DEADLY JUSTICE?Many years ago I read a report in one of the national newspaper about a group of four men who had beaten a man to death. The judge, and, presumably the jury, couldn’t decide who had struck the fatal blow. The judge, in his infinite wisdom, decreed that because of this none of them could be tried for murder and must be tried for the lesser offence of causing an affray, or something similar, which of course carried a much lower sentence.Even though I did not know anyone connected with this case I was so infuriated at this total lack of justice and my inability to do anything about it that I decided to vent my wrath by writing a short story about similar circumstances. Some people shout and scream or kick a bucket to vent their feelings, I write.The short story became extended more and more as each of the characters became living people and took me over completely, in effect writing their own stories.Finally, after coming to the end of my so called short story! I realised it had turned into a substantial novel of over ninety three thousand words.I hope that you get as absorbed with the events as they happen as I did when writing it and at the end, ask yourself a question: would you have done the same?
advertisement