On the 29th February 2020, Archie Beston, a 19 year old boy, was stabbed and on the 6th March he was pronounced dead. His mother has been left childless. His family and endless amount of friends are now grieving for a boy who simply went on a night out with his friends. He was harmless, friendly and one of the warmest people you would ever meet. He had a smile that could light up a room. A whole community could tell you so many stories about how he made them smile, or laugh and how he contributed to their childhoods and lives in so many different ways.

HOWEVER, somehow the vile people who did this to him will continue to walk the streets in years to come, once their sentences are over. Some of them are even out on bail as I type this, not even a week after the attack.

THIS is what is wrong with our justice system - a young man has been robbed of a whole life and yet those who took it from him will be able to do all the things he now can’t.

They will be able to go home to their families. They will be able to have families of their own as they grow older. 
They will have the opportunity to travel, to move out, to fall in love, to have children and to do so many other things.

Archie on the other hand will not. And he is not the first victim to such senseless attacks. The longer these people get away with this, the longer it will carry on.

The sentence for stabbing needs to be a life sentence. Why should they get the luxury of a life on the outside, when their victims often don’t?