Last week the country and national press were so excited by the coming of the Olympic Games that Friday’s passing of a life sentence, by Manchester Crown Court,  on the murderer of Indian student, Anuj Bidve, slipped virtually unnoticed underneath the radar.

On Boxing Day last year a young Salford criminal, Kiaran Stapleton aged 21, approached his innocent 23 year old victim on the street and after asking him the time shot him in the head seemingly just for the fun of it. No motive was established and no remorse was shown by Stapleton either before, during or after the trial. On the contrary, he seemed to relish his new found notoriety and spent the whole trial laughing and smirking.

Of course, it’s very easy to become emotional following the commission of such a despicable crime and the taking of an innocent life so full of promise by a killer from the complete opposite end of the social scale. There will be further calls for capital punishment and whilst I, as a lawyer, would find it hard to vote in favour of the death sentence I have to admit that it would be difficult to find a better advertisement for it than Stapleton.

We have a serious problem in this country with a large criminal underclass who live on State handouts and generally behave in such a manner that any decent citizen would find repugnant. Successive governments have huffed and puffed and talked about making our streets safe but the sad fact is that these crimes continue to mount as the police are withdrawn from the streets and their numbers diminished in the midst of wholesale Government spending cuts.

It’s no use the Prime Minister talking about his “Big Society” and despairing at the breakdown of the family unit and the consistent failings of State education. Something has to be done and done quickly. We don’t need yet another public enquiry or an investigation by select committee but a clear recognition of the problem. Significant parts of our country, particularly the inner cities, are virtually lawless and unless more police are put on the beat and unless our courts deal firmly with convicted criminals our problems will worsen and events like that on Boxing Day 2011 will sadly become commonplace.