They've Come Over Here ...

To do the torturing of children to death that the natives just won't do !

(You try getting a local exorcist these days when witchcraft's a problem)

Torment In The Community

In the bleak chronicle of those with 'learning difficulties', tortured and killed in the UK by (mostly) feral underclass youth, I forgot to blog about David Aske, who died of a heart attack in March, bullied to death over a period of ten years or more.

To residents he was a gentle man, a kind neighbour and protective son, but to generations of unruly teenagers he was “Dopey Dave”, a vulnerable man they took pleasure in provoking into a fury.

He collapsed and died from a suspected heart attack on Wednesday evening after confronting several shadowy figures in the front garden who were shouting at him. Last night police arrested a 18-year-old man on suspicion of manslaughter.

One neighbour suggested that “kids” had indulged in “bear-baiting”, effectively tormenting their chosen victim to death and that the bullying had been going on for much of his life.

Over the years his tormentors, some as young as 8, had called at the modest pebble-dashed home he shared with his brother Brian, 63, and mother Rose, 88, throwing eggs and bricks at the walls, kicking in his front door, breaking windows and demanding cigarettes and money. Residents have complained that not enough was done to tackle antisocial behaviour but Greater Manchester Police insisted that officers had gone out of their way to develop a personal relationship with the family and to prosecute offenders where possible.

The police do seem to have done something :

Police insisted they had done everything possible to support Mr Askew, his wheelchair-bound mother, Rose, and brother Brian. They had been to the property in Hattersley, Greater Manchester, 10 times in the last year after reports of anti-social behaviour. One youth – currently in prison – has an ASBO for harassing the family.

10 years of harassment - one ASBO and no-one fined or imprisoned. Is that the police, Crown Prosecution Service, the kids' social workers, magistrates, or a toxic combination? You can see how that tough approach worked out :

It is thought Askew became agitated when two youths broke down a gate and entered his garden on Wednesday evening. Police were called at 9.40pm after the youths tampered with his mother's mobility scooter and a bin.

Officers arrived within nine minutes but discovered Askew collapsed in the garden.

His poor mother. One 'youth' has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. Possibility of a conviction - zero IMHO. They're just trying to be seen to do something about that open stable door and a missing horse.

All Liberal Life Is There ...

Cheesed off with a world where feral child-torturers get five years and anonymity on release ? From the comments on another Guardian "they're victims too " thread.

"It's Thatcher's Fault"

"It's the legacy of Thatcher and the Tories, their crusade against the primary industry has produced children who have grown up with parents who have never had a job"

"Society was brutalised through industrialization and the aftermath and the denial of "society" by Thatcher, and the complete social-moral disintigration she caused"

"Most torturing of small children takes place within the family"

I think in the media-fuelled moral panic about 'stranger danger', people have ignored the fact that the greatest damage done to children tends to be within their own homes at the hands of their own families.

"You're worse than they are"

"I feel that people who seem to want to inflict punishment on small children are themselves in need of treatment."

"The lynch-mob attitude of some of the comments and the call for throw- away-the- key justice reflects just what a brutal society Britain is"

"Who knew that the true sociopaths dwell in this thread"

The all-purpose Guardian editorial seems to have been a pretty good predictor on this occasion. I see the Indie borrowed from it too :

Laban :

The natural horror felt at (insert appalling crime here) should not blind us to the fact that (crime is actually falling/it is all Thatcher's fault/such crimes have always been with us).

If we surrender to (the tabloid agenda/the Daily Mail hysteria/knee-jerk populism/the politics of the soundbite) and take the easy option of (jailing more of our young people/bringing back the birch/bringing back hanging/walling off the cities then bombing them/demonising our young people) we run the very real risk of (actually achieving something/alienating a generation/an invasion of killer bees).

There is only one answer. An enormous increase in the funding of (Sure Start schemes/outreach workers/emotional intelligence mentors/youth projects/anti-racist 5-a-day smoking cessation co-ordinators).

Indie :

"No cause for moral panic"

In the ongoing dialogue of the deaf which recurs whenever feral youths or children commit dreadful crimes, there are only a few liberal arguments, picked up in criminology class and amplified by the Guardian/Indie/BBC, and they come out every time.

a) 'it's always been like this' - aka 'moral panic'.

b) "one case doesn't tell us anything about British society" (except the Stephen Lawrence murder)

c) "it's Thatcher's fault"

d) "crime is actually going down" (having risen by 1,000% since 1950, it started to decline when we locked more people up)

e) "anyway, most torturing of small children takes place within the family" - not the married one it don't.

f) "you're worse than they are" - if you call for evil criminals to be punished, you're even more evil yourself !


