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A Serial Sex Offender Got a Lighter Sentence Than This Farmer Who Mislabeled His Eggs

In 2014, British farmer Anthony Clarkson was busted by “egg standard inspectors” for selling barn eggs as “free-range,” and convicted of fraud. He will now be serving more time than a serial rapist.
Photo via Flickr user Justin Leonard

Food safety laws are tough, as they should be.

In the era of industrialized food, processing oversights can lead to large-scale public health concerns. Likewise, the smallest oversight, or negligence, on the part of a restaurant can easily become a matter of life and death. As a result, the courts have tended to mete out stiff sentences in that dark place where crime and food safety overlap.

In 2014, British farmer Anthony Clarkson was busted by "egg standard inspectors" for selling barn eggs as "free-range," and convicted of fraud; a very serious crime according to prosecutors, who accused him of making "significant profits" with this egg racket, The Mirror reported.

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Finally, this week, a British court sent Clarkson from the hen house to the big house, sentencing him to two-and-a-half years in prison—half of the maximum five-year sentence he was looking at. That's four years shorter than the sentence dished out to a curry restaurant owner whose utter recklessness led to the very avoidable death of a man suffering from a peanut allergy.

Meanwhile, in the very same Preston Crown courthouse, serial sex offender Kerdine Ahmedi was sentenced to two years and four months in jail, after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting her in her bedroom while her boyfriend was passed out in the kitchen.

That's two months shorter than the sentence of the fraudulent free-range farmer, whose misdeeds, though greedy, likely did not physically or emotionally traumatize anybody. Ahmedi, on the other hand, "destroyed the life" of his victim, according to her victim personal statement. Needless to say, these decisions, juxtaposed, have pissed off a lot of people and triggered a debate surrounding sexual assault cases.

"It seems that financial crimes or fraud are treated more seriously than violent crimes against women," Rachel Horman, a lawyer and board director at a women's shelter, said. "This kind of situation sends out the wrong message to perpetrators and victims of violence. It's not just an overhaul of sentencing guidelines that is needed—often there are powers there to impose a heavier sentence which people do not use—it's a change in attitude."

Still, the Animal Plant Health Authority (APHA), the same government organization whose egg inspectors busted Clarkson, said the sentence was a fair one. "Consumers rely on honest egg marketing to ensure that the eggs they buy are fresh and safe to eat, and that production methods are correctly described," an APHA spokesman said in a statement, calling it a "tough warning to food fraudsters."

This may be true, but these separate outcomes are a pretty big imbalance on the part of an institution whose defining symbol is a balance. Stateside, you just need to think of Brock Turner getting six months for sexual assault, while someone who incorrectly imports lobster tails gets six years in a US federal prison, and it will probably make you want to break some eggs.