap. Sir Mark will be judged on results – not words.

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