One commenter links to this piece, about a classic Guardianista - a woman with empathy for everyone except her neighbours. Kind of reverse-Christianity.

"Who is my neighbour ?"

"The outcast, the rapist, the criminal, the thug"

"And what about your ...er.. neighbours ?"

"Those straights ?"

I had been a foster carer for just over a year when James came to us, and had worked for the council's mental health service for 10 years before that. But I wanted to help the teenagers who had been in the care system for a long time and had suffered serious trauma.

I did every training course on offer. Central Bedfordshire council was brilliant: I studied attachment theory, behaviour management, the problems caused by drug and alcohol abuse, and how to work with sexually abused children. I even did a BTec in advanced fostering.

No problem, then - all boxes ticked.

I was realistic enough to recognise that he was a danger to himself and to everyone he came into contact with, and so I was nervous about the young children who lived around us, but because I knew what a hurt, vulnerable side James possessed I wanted to believe that, deep down, he was a good lad.

We soldiered on. I refused to reject James like everyone else in his life had done, but 10 months after he had come to live with us my neighbour of more than 20 years sold her house and moved away. She told me she couldn't live near him a day longer.

Then, last July, James was accused of raping an 11-year-old local girl and forcing her to perform a sexual act on him.

So a woman is forced from her home of 20 years and an innocent child is raped - and all because "I wanted to believe".

That's religion we're seeing.

Murder in the Community

Bodmin - skip the torture of those with 'learning difficulties' and go straight from bullying to murder :

Kerry Ollerenshaw, a care worker and a friend of the family said Raum Fox has learning difficulties and had been "harassed". She added: "I can't believe someone would be callous enough to put a firework through a letter box." Classmate Brett Millington, 17, said Raum had been moved from Bodmin College to St Austell College to escape the bullies, who made fun of his acne. "Raum was a social outcast and always kept himself to himself. He never socialised with anyone in or out of school," he said. "He was badly bullied. It wasn't all physical but a lot of psychological abuse he suffered. Kids would make fun of his bad acne and call him 'spotty' and made fun of his greasy hair. When he was at Bodmin his mum Mary Fox would walk him to school every day because the bullying was so bad. But if anything that just made it worse."

A police spokesman said reports a firework was pushed through their letterbox was "speculation" and the cause was not yet known.

Guardian Morality

This blog, eighteen months back :

Oh Lordy - "Disability Hate Crime". I suppose the idea is that although the current criminal justice system is totally unable to enforce existing laws on anti-social behaviour - witness the tragic fates of Christine Lakinski and the Pilkington family - they hope to add the disabled to the list of "protected species" aka designated victim groups.

The Guardian :

Although much of the abuse centred on the taunts about the children's disabilities, police failed to recognise it as a hate crime rather than simple antisocial behaviour, which would have made it a far higher priority.

The inquest heard that at the time of Pilkington's death, Leicestershire police had not implemented the Home Office guidance on hate crimes issued two years earlier.

Hinckley and Bosworth council's community officers visited Pilkington but never learned until after she was dead that anyone in the family was disabled.

And if poor Francecca Pilkington hadn't had a disability ? If she'd been harassed 'because she was there' ? Then she could go hang as far as the Guardian, the local authority and the police were concerned.

(via Dalrymple : "the seriousness of an offense committed in Britain now depends upon who the victim is. If a person is not of an identifiably protected group, he or she is not entitled to police intervention against abusive stone- and bottle-throwing youths. He is not entitled to protection at all. The Guardian’s article appears to accept that such behavior, so long as it targets a member of an unprotected group, is merely undesirable—“anti-social” rather than obviously criminal")


UPDATE - Aaarghh !

"Pilkington case may be a Lawrence moment for disability hate crime"

Senior Police Officer = Senior Social Worker

No matter what happens at street level, where the decisions get taken the sociology grads are totally in control :

Police try to avoid sending anti-social youths to prison because it increases the chances of them reoffending, an inquest into the deaths of a mother and her disabled daughter heard today.

