Latest news with #YouBeTheJudge
ABC News
21-05-2025
- ABC News
You Be The Judge has public sentencing 'criminals', as part of Tasmanian Supreme Court workshop series
It is often said, usually on social media, that the sentences given to criminals are "too soft" — so, if given the chance, what would the public impose in the way of punishment? How hard would you go? Months or years in prison, to set an example? Or would the personal circumstances of the offender sway you towards a lesser punishment, in the hope of rehabilitation? That scenario has played as part of Law Week in Tasmania, with the You Be The Judge workshops hosted by the Supreme Court of Tasmania in Launceston and Hobart. In Hobart on Tuesday night, three groups of people heard the story of 22-year-old Cherie Ann Brown, a made-up person, and put forward the punishment they thought fit the crime. Before that, they heard from Tasmania's Chief Justice Chris Shanahan who explained sentencing law and purposes, including sentencing principles and the factors considered in determining the sentence. Sentencing was a "poorly understood process", he said, with "misapprehension" it was "just about punishment". "It is one of the hardest things I do," he told the participants, laying out the many considerations in play. With the explanation out of the way, the "sentencing" began — the prosecution stated the facts of the case and the defence lawyer explained the mitigating circumstances. The Brown case was modelled on similar real cases. Here is what the participants heard on Tuesday. Read the following and consider what your choice of punishment would be. Then see how it compares with what the participants decided, and what the Chief Justice handed down. Crown Prosecutor Edward Burrows-Cheng said late on Saturday night in June 2023, a male employee was working at a newsagency when a female wearing a balaclava entered, holding a blood-filled syringe, and demanded money from the till, telling the employee "If you don't give me the money right now, I will stick this into you". Fearing he would be harmed, the employee "emptied the contents of the till into a brown paper bag and gave it to the female who ran out of the building". The male employee called the police, who "soon located the woman with $600 she could not account for". Brown later admitted the crime and told police she "needed the money for drugs" and new shoes for her 6-year-old son. She said she had "no intention of harming anyone with the syringe" but considered it a good weapon because "people are real scared of being infected." All but $10 of the $600 was recovered, Mr Burrows-Cheng said. Brown was charged and bailed to live with her mum. Mr Burrows-Cheng noted Brown's prior offences, which included "stealing, drink driving, possession of a prohibited substance, and a conviction for stealing". Defence counsel Rochelle Mainwaring told the participants about Brown's difficult "history", which included being abandoned by her alcoholic father and being put into foster care at age 10 by her mother. "She had 12 different foster homes and four different schools between the age of 10 and 16," Ms Mainwaring said. "She was a poor student. She started using drugs and abusing alcohol when she was 17 and lived on the streets at that time. She was sexually abused by a group of youths in a park when she was 18. "She has never been employed. She has had several relationships over the years. Her son was born when she was living with a known criminal, who is currently in prison for wounding." Ms Mainwaring said Brown was living with her son in a "housing commission home". The "judges" also heard Mr Burrows-Cheng read the impact statement from the "victim", Gary Black . "She threatened to stick the needle into me if I didn't hurry. I put all the money in a brown paper bag and gave it to her. She left the shop. I was so frightened, I couldn't stand up, and my legs just wouldn't hold me." Mr Black said his workmate came from the back of the newsagency and found him "as white as a sheet". Mr Black told of "nightmares" and time off work. When he did return, he could not be in the shop by himself for fear of another robbery. "I don't know if the blood in the syringe was HIV positive, but I have nightmares that the blood was splattered all over me and I died a long and painful death. None of this was my fault, I was just doing my job and earning some money to keep my family." Mr Black also said the robbery had seriously affected his family life. "I have two little girls. I won't let them go anywhere unless either my wife or I are with them. I won't answer the front door at home. My wife has had the hardest time, I yell at her when I can't cope. Chief Justice Shanhan explained the maximum available sentence for armed robbery in Tasmania is 21 years. The "judges" were also told the range of punishments available included the following: • Imprisonment • Drug treatment order • Suspended term of imprisonment (partially or wholly suspended) • Home detention (with electronic monitoring) • Community correction order • Fine, compensation order, or restitution order • Deferred sentencing order • Adjournment with undertakings (with or without a conviction) • Record a conviction and discharge the offender • Dismiss the charge without conviction So, what would you decide as punishment, after carefully considering the seriousness of the crime, the impact on the victim and the circumstances of the offender? Make a note of yours to see how it compares with what the group of "judges" handed down. The three groups of "judges" at the workshop all decided on no prison time for Brown, although there was some disagreement. One said Brown not being imprisoned was "too lenient". Another asked about "restorative justice", a process that aims to repair the harm done and may include supervised meetings between the victim and offender, alongside other punishments. Others described the sentences arrived at by their groups as "reasonable", "appropriate" and "correct", although one "judge" said she only "mostly agreed" with her group's sentence decision. Chief Justice Shanahan told the "judges" he would, in this hypothetical case, impose a 9-month suspended prison sentence with a 2-year community corrections order. Brown would also be subject to regular drug testing, regular reporting to a probation officer and undergo a program of treatment for alcohol dependence. He explained the need to consider the welfare of Brown's son, an innocent party in this. Did this square with what you would do? Too lenient, or about right? As Chief Justice Shanahan explained, sentencing is not just about punishment, it is also about "rehabilitation of offenders" and "deterrence". Jail time, he told the participants, was also a "very expensive" last resort. The final in the 2025 series of You Be The Judge workshops for Law Week is happening tonight in Hobart, between 5pm and 7pm. Bookings are essential.
