NO wonder the criminals are laughing at us.

Well, it’s a hoot, isn’t it. You go out thieving. Once in a while you get caught. The magistrates, under pressure not to send you to prison, decide to fine you and make an order for compensation to the victim.

What do you do? You simply don’t pay. Honesty is not the best policy when the public at large believe that crime really does pay.

Courts in England and Wales are owed £1.3 billion in unpaid fines, confiscations and compensation orders, according to the latest figures published by the National Audit Office in a report into financial management at the Ministry of Justice.

Not a lot of evidence there of “financial management.” Victims of physical abuse and stress are owed in the region of £150 million in compensation, money they are unlikely ever to receive.

It is, of course, a disgraceful state of affairs which reflects shockingly on our justice system.

The chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, John Thornhill, said JPs were imposing proper proportionate court orders and those responsible for implementing and managing the orders would appear to be at least not doing the job properly and quite properly be considered by some to be negligent.

I was talking to a chap recently who was awarded a small amount of compensation by a court after his car was broken into and property stolen.

Just a couple of hundred quid. He’s waited two years and, as far as I know, he will be waiting forever to see his money.

After last week’s announcement by Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, the position of the courts has been even more weakened.

Prison may not be much of a reformer, but at least it keeps some of the most persistent toerags out of circulation while giving innocent victims a break from their criminal activities.

With fewer people being sent to prison, the criminal fraternity must be laughing their socks off. They are already thumbing their noses at society without this latest information that fine and compensation notices aren’t worth the bits of paper they are written on.

As per usual, the interests of the victim come a poor second in our legal system.

WHAT PRICE THIS WEDDING?

YOU can’t really blame them. Even the churches need the money these days. Mind you, it’s a wonder the Guv’nor upstairs didn’t strike the whole lot down with a bolt of blue lightning.

I don’t suppose many Herald readers, being of upstanding moral tone and general commonsense, bothered to read about the shenanigans surrounding the wedding blessing of alleged glamour girl — can’t see it myself, but I am getting old and my eyes aren’t what they were — Jordan and cross-dressing cage fighter hubby Alex Reid at the weekend.

She rolled up late in the back of a black “A Team” van. There were the obligatory scuffles with photographers before guests squirmed through a big screen montage of how the couple’s romance blossomed.

In the way of celebrity weddings, the rights had already been sold to a magazine and guests had to sign confidentiality agreements.

I’m just amazed that St. Paul’s Church in the Surrey village of Woldingham would have anything to do with it. But, as I say, times are hard. Even God is feeling the pinch of the coalition’s cuts.

Incredibly, people like this are considered role models by thousands of young people. It tells you everything you need to know about Britain in 2010. Tasteless and tacky. Jordan’s real name is Katie Price. Appropriate really for someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

NOT MUCH GOING FOR WENLOCK

IT appears I am missing something. Maybe I am just not in touch with what excites kids or the digital fantasy world.

More worrying, the good people of Canada appear to be thinking along the same lines, even though they have good reason to harbour a grudge after the negative vibes that appeared in the British media about the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Wenlock and Mandeville are the official mascots of London 2012. I understand the appropriateness of the names, but I just don’t get the rest.

These one-eyed blobs are supposed to earn £15 million in merchandising revenue for the London Olympics. Perhaps there’s some great artistic theme at work here. Maybe they will capture the imagination of the kids. They have not captured mine.

It took 18 meetings and 40 focus groups to come up with Wenlock and Mandeville, who were visiting two schools in West Cumbria yesterday. Much Wenlock was the town where Baron de Coubertin was given the idea for the modern Olympics when he witnessed games organised by a local doctor. Stoke Mandeville is the spinal unit where the Paralympic movement began.

But these designs are creepy. “Keep your children away from them,” “ghoulish,” “terror sperm,” were just a few of the headlines thought up by the usually mega-polite Canadians.

Is there anybody out there who has a good word to say for Wenlock and Mandeville?

GET SNAPPING

MANY happy childhood memories have gone unrecorded in recent years thanks to the craziness of the PC brigade.

Notices in swimming pools banning the use of cameras. Even granny’s little digital job which she wanted to use to snap little Johnnie’s first few dog paddle strokes or a giggling, happy face as he and mum came swooshing down the slide.

At some schools parents were even banned from taking pictures of their offspring competing in the egg and spoon race.

And there are still plenty of schools who won’t allow children taking part in nativity plays and other events to have their names in the local rag lest lurking paedophiles leap out on them. It’s a wonder children don’t live in perpetual fear of every adult in the land.

It’s sad and unnecessary. I have been in the reporting business for 47 years and I have never come across a single case where a child molester contacted a child dressed in his mother’s tea towel and sheet playing Joseph in the Christmas play. You will find paedophiles are a lot cleverer than that.

But a moment of joy. The Information Commissioner’s office has seen fit to clarify the situation. It says schools should not ban parents taking snaps on sports day. They are not breaking the Data Protection Act by snapping their kids at school events.

Please let us be winning the battle against all those years of mad PC-ness. Are the first seeds of commonsense really sprouting after years of arid nonsense? The amazing thing is that officialdom actually has to declare that something which had been going on for donkey’s years without a problem is okay after all.