Last year, just two mandatory three-year sentences were imposed on burglars, while no drug traffickers were sentenced under the three strikes law at all.For those many who believe that Britain is soft on criminals, these paltry and declining figures look like confirmation of all their suspicions. “Yet again, the Government’s appetite for headlines exceeds its ability to deliver,” thundered the shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, seemingly unaware of his own leader’s ultimate responsibility for it. So, burglars offending for the third time are meant to receive jail sentences of at least three years, while a third conviction for trafficking class-A drugs attracts a seven-year incarceration.In theory, anyway. In reality, only eight burglars and three drug dealers have been jailed under the new law over the last three years.

Imported from the United States, this rule is supposed to deter career criminals by sharply increasing their sentences when they they are convicted of the same offence for the third time.
Introduced in 1999, the Crime Sentences Act is designed particularly to target burglars and drug dealers. Yet more evidence of the namby-pamby out-of-touch liberalism of Britain’s judges has turned up this week, this time in Home Office figures which betray a reluctance to deploy the “three strikes and you’re out” law. It also stated “all the drugs and supplies have now arrived at their intended recipients in Baghdad” The charity says this is untrue.
More from Robert Fisk. “Could I point out,” he wrote, “that I find the tone of your recent fax and the implied criticism disappointing to say the least …”A letter from the Department for International Development on 9 July claimed there was “some uncertainty about which four [sic] hospitals” the supplies were intended for, adding that British forces in Basra had “a lot of competing priorities to manage”. to expect these medical supplies could be delivered with a clear audit trail [sic] in an insecure and challenging environment where looting was occurring is simply unrealistic.”This is the first reference in British documents to the looting that British troops permitted in Basra after their occupation of the city Ms Daftari had made no mention of this But Colonel Carmichael had not finished. My predecessors did not receive any receipts that I am aware of and I am not optimistic that I will …

hospital receipts for the delivery of our supplies which I have requested several times in my faxes to you.”A reply came three days later from a Colonel E B Carmichael ­ his address was “Headquarters Multinational Division (South East), Operation TELIC II” ­ saying Colonel Graham had left Iraq, but claiming that “at the very outset no undertaking was given that medical supplies could readily be moved to Baghdad at that moment in time … would be delivered to the pre-assigned hospitals,” she wrote. “We had full trust in the British Forces that they would arrange the safe distribution of all our supplies Unfortunately .. we have not received … By 23 June, Ms Daftari was faxing Colonel Graham to say that, despite his assurances, the medical supplies had still not been supplied to the Baghdad hospitals. On 10 July, she wrote again to Colonel Graham to say 30 per cent of the supplies in the list of medicines were missing when delivered to one Baghdad hospital “You kindly assured us .. that our supplies … She repeated the names of the five hospitals expecting the supplies.