Times
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
You Be the Judge review — Anne Robinson turns the law into a game show
Given her erstwhile incarnation as the nation's off-message headteacher, rudely insulting contestants on one of the country's most popular game shows, you can see why Anne Robinson was chosen to present You Be the Judge: Crime & Punishment (5), a recriminatory look at the prison sentencing system. You are the weakest link, M'Lud. Goodbye. It felt like a nifty idea. Reconstructions of the courtroom submissions made in four real-life cases before a final reveal of the actual sentences, all shown to four panels made up of the relatives of victims of other violent crimes, and three others composed of ex-judges, ex-police officers and, most colourful of all, a trio of Cockney ex-criminals. 'I'd have liked to have had that judge at a few of my
Daily Mail
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Anne Robinson leaves Ed Balls squirming with catty eight-word swipe during 'awkward' Good Morning Britain interview
Anne Robinson left Ed Balls squirming with a catty eight-word swipe during 'awkward' Good Morning Britain interview on Tuesday. The 80-year-old, who is arguably best known for hosting BBC 's The Weakest Link, appeared on the ITV show to chat to Susanna Reid, 54, and Ed Balls, 58, about the new Channel 5 programme You Be The Judge. Back in March it was revealed that Anne would be returning to host the new show and it follows real hearings recreated as participants decide what sentence the criminal should receive. The actual sentence given by a judge is then disclosed. Appearing on GMB, Anne opened up about what fans can expect as part of the new series, but there was a very 'awkward' moment during the chat between Anne and Ed. After Ed asked her a question, Anne brutally said: 'I knew you were going to be awkward.' Anne Robinson leaves Ed Balls squirming with catty eight-word swipe during 'awkward' Good Morning Britain interview And Ed, who appeared taken a back, told her: 'I'm not going to be awkward!' He then went on to ask if she thinks that the programme tells us that some people should go to prison for longer, or other people for shorter sentences, or increase the number of jails. Anne said: 'I think certainly my view, a lot of women shouldn't be in prison. 'A lot of people who can't read and write should be learning to read and write. 'I do think this programme, although we see people asking for longer sentences, you can either be right, or you can be safe. 'If you want to be safe, shorter prison sentences and more rehabilitation is needed.' You Be The Judge, which airs on Tuesday May 9 at 9:00pm on C5, sees four groups made of retired police officers, former judges, former inmates and relatives of victims will also be given a chance to give their verdicts on what sentence they believe to be fair. The participants' decision will be put against the other groups to see how it compares. Anne spoke about the 'jaw-dropping story' the new show is set to bring to screens and said: 'Why is the sentencing of criminals so widely inconsistent? 'Why does a protester who climbs up a bridge to stop the traffic spend more time in prison than someone who punches an innocent man who dies as a result? 'This programme tells a jaw dropping story. The government needs to watch it.' This isn't Anne's first presenting gig by a long shot. She hosted Points of View between 1987 and 1997, followed by The Weakest Link between 2000 and 2012. The star also took over as Countdown host when she joined in 2021 to replace Nick Hewer. She left the Channel 4 show after just a year and reports at the time suggested there was an on-set feud with Rachel Riley. And earlier this week Rachel took a brutal swipe at Anne as their Countdown feud rages on. After Anne recently admitted to telling Rachel to 'shut up' on the show's set, Rachel told The Sun: 'If Anne needs to mention me for publicity then good luck to her. 'I have the same opinion of her as most people do.' Rachel went on to reveal she doesn't 'pay any attention to what she says'. The presenter first joined Countdown back in 2009 at just 22 years old when she took over from Carol Vorderman. R achel's comments come after Anne opened up to the Telegraph last month about what really happened during her time hosting Countdown when the presenter quit the show after just a year back in 2022. Anne was rumoured to have been involved in a rift with the show's other presenters Rachel Riley and Susie Dent. But she attempted to shut down such speculation. Speaking in an interview with the Telegraph, Anne denied a proper fall out between the pair as she explained: 'It's just a story. 'Rachel was a bit talkative when I was interviewing the contestants but once we shut her up it was fine.'