Superintendent Steve Harrod, head of criminal justice at Leicestershire Police, was giving evidence at the hearing into the suicide of Fiona Pilkington, 38, who killed herself and and her disabled daughter two years ago. Ms Pilkington, 38, died after setting fire to her car while she and her daughter Francecca Hardwick, 18, were inside. An 11-year bullying campaign by local youths had made their lives intolerable. Months before, Ms Pilkington had written in her diary that she had given up trying to call the police for help, because they thought she was “overreacting”.

Earlier this week it emerged that Ms Pilkington had called police 33 times to complain about the abuse but none of the gang members, including the main problem family about whom police were informed, were prosecuted.

Mr Harrod was then asked by a juror: “If a youth above the age of criminal responsibility commits a crime, why is the criminalising of juveniles a consideration? If they commit a crime do they not bring the criminalisation upon themselves?”

He replied: “From a police point of view, what we want to do with any criminals is to prevent reoffending. From my personal experience, if a juvenile goes in to detention, they are likely to mix with like-minded people during their time there and they are more likely to reoffend. I think for new police officers this is all part of their training and for older officers there is a transition. But once you recognise that if you go to charge, and then the offenders come out of prison, you see them in the cells again and again.”

The badly burnt bodies of Ms Pilkington and her daughter, known as Frankie to her family, were discovered in October 2007 in the family’s blue Austin Maestro at the side of the A47 near their home. For more than a decade the family had been subjected to daily torment from local youths – some as young as 10 – who routinely shouted abuse and hurled objects at their house. At one point Ms Pilkington’s son Anthony, now 19, was threatened with an iron bar and locked in a shed at knifepoint. Earlier, the inquest was told social services were aware Ms Pilkington had been experiencing “suicidal thoughts”.

I blogged this case two years ago, and the reality turns out to be just as heartbreaking as I thought. Frances Crook and the Prison Reform Trust - and the BBC, of course - are doing a cracking job.

UPDATE - more from the spectacularly useless Steve Harrod :

At the inquest into the pair's deaths yesterday, Superintendent Steve Harrod, head of criminal justice at Leicestershire Police, acknowledged that the criminal justice system was set up to avoid sending juveniles to prison. He said police officers were only allowed to issue warnings to young troublemakers unless their behaviour was judged to be serious.

"I'm not sure if people know but low-level anti-social behaviour is mainly the responsibility of the council"

UPDATE - more torture in the community. If this had happened sixty years ago it would have been front page news. That's two rape/torture convictions in Greater London in the last three weeks that the BBC have failed to report. Is a pattern developing ?

The boys, two aged 17 and the other 16, approached the 14 year old victim and took her to a flat in Bromley on October 24 last year. While there the girl was raped and her hair was set on fire. An investigation was launched by Lewisham police and officers obtained mobile telephone footage of the suspects tormenting the victim with a cigarette lighter. Detective Constable Darren Sonnar said: “This was a particularly harrowing case".

Read, Weep

While we're on the subject of abduction by thugs, this. Usual useless social workers, powerless police, waster parents.

There's always been an small underclass - lefties used to call them the lumpenproletariat. But it's been the toxic synergy between the cultural revolution ('if it feels good, do it') and the welfare state which has expanded it so spectacularly.

More Torture In The Community

I suppose, unlike many other victims, they did at least survive.

Hounslow Council has won its appeal against a High Court ruling which awarded almost £100,000 in damages to a vulnerable couple who suffered physical and sexual abuse in their own flat by a gang of youths.

A top judge today ruled that despite the suffering the couple endured at the hands of four youths, Hounslow Council could not be blamed for what had happened.

At the initial High hearing last May, Judge Maddison said a lack of communication between council departments had led to the couple, who both have learning difficulties, being subjected to a weekend-long assault in late 2000.

The couple - referred to only as X and Y in court - were made to perform sex acts on each other, drink their own urine and eat the faeces of one of the gang members, who threatened to stab them if they did not comply.

The traumatic assaults were carried out at the couple’s council-owned flat, often witnessed by Y’s children, who are now in their teens.

A number of the assailants had been living in the flat for months before the attack after the couple tried to befriend them.

During last year’s hearing Judge Maddison said the council had acted "negligently" in its handling of the situation.

He said the council should have transferred the family to other housing and a social worker had written to the director of housing before the assault asking whether a "catastrophe" had to occur before it happened.

The couple were awarded £97,000 damages by the court.

