"Courage" - a judge's view

Too good to miss, Judge Peter Bowers tries to steer a burglar back to the straight and narrow by praising him:

He told Teesside Crown Court yesterday: 'It takes a huge amount of courage as far as I can see for somebody to burgle somebody’s house. I wouldn’t have the nerve.
'Yet somehow, bolstered by drugs and desperation, you were prepared to do that,' he told Rochford, 26.

No doubt there have been other such cases from Judge Bowers through the years:

To a rapist:

"You must have great self-control to get it up in such circumstances."

To an arsonist:

"Your understanding of the chemistry of combustion and gaseous dynamics is extremely impressive."

To a white collar criminal:

"I can't even use Windows; your computing and spreadsheet knowledge would clearly be a great asset to many people."

To a mugger:

"Such pugilistic technique! Such planning, and patience!"

To a politician with a loose accounting system for expenses:

"Weren't you the prefect in my class at Harrow who stuck the toasting fork up the nether regions of Smithers Minor? Exemplary school spirit!"

To a murderer:

"I'm sure the late Mr. Smith's family are extremely grateful that you provided them with the life insurance money in these financially straitened times."

But back to our hapless burglar, what happened to him?

Judge Bowers said: 'What you’ve done since I find rather extraordinary and something which doesn’t often happen.
'I’m going to take a chance on you, an extraordinary chance, one which I don’t often take.'

Just curious, Judge, what's the downside for you with this bet? Presumably your home security is good enough that you're not worried that this gentleman will be breaking through your scullery window. It's easy to take a chance when you're gambling with someone else's possessions, isn't it?

Top score in the comments goes to Patricia from London:

I think someone with this amount of courage should be given six weeks basic training and shipped out to Afghanistan to fight for his country.

Perhaps finding IEDs the hard way?