Posted on 10/18/2020 7:07:22 AM PDT by RandFan
A convicted murderer who helped to stop the London Bridge terror attack last November will have his sentence cut after the Queen intervened.
Steven Gallant, 42, was on day release at an event for reformed prisoners in Fishmongers' Hall when Usman Khan began his attack.
Gallant, armed only with a Narwhal tusk, helped to restrain Khan, who was wearing a fake suicide vest and was armed with two knives.
Khan was shot dead by police but not before he had killed Jack Merritt, 25, and 23-year-old Saskia Jones - both part of the Learning Together scheme to help prisoners access education.
Several other people were injured.
Gallant had been out on licence after being jailed for life in 2005 with a minimum term of 17 years after being one of two men who murdered firefighter Barrie Jackson, 33, in Hull.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said the Queen had employed the little used "Royal Prerogative of Mercy" to bring Gallant's case before the parole board 10 months early.
The parole board has the final decision, but it is unlikely Gallant will be denied his freedom.
It has been reported that he has expressed remorse for the murder of Mr Jackson, who was beaten to death outside a pub.
He has not faced any loss of privileges for the past 10 years, has addressed previous substance abuse, and is studying for a business degree.
Jack Merritt's father David, 55, said Gallant "fully deserves this pardon, or reduction in sentence".
He told the Sunday Mirror: "It is fantastic. He was very close to Jack and he turned his life around and reformed. I am really pleased for him."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
I wonder what the details were on his murdering a firefighter? He can’t be all bad if he stopped a murdering raghead.
The firefighter he murdered, Barrie Jackson was a complete piece of s**t. He went on trial for attempted murder for battering a 64 year old woman almost to death because she tried to intervene when she saw him punching his own elderly father.
He was cleared of attempted murder but convicted of assault. He was also due to stand trial later for witness intimidation, but Gallant and a friend decided that the legal system had failed society and decided to give him a taste of his own medicine by giving him a beatdown of his own. Unlike Jackson’s victim, he didn’t survive, so Gallant and his friend went down for murder.
All things considered, Gallant did society a favour on both occasions and his pardon is well deserved.
From the local news accounts, the firefighter was no angel.
He was tried but acquitted of attempted murder of a prostitute. He was found guilty of attacking another woman who witnessed the firefighter punching his father and tried to stop him. And was charged for intimidating a witness during the trial.
Gallant had gotten a group of men (can’t tell how many but one other was convicted in the firefighter’s death) and they accosted him when he was coming out of a pub.
obviously the Queen talked to people about this. I would like to know who encouraged her to do this. Maybe Boris wanted this but without a trail to him. I wonder.
It’s tough not to have at least some degree of sympathy for a guy who’s willing to take on a determined terrorist when your only weapon is a narwhal tusk.
“Royal Prerogative of Mercy”
HEAR! HEAR!
The Queen would not have done this without government advice. Boris will have advised her to grant this pardon, she cannot make decisions like this without the consent of the government.
Well, technically she can, it just isn’t customary or protocol in current times. The Queen is far more than a figurehead.
Its actually debatable how much Royal Powers she really has. The Royal Prerogative was used to prorogue Parliament last year during the Brexit negotiations during Boris’s minority administration, to the outrage of Parliament.
The Supreme Court ruled that it was ‘illegal, void and of no effect’, despite the fact it was theoretically in the power of the executive (i.e. the Crown) to prorogue parliament at any time.
The implications of this ruling are that the Supreme Court has the final say on whether an excercise of executive power is legal or not. They’ve set a precendent whereby Royal Powers (excercised by a democratically elected Prime Minister) can be nullified by the judges of the Supreme Court if they don’t like it. Seemed like a legally dubious over-reach that was politcally motivated by power crazed judges but now they have reached and successfully employed that precedent the Queen’s theoretical constitutional powers are no longer even existent in theory any more.
Look up the “White Hall Papers” supposed scandal (only a scandal to those who don’t understand the form of government in the UK).
You would have to be more specific than that. These ruling on the proroguation of Parliament last year set a precedent which essentially nullifies the Royal Preroguative and means that any theoretical excercise of Royal power can be overturned by the Judges of the Supreme Court.
If there is someone who is more knowledgable on British constitional law than me who can tell me otherwise, I believe that it is now the case that legally, any remaining theoretical powers the Queen has have been destroyed and rendered null and void by this ruling because the court can simply rule that it is illegal, even when excercised by a democratically elected Prime Minister on the Queen’s behalf.
This is what I was talking about:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/14/secret-papers-royals-veto-bills
It’s a total oddity with that Supreme Court ruling, given the Supreme Court’s own powers, like any other governing entity, are delegated from the Monarch.
The Daily Express prints nonsense. The last time a British monarch vetoed a bill presented to them in Parliament was Queen Anne when she refused to give her assent to the Scottish Militia bill of 1708, and she only did so on the advice of her ministers because they feared the militia would be disloyal and join up with the Jacobites.
If the Queen refused to sign a bill passed through both houses and waiting for her signiture it would be an explosive development and would create a constitutional crisis.
They don’t have a constitution.
What they are talking about are bills that are undergoing the process of being debated and the government used the Royal Prerogative to stop the bill progressing through Parliament, this isn’t the same as a veto of a bill that has passed through both houses and needs the Queen’s signature to become law.
And again, it appears that the royal prerogative is being used by her ministers (i.e. the government).
The Lord Chancellor’s recommendation. LC in the case is the equivalent of our Attorney General, but is a member of the House of Commons too. Robert Buckland.
https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/secretary-of-state-for-justice
Not according to the articles.
Royal prerogatives are held only with the consent of Parliament, and Parliament, not the monarch, is sovereign. A royal prerogative may be abolished by Parliament at any time, as happened in the 2010 Fixed Term Parliaments Act, which removed the royal prerogative to dissolve (as distinct from prorogue) Parliament.
When the Supreme Court was established in 2009, Parliament chose to delegate to an external body the power as final authority on matters of Law which had previously been exercised by a committee of Parliament itself, the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords. At some future date Parliament may decide that that delegation was a mistake, and may resume the power to itself. But unless or until it does so, what the Supreme Court decides is, for better or worse, the law.
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