However, the Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, today said the couple had made the mistake of being kind to the youths and overturned the ruling leaving the couple without a penny.

Hounslow Council today said it was pleased the judge had praised social worker Tajinder Hayre, who was responsible for the couple, ruling she was blameless in the incident.

A spokeswoman added: “This is an extremely sad case, and we have every sympathy for the claimants, who were subjected to an appalling ordeal.

"We are also pleased to note that the Court of Appeal praised the social worker involved for her 'impeccable behaviour'."

This "in the community" stuff is a godsend for councils. If the couple had been living in some local equivalent of Barnsley Hall, they would be unlikely to have had (presumably heavily state-subsidised) children, but if they'd been abused in the care of the local authority someone would be responsible for them. As it is, the highest courts in the land are telling them they're on their own :

A social worker had told police the vulnerable pair were being exploited, but was informed that no action could be taken unless the couple complained themselves.
The council employee had also called for the couple to be rehoused. Lawyers for the couple argued the social worker should have realised they were in danger and had them moved.

Hounslow Council took their case to the Appeal Court which ruled the council had no duty of care to the couple. Sir Anthony Clarke, who headed the appeal judges, said: "There is an important difference between a case where children assert that a duty of care is owed to them and a case like this where the claimants are adults living in the community, albeit vulnerable adults."

And what of their torturers ? The trial didn't seem to make the headlines - maybe there wasn't one. (Apparently three presumably anonymous 'youths' were sent down - more distressing details in this story)

As I said last time someone was tortured then murdered, a few months back :

I'm sure there were dark sides to the old "homes" and "loony-bins", where those who were once called 'simples' or 'naturals' often ended up (in the absence of devoted, fit and time-rich relatives). But there's little evidence of their inmates being tortured to death.

Doubtless the heartbreaking details will unfold in due course. If the past is any guide to the future, his torturers and killers will turn out to be well-known locally, "known to social services" and the law, and with habits including petty crime, assault and drug abuse. It's quite possible that at least one of them will be female.

It's McTorture In The Community

The latest English fashion finally crosses the Tweed.

A man who was found dead in his home in Fife on Thursday suffered a "horrific ordeal" before his death, police said. A murder investigation has now been launched into the death of Mark White at his home in Glenrothes. Fife Constabulary said the 31-year-old's body might have been in his home for some days.

Det Supt Alistair McKeen said that Mr White was "a harmless young man, who despite his learning difficulties, led an independent, happy life".

I'm sure there were dark sides to the old "homes" and "loony-bins", where those who were once called 'simples' or 'naturals' often ended up (in the absence of devoted, fit and time-rich relatives). But there's little evidence of their inmates being tortured to death.

Doubtless the heartbreaking details will unfold in due course. If the past is any guide to the future, his torturers and killers will turn out to be well-known locally, "known to social services" and the law, and with habits including petty crime, assault and drug abuse. It's quite possible that at least one of them will be female.

It's Non-Stop Torture In The Community

To the names of Brent Martin, David Atherton, Steven Hoskin and Kevin Davies, "vulnerable individuals" living "in the community" who were abused, tortured and killed we add the name of Stephen Gale.

A 42-year-old Leicester man has been jailed for 22 years and nine months after pleading guilty to the murder of his housemate at Leicester Crown Court. Andrew Green, from Garth Avenue, had earlier admitted murdering Steven Gale, 28, at the home they shared with two women in Mowmacre Hill in October 2006. Lisa Smith, 27, and Green's 31-year-old wife Claudette both admitted perverting the course of justice.


Green, Smith and Green - nice people.

Post-mortem tests showed the victim was assaulted in the days before his death. Det Supt Stuart Prior said Mr Gale had been starved and beaten. "We believe we identified a systematic abuse of Steven, which consisted of both assaults and also failing to properly feed him and allow him to have proper meals," the officer said. "Andrew Green very much took the controlling influence in the household and dominated the people living in the property, and that included Steven."

Police said at the time of his death the victim weighed just four stone, despite his 5'11" height.

During the trial it become apparent that both the authorities and the victim's family had had not idea what he was going through. Neighbours living below reported hearing beatings in the flat three or four times a week. In May 2006 police were called to the flat when Mr Gale tried to escape by jumping from a third floor bathroom window after a row. Green's defence barrister told the court police and social services had visited Steven Gale at his flat on a number of occasions leading up to his death but nobody intervened.