Daily Mirror
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
TV host Anne Robinson on life at 80 - 'I've just thrown money at my face and I keep fit'
Anne Robinson is back on TV with a new 5 documentary about prisons and shows a softer side in new interview She was the queen of mean on TV in The Weakest Link, but at 80, Anne Robinson appears to be mellowing, possibly even going soft. She wants the chance to keep on making TV and spoiling her grandchildren for decades to come. Asked about her mortality, Anne says: "I do think about it quite a lot. And I look at the obituaries saying, oh, golly, they went at 70, they went at 72. But then the other day there was a woman who died at 116. So what I do is I try to keep fit, and live in the day and be grateful for wonderful grandsons, my daughter and my son in law, although he supports Everton, but you can't have everything… And I love clothes. I keep buying clothes, I don't think, Oh, well, I won't need any soon." She adds: "Medically, and in our heads, we've just progressed a great deal. If you look at Jane Fonda, I don't know she must be 83, 84, and she's looking fantastic. It's why, when I had a facelift, I immediately said that I'd had one, because I didn't want people who are my age to think, why don't I look like her with no lines? I've just thrown money at my face. Not sure it's working anymore… But not everyone has those options. I have been very lucky." Anne, who is dating Andrew Parker Bowles, says she surrounds herself with younger people "in their 50s" which helps her keep feeling young. She clearly adores her grandchildren, Hudson and Parker, although she says they are "at the grunting stage at the moment, because they're 15 and 16". She lets them use her tennis court at home and was amused rather than angry when they pulled an iPad out of her wall when their mother took their iPhones off them recently. Asked if she is soft with her grandchildren, she adds: "Yeah. I think it's true for all grandparents, particularly ones who probably worked during their children's years, that you utterly appreciate your grandchildren. I'm very lucky. Very, very lucky. " Anne is speaking as she returns to TV in a new 5 documentary looking at prison sentences in the UK and asking if they need to change. It is a return to the hard-hitting subject matter she covered as a journalist, and the determined campaigner we remember from Watchdog. You Be The Judge examines four real life sentences with participants taking part in reconstructions and asked to compare how the judges came to the decision when it comes to sentencing. "It's certainly a topic that should have more publicity," She says, sounding more like the serious and agitated Anne we are used to seeing on screen. "Do people realise that prison isn't working? Each government that comes along says they are going to be tougher on crime, and that means longer sentences, which also means the prison system is working less and less. We are 120% overcrowded in prisons, we don't have enough officers and the prisons themselves are Victorian – it's just not working. There are too many criminals and not enough staff. If you asked a prison governor why prisoners can't spend their time learning to read and write, or learning a trade like carpentry, they will just tell you they don't have the staff to make that happen. "We need to embarrass the government. They've just got to find the money. " I want Yvette Cooper to sit down with a supper on her lap and watch this from beginning to end, because I need the government to be embarrassed." The truth is, the documentary even managed to stun Anne. "This is without a doubt the most shocking documentary I've ever made. I was pretty shocked when I made a documentary on abortion and learned people's views on it, but if you watch this programme from beginning to end you will be terrified at the state of the British justice system." Anne was married to Charles Wilson, a former journalist and newspaper executive, until 1973 and her second marriage to John Penrose ended in 2007. She would like to do more TV like her latest project, but looking back over her career, one of her favourite times of her life was being a trailblazer at the Daily Mirror. Whilst there in the Eighties she had her own column and argubaly developed the vitriolic style which made her a household name later on TV. "I love journalism, of all the things I've done, and I've crossed the Atlantic doing Weakest Link in America and here. But my favourite time was working for newspapers, and a lot of that was at the Daily Mirror, we were a great campaigning newspaper and it was crazy. There was one, perhaps two, women reporters in the newsroom. There were no women sub editors, and I was the first woman ever to regularly edit a national newspaper. So we've come on leaps and bounds. I sometimes think youngsters don't realise what it was like in the old days." So is it a pain that most people still know her as the woman from the Weakest Link? It doesn't seem to be, and the money she earned including a reported £10m golden handcuffs deal at it's heights of success, may have helped soften any blow. "Listen, they're all customers," she says of the audience, making it clear she is much more approachable off screen than she was speaking to contestants on it. "I never refuse a selfie. I never refuse an autograph. Because if the people who are stopping me weren't there, I wouldn't have had the career I've got. So I'm probably quite unusual like that. I mean, I'm thrilled if someone wants a selfie. I'm not so thrilled if I've got no make-up