In the case of Learco Chindamo I surprise myself. I profoundly believe in rehabilitation and the redemption of the individual. Reading Alice Miles yesterday I took her points: ministers have indeed ignored their own laws, Frances Lawrence should not have been misled about his deportation, and you can – almost – argue that Britain formed the young Chindamo.

Almost, but not quite. If a poor boy turns to vandalism or theft, it is reasonable to cast some blame on society. But killing, even impulsively, goes beyond normal criminality. And the urge to deport this particular murderer is not “nostalgia for public floggings and hangings”. Nobody is suggesting he should be killed or locked up for ever. Chindamo is merely being asked to forfeit any right to live in the foreign country that he so grievously wounded with his self-obsession and his showy knifework. The impulse to throw him out goes back into a basic morality far older than any EU law.

The trouble is that, to judge by his solicitor’s statements and his bland expressions of regret, Chindamo just doesn’t get it. If he did, he would not be demanding his “right” to stay. He would not be complaining that he doesn’t speak Italian (a decade in prison is long enough to apply for a course). If he genuinely understood what he did, he would not push it.

This is not just a naughty kid who now knows better. With his blade and his swaggering Triad pretensions he devastated a family and blighted four childhoods. He killed a stranger out of bravado when his own safety was not at risk. To suggest that somehow Britain is corporately guilty because of the education system or whatever is ridiculous, and insults those with harder lives who do not kill. Chindamo did. Of his own free will, armed by design, he wilfully tore the fabric of humanity.

I believe in redemption, in the progress of the heart: but that the individual has to take responsibility. Which means accepting, with humility, the penalty. Like Alice Miles I am proud to live in a country with such careful, agonised justice, but I wish this young man was not so anxious to exploit it. I cannot see that he can be truly redeemed while he continues to pick this fight. He could quietly leave; if his family wanted, they could follow. Italy is not Siberia.

We rightly abolished the death penalty, but that merciful fact should not dilute our perception of the gravity of murder, or foster a sense among the young that it is just another “mistake” to learn from. Murder stands alone, apart, and terrible. Until a killer accepts that this diminishes his rights – or at least his moral right to assert those rights – he is deluded and unredeemed.

Yes, obey the law. But imagine the redemptive moment if Chindamo simply accepted his exile, with grace, for the Lawrences’ sake.

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