Cemetary thugs walk free

Two teenagers who were part of a gang that desecrated a Jewish cemetery causing £1 million of damage have walked free from court after receiving just six months community service.

They admitted being part of an eight-strong group that smashed 385 graves, including those of children, in the Plashet Cemetery in Newham in a month-long vandalism spree earlier this year.

The youths had egged each other on to knock down the headstones after first discovering the graves when they kicked a football into the grounds.

Today politicians and leading figures from the Jewish community condemned the sentence for being little more than a "slap on the wrist" which did little to deter thugs intent on desecrating graveyards.

They also questioned a magistrate's suggestion that the two youths should send a letter of apology to the cemetery.

Lord Greville Janner QC, a leading Jewish lawyer and president of the Parliamentary Committee against Anti-Semitism, said: "This sends out the wrong signal to other youngsters who will see this as the way the community responds to such evil vandalism. For a crime of this magnitude the sentence was disproportionately lenient.

"They should have to talk to the families of the graves they desecrated face to face rather than just having to apologise to the superintendent of the cemetery."

Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, spokesman for the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, also believed the magistrates who had heard the case were unduly lenient.

He said: "A strong element of sentencing is the deterrent value and an act that was desperately hurtful to so many families should have a greater level of punishment."

Peter Sheldon, a magistrate and President of the United Synagogue which owns the cemetery, said: "On the face of it, and with the knowledge of the unbelievable damage caused, it seems a surprisingly lenient sentence.

"One area of the cemetery looked as if it had been hit by a hurricane."

The two 16-year-old youths, one from Plaistow and the other from Brixton, were yesterday told by magistrate Jeanette Richardson at Stratford-Youth Court to put the incident behind them.

She told them: "It was a very irresponsible thing that you did. We all make mistakes in our lives and you have to live with this."

The defence counsel for both boys, Elizabeth Neal, denied the attacks were anti-Semitic. She said: "Clearly this is a very nasty and unpleasant offence, but it was not racially aggravated. It was a mindless destruction of the of the graves but it was not an anti-Semitic offence. I'm not trying to say that this was a schoolboy prank, but what is clear is that this got out of hand.

"They had no idea it was a Jewish cemetery and they did not realise that family members would be visiting these graves."

Rabbi Jason Kleiman from Clayhall Synagogue in Ilford described the sentence as just a "slap on the wrist". He said: "It's meaningless if it doesn't educate these people about the pain they have caused the bereaved."

The pair, who cannot be named, are both full-time college students and were ordered to pay £50 costs.