It’s a cliché to be sure, but sometimes the law is a complete ass.

Clichés exist of course because they are oft-repeated truths.

And surely no-one who reads the story of the brutal attack on 62-year-old Roger Rowlands in the Red Lion pub in Kidlington can have any doubt that both his attackers deserved to be jailed.

Adam O’Connor struck Mr Rowlands with a large spirit level before Julian Pitts weighed in with a claw hammer to the victim’s head.

Both men boast (though that’s hardly the right word) long and extensive criminal records, with some offences involving violence.

Yet bizarrely the judge allowed O’Connor (who has 34 convictions for 98 earlier offences) off with only a community order, while Pitts (who has 27 convictions for 45 earlier offences) was sentenced to four years in jail.

Go figure, as an American mafioso might say.

One can only assume the judge considered an attack with a metre-long spirit level less painful and life-threatening than being on the receiving end of a claw hammer.

But even if that were true, both men are repeat offenders who acted like animals against an old man.

Isn’t that enough to see both slung behind bars, not just one of them?