Facing up to justice

The crimes and sentencing of baby-murderer Lucy Letby is driving fresh conversations about justice. Edward Smyth examines the confusion and contradictions within them.

Edward Smyth

A writer and speaker in the field of criminal justice and faith, Edward Smyth is now pursuing doctoral research on the 'through-the-gate' experiences of individuals who have found faith while in prison.

Lucy Letby's Police file photograph.

Cheshire Constabulary.

‘Christians need to be ready for the inevitable moment when Lucy Letby declares that she’s found Jesus in prison.’

So read one of many tens of thousands of tweets posted on the day Letby was sentenced to spend the rest of her natural life behind bars. I probably saw several hundred of those tweets that day; yet this one has lingered, niggling away at me whenever my mind is drawn back to a consideration of the appalling facts of a case that surely takes its place amongst the worst ever to have been prosecuted in this country.

One of the things about the Letby trial which has caused the most consternation has been her refusal to appear in court for some of the verdicts, and for her sentencing hearing. The strength and volume of the response to what is being almost universally termed her ‘cowardice’ has some challenging things to say about what contemporary society means – or thinks it means – when it talks of ‘justice’. And, as I write, the Government’s response has been to force criminals to appear. An interrogation of these responses might just help us all begin to be able to think through where this leaves us, too.

The sense seems to be that in refusing to enter the dock at Manchester Crown Court for her sentencing, Letby has somehow evaded what we might term her ‘just deserts’; and that her victims and their families – and indeed society – have been cheated out of some of the justice to which they feel entitled. If the act of receiving the sentence is viewed as itself part of the punishment (not an assumption by which I am wholly persuaded, but one which sits at the heart of this argument) then the outrage caused by Letby’s avoidance of her sentencing speaks to a certain weighting of the importance of that one morning in court as against the next forty or even fifty years Letby will spend in prison. What this boils down to, then, is retribution pure and simple. We think offenders should be made to listen to the impact of their offending because we want them to feel all the things that we believe they deserve: guilt, shame and pain. We want this because of some innate, deep-rooted sense of balance and fairness which dictates that an appropriate response to the imposition of pain is, in turn, the imposition of pain.

Our legal system exists, in part, to ensure that this remains proportionate: the state censures offenders to avoid the inevitable disproportionate vigilante or retaliatory action which would otherwise ensue, exercising what some criminologists refer to as its ‘displacement function’. Prisons, of course, are out of sight and usually out of mind which perhaps explains the importance of the sentencing hearing in cases like this: it is the only opportunity we have to see the convicted person suffer – and we need to see it with our own eyes to make sure that, even if we think ‘prison is too good’ (i.e. insufficiently painful), we have at least seen the convicted person suffer some pain.

Letby may have avoided being deluged by the waters of justice rolling down upon her ... in the dock, but we should be in no doubt that those waters are rising from the floor of her prison cell as we speak.

For Christians, though, the elephant in the room is that Letby has been sentenced to a ‘whole life order’. In passing that sentence the state is saying ‘we have no interest in your rehabilitation’; and that is something which should give all pause for thought especially Christians. I do not think there is a ‘correct Christian response’ to this issue, as it happens: personally, I would rather we didn’t have whole life orders, but equally I have no objection to someone spending the rest of their life in prison if that is the only safe course of action. If we were designing a Christian system of criminal justice, then whole life orders would be indefensible on the grounds that we have no right to make impossible redemption; but we’re not designing – or operating under – a Christian system of criminal justice; and redemption in the theological sense is still possible in prison. I struggle – particularly in light of cases like this one – to get too worked up about it.

But perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps the fact that my own theology opposes whole life orders but, when exposed to the facts of a case like Letby’s, I find it difficult to care very much is exactly the kind of confusion and contradiction of which I spoke at the outset of this article. And in that confusion and contradiction perhaps we find what it is to be a Christian, our instinctive and culturally conditioned human responses coming up against the teaching of the ultimate countercultural being and, so often, overwhelming it in our hearts.

Those hearts ache for the victims of Lucy Letby and their families. Have they received justice? She will spend the rest of her life in prison: I think they have. Is that justice compromised because she did not appear for her sentencing? I think it is not, on both secular and Christian grounds. Secularly speaking the state has performed its ‘displacement function’ and the punishment is being carried out whether she was there to hear it or not. The victims have – for better or worse – been removed from the conversation, which is why criminal cases are listed as ‘The King v. ...’ rather than ‘[Victims’ names] v … .’ Theologically speaking Letby may have avoided being deluged by the waters of justice rolling down upon her (as Justice is described in the Bible) in the dock, but we should be in no doubt that those waters are rising from the floor of her prison cell as we speak, and she will be soaked through soon enough.

The case of Lucy Letby – as with any case of great evil – is a violent challenge. For the Christian, it is one which can only be met with prayer, thought, and introspection. In short: they must pray their way to their own response. But whilst they are doing that as Christians in an increasingly secular world; a world where the responses that they know their faith obliges them to make are so quickly and easily monstered – I can only hope that they and we find in our Church an institution willing to preach that countercultural, unpopular Gospel.

'Modern man often anxiously wonders about the solution to the terrible tensions which have built up in the world and which entangle humanity. And if at times he lacks the courage to utter the word “mercy”, or if in his conscience empty of religious content he does not find the equivalent, so much greater is the need for the Church to utter this word, not only in her own name but also in the name of all the men and women of our time.'
Pope John Paul II

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Digital

Freedom

30 October 2024

5 min read

Seen in Beijing: what’s it like in a surveillance society?

