Gee, Officer Krupke

Anyone looking for a handy excuse for bad behaviour can now shorten their list by reference to Charlie Gilmour, whose defence on a charge of violent disorder seemed to use an awful lot of them to little effect.

It was regarded by the defence as a mitigating factor that Gilmour was drunk (in addition to being on a cocktail of valium and LSD). David Spens, the defending QC, also advanced one of those arguments that would be enough to make any mother proud: "up until Topshop, the worst of his behaviour was playing the fool, showing off, posing for the cameras." High praise indeed.

It was argued on his behalf that the Cambridge history student was unaware of the significance of the Cenotaph when swinging from it by a flag. The Judge, Nicholas Price QC, specifically rejected this claim when handing down a 16 month jail term today.

More troublesome, however, was the claim that Gilmour's psychological decline had been due to having been rejected by his natural father, the poet Heathcote Williams. This was a case in which family looms large.

According to the headlines, Gilmour is the son of Dave Gilmour, and much of the brouhaha attendant on his involvement in the riots sprang from the idea that he was the feckless millionaire offspring of a rocker who had quite possibly served as a very poor moral role model to him.

Son of Rock Star in Riot is a headline; Son of Poet in Riot less so.

Of course, to all intents and purposes Dave Gilmour is indeed Charlie's father, having adopted him when the boy was only four or five, yet such is the destiny of blood that the boy looks very like his natural father: slender, with black wavy hair sufficiently striking to have persuaded Charlie to register with a modelling agency.

Who knows what psychological drama may have unfolded in Charlie's mind if indeed he were to have been rejected by his poetic sire? And, who cares?

Investigations into the roots of crime are doubtless of great sociological interest, but the circularity of blame becomes less than compelling when the crimes are of the order of throwing a waste bin or sitting on the bonnet of a car.

We do not inquire into the root causes of crimes that are trivial, and we cannot afford to consider the root causes of crimes that are immense.