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Three years for robbery that changed victim’s life
Woman had to give up volunteer work after attack by youth
FIVE months after Labour Party stalwart Carol Clinton was brutally attacked outside an Archway community centre in daylight she is still suffering severe effects of the robbery.Mrs Clinton – her late husband Alan, a historian, was Labour leader of Islington Council in the 1990s – suffers from occasional memory loss and hearing difficulties.Richard Rowan, 18, from Holloway Road, was given a three-year sentence this week for the attack and robbery in March, plus a series of other offences.
The attack on Mrs Clinton, 61, in which she was knocked to the ground, forced her to give up community work on the Elthorne estate regeneration project. She is left with “life-changing head injuries”.Mrs Clinton said: “It has had a profound effect on me, and has taken me away from the very important volunteer work I used to do within the community.”
She has thanked staff and volunteers at Caxton House community centre, who gave first aid after the attack, the ambulance service and hospital staff.
Mrs Clinton added: “I would also like to thank police for the thoughtful and tactful way they approached me and my family.”But her friends have criticised the sentence. Islington Council’s opposition Labour leader Councillor Catherine West said: “Three years does not send out a strong enough message. It is not going to deter this sort of crime in the future.“I’m not a lawyer but I would like to know what other form of rehabilitation was available for this youth. Carol is such a selfless person and this punishment doesn’t fit the crime.”
Cllr West added that Mrs Clinton, who has devoted her life to the community, was on her way to work on the Elthorne project when she was attacked in the street.
She was taken to the National Hospital for Neurology in Bloomsbury with head injuries following the attack, in which her handbag was stolen.
She was found lapsing in and out of consciousness on grass in a pool of blood outside Caxton House.
Rowan was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court for a series of robberies, including the one on Mrs Clinton.He had previously pleaded guilty to seven robberies, one attempted robbery and an attempted theft from an ATM machine, all of which took place within a week.Police arrested Rowan less than two days after Mrs Clinton was robbed. An investigation established that the victim’s card had been used in a local shop shortly after the robbery. |
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