Newcastle horsepuncher jailed. A lowlife yob, but isn’t this over the top?

Can someone shed more light on the case of the Newcastle horsepuncher?

I am notoriously liberal on penal matters but found the one-year jail sentence a wholly excessive punishment, an example of what I have taken to calling tabloid justice.

It doesn’t mean I have any real sympathy for this unlikeable character. Nor would I if the circumstances been reversed and he was a Mackem laying into the horse.

But leaving aside the risk it could have ended in a more serious incident, we have here a drunken lowlife who punches but does not hurt a police horse. If he deserves a year, the cretins who beat up the Bigg Market will presumably be going inside for life.

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