on. We went to boarding school, but we had to go to my mother's market stall in the holidays, so that we learned to meet the customers and to know the customers were very important. And that's never left me, really." And Anne being a selfie fan is not the only surprise during the interview. She claims to have never watched Romesh Ranganathan host The Weakest Link "I've purposely never looked at it, but I'm told he's very good actually. He's got to conform to what the rules are now, not what I could get away with. I was working at the best time in television" But there is one other quizmaster she has a lot of time for; step forward Lee Mack. "I love The 1% club. I know people's heroes are Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, but Lee Mack does it for me," she says. "He's genuinely funny, and you watch him on anything else, he's not just The 1% club, but he's very quick witted. And when I was doing weakest link, I was quite fascinated by the fact that old comedians were much better at responding to me quickly and in a funny way than New Age comedians. I hate all this hugging on TV these days, and Lee Mack doesn't do that. He only really needs to hug me. Asked to confirm she means she finds Lee attractive, she adds: "It's a deep crush. He actually looks even sexier with his glasses on. "His mother and I went to school together. I think he is brilliant. We bumped into each other at Salford, at the BBC studios, and that's when he said to me, you were at convent school with my mother. That's how I know." Lee's quiz show is a big success on ITV whilst Anne's ran for 12 years on the BBC. But she still remembers how the stand out hit almost didn't happen for her. "A fax came in from the BBC saying we've created a new game show, and we think Anne Robinson would be suitable, because she'll look as if she can answer the questions. "My manager said, 'I'll tell them, you're too busy'. And I said, No, let's take the meeting. And it's a very good example, if girls are going for jobs to just explore them, take the meeting, even if you don't think the job is for you. "I think it's Gary Player who says you have to work at being lucky. He used to say, the harder I work, the luckier I get. I think it's also about taking risks. Yeah, you know, I don't think I realised that when the Weakest Link started, that people were going to find me a horrible person. I just thought, Oh, this is original, and it's me. And although I earned a great deal of money after having created the character, in fact, it was me. "In the early days, it was quite tame, we got more and more naughty with it as time went on. Also because it was a successful show in the afternoon, I genuinely don't think all those toffs at the BBC were particularly monitoring it. At the end of every round I'd say, Do you think we'll get away with that? And we did because they weren't watching television, they were too busy angsting about Question Time and Newsnight." * You Be The Judge: Crime and Punishment is on 5 on Tuesday at 9pm.
Daily Mirror
29-04-2025
- Daily Mirror
Anne Robinson 'completely astonished' by experience in first TV return since Countdown exit
Former The Weakest Link host Anne Robinson has turned documentary maker for Channel 5 as the TV presenter looks at the justice system and how judges come up with prison sentences Anne Robinson has blasted the UK court system and says the public agrees with her sentences are "a mess". The former Weakest Link host, 80, is fronting a new Channel 5 programme You Be The Judge examining real life sentences with participants taking part in reconstructions and asked to compare judgements. Anne said: 'I was completely astonished by what I learnt about how sentencing comes about; it was jaw-dropping. Around 71% of the public don't believe that the courts are tough enough. But, actually, if you look carefully at how judges arrive at their sentences and look at the overcrowding in prisons you learn a great deal. 'The more I looked at this subject, the more I realised we need to know more about what's happening. Prison doesn't work and the sentencing is a mess.' On the programme Anne and the team look at four previous cases, including the murder of teenager Ellie Gould in 2019, and how the judges came to the decision when it comes to sentencing. Anne said the public were confused about sentences and explained: 'In this documentary, we see a Just Stop Oil protester spending more time in prison than someone who got manslaughter for punching an innocent man, who then died. I was shocked. But you see the judicial arithmetic that leads to sentencing - so much is taken into account.' Despite Anne blasting the system, she does not believe it would be solved by longer sentences and more prison time for some offenders. Speaking to promote the programme, she explained: 'If you want a safer society, prisoners have to spend less time in prison. They're not learning a trade or contributing to having a better life when they come out. "The public wants to hand out longer sentences, but nobody is explaining to us that that only makes it worse. The powerful fact is that up to 50% of prisoners are illiterate, and up to 30% reoffend." She says she hopes the show can "change people's minds" about the punishment of crimes. She thinks the public may then start to campaign to the government for changes in the longer term. Anne is best known as the host of BBC game show The Weakest Link from 2000 to 2012. She also posted other shows including Points of View, Watchdog and Countdown. * You Be The Judge: Crime and Punishment is on 5 on Tuesday at 9pm.