Cameras and controls remind a visitor to value freedom.

Alex Ross

A guard stands behind a barrier across an entrance to a station escalator.

A Beijing station gate and guard.

The recent Archers’ storyline wouldn’t have worked in Beijing. Here, great gantries of traffic cameras see into cars and record who is driving, so a court case which hinged on who was behind the wheel would not play out in months of suspense. The British press periodically runs stories on how much tracking and surveilling we are subject to, while the success of the TV series Hunted showed just how hard it is it to evade detection, and how interested we are in the possibility—but how often do we stop to think about the tensions inherent in the freedoms we enjoy?

It is difficult to explain just how free life in Britain is to someone in China, and how precious, and conducive to social good, that freedom is, to people at home. Take my recent experiences. Prior to entry at Beijing airport, I was randomly chosen for a health check and required to give a mouth swap. This may have been a benign Covid testing program, but it was impossible to tell from the questions on screen we had to answer—and a mouth swab certainly hands DNA to the authorities. At the university where I was studying, face scans are required for entry on every gate, and visitors must be registered with state ID in advance. Despite not having been in China since prior to Covid restrictions, my face had been pre-programmed into the system and an old photograph flashed up on screen as the barriers opened.

The first time I used a rental bike to cycle back to campus (the local Boris-bikes come on a monthly scheme, linked to a registered phone number), a message flashed up on my phone telling me that I had gone the wrong way down a one-way bike lane. The banner appeared twice, and the system would not let me lock the bike until I had acknowledged my error. The fact that the GPS system tracks the bikes so closely it knew I had gone against the traffic flow for a couple of hundred metres to avoid cycling across a 4-lane street was a surprise. Since that phone is registered to a Chinese friend, such infractions are also potentially a problem for him. What was less surprising, is the systemic nature of China’s ability to track its people at all times.

Walking through my university campus, where every junction has three or four cameras covering all directions, I occasionally wonder where students find space to have a quick snog.

No one uses cash in cities in China; in many outlets and places cash isn’t even accepted. Everyone uses apps like WeChat or Alipay to pay for goods—even at food trucks and casual stalls the vendor has a machine to scan a phone QR code. WeChat is WhatsApp and Facebook and a bank debit card and a travel service and news outlet rolled into one; Alipay, its only effective rival, offers similar. To obtain either account, a phone number is needed, numbers which have to be registered. And to pay for anything, a bank account in the name of the individual must be linked to the account. In other words, the government can choose to know every purchase I make, and its exact time and place. A friend who works in a bank says he uses cash where possible because he doesn’t want his colleagues in the bank to see what he's been buying.

Transport is also heavily regulated. To enter a train station, a national ID card is needed, which is scanned after bags are x-rayed. To purchase a high-speed train ticket, a national ID card—or passport for foreigners—is required. It might be possible to purchase a ticket anonymously in cash from a ticket window outside the station for an old-fashioned slow train, but one would still need an ID card corresponding to the face being scanned to make it to the platform—and the train station has, of course, cameras at every entrance and exit.

Cameras are pervasive. Walking through my university campus, where every junction has three or four cameras covering all directions, I occasionally wonder where students find space to have a quick snog. The only place I have not yet noticed cameras is the swimming pool changing rooms, which are communal, and in which I am the only person not to shower naked. There are cameras in the church sanctuary, and cameras on street crossings.

Imagine being constantly reminded by human overseers that your activity in person and online is both seen and heard.

Even when not being watched, out in the countryside, the state makes its presence felt. On a recent hike in the hills, our passage triggered a recording every few hundred metres: “Preventing forest fires is everyone’s responsibility.” Once or twice is common sense, ten or twenty times a stroll is social intrusion. One can, of course, learn to ignore the posters, the announcements, the security guards on trains playing their pre-recorded notices as they wander up the aisles and the loud speaker reminders that smoking in the toilets or boarding without a ticket would affect one’s social credit score and imperil future train travel, but white noise shapes perception.

As a (mostly) upright citizen, there are many upsides to constant surveillance. People leave their laptops unattended on trains, since they will not be stolen. Delivery packages are left strewn by the roadside or by a doorway: anyone stealing them will be quickly found. There is almost no graffiti. I can walk around at night safe in the knowledge that I am exceedingly unlikely to be a victim of petty theft, let alone knife or gun crime. Many Chinese have horrified tales of pickpockets in European cities or crime rates in the UK, while young friends are so used to the state having access to phone data and camera logs that they barely notice. Most Chinese I know are very happy with the trade-off of surveillance for safety—and the longer I spend in Beijing, the more appealing that normality seems.

To those who have lived outside, however, the restrictions make for a more Orwellian existence. Any church group wanting to hold an online service must apply for a permit. A friend was recently blocked from his WeChat account for a period after using a politically sensitive term in a family group-chat. Not being able to access certain foreign websites, search engines or media (no Google, no WhatsApp and no Guardian without an illegal virtual private network) might be an irritation for a foreign resident but means a lifetime of knowingly limited information for a citizen. Not being able to access information freely means, ultimately, not being able to think freely, a loss that cannot be quantified. The elite can skip over the firewall, but many cannot.

We have seen the dangers recently in the UK of limited information flow, and of social media interference by hostile players. Imagine never being able to know whether the information you are receiving is trustworthy—or being constantly reminded by human overseers that your activity in person and online is both seen and heard. Christians may believe in the benevolent and watchful gaze of God—but are rightly wary of devolving that omniscience to fellow humans.