Drug-dealing milkman spared jail

Benny Hill was a milkman once. He sang about Ernie. And Ernie gave a widow woman a bit more than gold tops on his regular round! Milkmen have long helped out their customers - in more ways than one.

Robert Holding is a milkman aged 72, which is a something to report in its own right. He received a suspended prison sentence at Burnley Crown Court yesterday for the supply and possession of cannabis. What? Yes, he's a drug trafficker! Heaven forfend. He must have been confused over the government's classification coding. Anyway, he's been supplying elderly customers, or so he says, with the drug to "ease their aches and pains". So he's now technically a criminal.

The judge said she was giving him the sentence as "an act of mercy" in light of his wife's illness. I suppose if she wasn't in a care home with Alzheimer's, the judge would have jailed him.

If you read this report in the Independent, you get the impression that the authorities took a very heavy hand. There is a large amount of pontification all round - the judge, the police and the CPS. It's a pity they don't take all that puffed up rage to the Ministry of Defence and ask what is being done to stop the real criminals in the Afghan drugs trade. It's no good spending a century in the hills shooting at the Taliban if the poppies flourish in the fields with impunity!

It's all a sense of priorities and proportion.