FOR what looked like a landmark judgement – and was certainly one to welcome – it received surprisingly little prominence.

All seven of the gang that carried out the execution of the Hell’s Angel Gerry Tobin as he rode along the M40 were convicted of murder and jailed for life.

Only two of the gang fired a single shot each at Mr Tobin. Only one bullet struck and killed him. A third member of the gang was driving the gunmen’s car. Three more were in another car, acting as back up if the first murder attempt failed.

The seventh gang member was merely cruising the area. But even he was given a minimum sentence of 25 years. The others must serve similar or longer minimum terms, up to 30 years.

Our judiciary often takes stick. So let’s raise a cheer for Mr Justice Treacy, who handed out this salutary, uncompromising punishment at Birmingham Crown Court.

The landmark bit – if indeed it is so – is that he found all seven of these thugs virtually equal in guilt.

Here surely is a pointer for dealing with gang crime. True, this murder was plotted.

But before any gang sets out it should know that what ever happens becomes – or might well become – the full responsibility of each of them. And the principle need not stop there.

Sometimes, after a serious driving offence it proves impossible to prosecute the driver because he/she and passengers in the vehicle refuse to say who was at the wheel. All should therefore be charged – if not with driving then with an offence of non-cooperation, carrying the same penalty as the primary charge.

Our criminal law needs many changes to make clear that the law-abiding citizens are firmly in charge. But under Labour the opposite has happened. Figures just unearthed show that only one in seven offences results in a criminal being charged. More prisoners than ever are being released early, even before they have served half their sentence.

Since June last year, this leniency has put 4,000 burglars and 8,000 violent criminals prematurely back into society. “Tough on crime, baloney, baloney, baloney.”

SINCE my taste in popular music is prehistoric – i.e. before Elvis – it might be no surprise to reveal that Hutch, Leslie Hutchinson, the suave black singer-pianist profiled on BBC2 the other night largely for his affairs with high society women, is among my long-time favourites.

Hutch’s recording of A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square is the definitive version of that lovely song. But it’s a bit of social history mirrored in another song recorded by Hutch that I feel might justify your attention.

“What is love?”, Hutch croons at the start of this little-known number. “A star that shines in the night? A bird that sings in its flight? A flower that blooms in the spring?”

Pause. “It’s no such thing.”

Why? Because... “love is like a cigarette.

You held my heart aglow between your fingertips.

And, just like a cigarette, I never knew the thrill of life until I touched your lips.”

I’ll spare you the rest. Except to add that the love ends in “ashes of regret”.

This gem awaits discovery by obituarists of smoking.