Rachel Soma

Lex Wotton was sentenced to six years, with a minimum of two to be served for rioting with destruction.
Marcus Kapitza was sentenced to 12 months jail after pleading guilty to one charge of riot.

Brent Lohman was sentenced to 11 months jail with a parole period of six months for repeatedly punching a man of Middle Eastern appearance in the head at Cronulla railway station.

Yahya Serhan, a Lebanese Australian was convicted of one count of being an accessory after the fact of malicious wounding over an attack outside Woolooware Golf Club in Sydney’s southeast on 11 December 2005, that ended when a knife snapped off in the victim’s back. Serhan had acted as the “getaway driver” during the attack and was convicted in April 2007 to which he was sentenced to thirteen months jail with a non-parole period of nine months. However, he was released on the day of his sentencing as he had already spent nine months in prison.

What is the difference between these men? Lex Wotton led a riot that caused no physical harm to a human being. Lex Wotton is also an Indigenous Australian.

I’m fluctuating between being stoked the sentence was so much smaller than expected, and horribly depressed that we were forced to keep our expectations so low that this seems like a positive outcome.

It’s not.