Me no understand this bit :


Melanie Garner who lived below the victim said she heard shouting and screaming from the flat two to three times a week. "We rang the social services, they came out but nothing was done, nothing got resolved. Surely they could see that he wasn't right. He was just skin and bone, clothes hung off him," she said.

A social services spokesperson said they had assessed Steven, who said he did not want help, and judged him capable of looking after himself. Deborah Kitson, director of the Ann Craft Trust, which works to protect adults with learning disabilities, said there was little more the authorities could do.

"What went wrong for Steven was that when he made cries for help, when the agencies police and social services responded, he insisted that he was happy where he was he and wanted to stay there. Currently there is very little that can be done if the adult makes that choice."

One of the characteristics of all the recent killings is that the victims refused - presumably out of fear - to dob in their abusers. Surely the Ann Craft Trust should realise this ? Otherwise what's the point of their existence as an organisation "acting Against the Abuse of People with Learning Disabilities" ?

A look at their "campaigns" page isn't terribly encouraging.

"Our campaigning focuses on injustices in the legal system" - I'm pretty sure no lawyers have beaten any "naturals" to death lately.

Oh Lordy - "Disability Hate Crime". I suppose the idea is that although the current criminal justice system is totally unable to enforce existing laws on anti-social behaviour - witness the tragic fates of Christine Lakinski and the Pilkington family - they hope to add the disabled to the list of "protected species" aka designated victim groups.

More at the Leicester Mercury :

Parents of a vulnerable man beaten to death by his unofficial carer today branded his killer an "evil, wicked man". Stephen Gale, who had special needs, was subjected to months of torment, violence, starvation and abuse by Andrew Green at their shared home in Mowmacre Hill, Leicester. Yesterday, Mr Gale's family cheered in court as Green was jailed for nearly 23 years.

Mr Gale's mother Maureen, 55, said: "Green is an evil, wicked man. We are absolutely elated that he got more than 22 years and we feel we have got justice for the family and for Stephen. "I especially loved it when the judge said, 'take him down' and he was led away to start his sentence. It's been a year now since we lost our son and nothing will ever bring him back, but he is safe and at rest now."

When he died, the 28-year-old weighed less than six stone, half the normal body weight for his 5ft 11ins frame. A final fatal attack on October 25 last year left Mr Gale with a catalogue of injuries. As Stephen's body lay on the floor of the shared home in Garth Avenue, Green callously ordered his wife, Claudette (31), and housemate, Lisa Smith (27), to lie to police, blaming someone else for the injuries.

Green (41), who admitted murder, was the bullying "leader of the pack," of the shared dysfunctional household. He controlled the finances, and took Steven's benefit money and cash sent by Mr and Mrs Gale, of Little Hampton, Sussex, who had no idea of their son's terrifying ordeal. Nirmal Shant, prosecuting, said neighbours had seen Green, and occasionally the two women, attacking the victim in the street. She said Stephen once tried to escape a beating by leaping out of an upstairs window, but he did not complain of mistreatment. He died from multiple injuries, internal bleeding and shock. Miss Shant said: "The fatal attack was sustained. He fell to the ground and continued to be attacked, trying what little he could to defend himself and was left for dead for some time before the ambulance was called."

Green, who has an IQ of 72, in the bottom three per cent of the population, told police another man had attacked Mr Gale away from the home. He told officers: "I was like a carer for Steve and looked after him for so long. He meant the world to me."

The co-accused initially backed up his story. Claudette Green and Smith, also said to be in the bottom range of intelligence, were both given nine-month jail sentences, suspended for two years, coupled with 12 months of supervision. All three admitted conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. It was accepted by the prosecution they had been under Green's "spell" and were manipulated by him.

Judge Michael Pert QC ordered Green to serve at least 22 years and nine months before he can be considered for release. He told Green: "It's a horrible tale. You styled yourself as his carer. You starved him, beat him, took his money and controlled every aspect of his life. He became so weak your continued beating killed him."

William Taylor QC, defending Andrew Green, criticised police and social services for not intervening. He said the violence had escalated over a year. Leicester City Council's social services said Stephen was offered help, but he had said he was fine.
Dad Malcolm, 57, said he spoke to his son on the telephone five days before his death. He said: "There was nothing to indicate he was in trouble or in pain. We can only think he was too frightened of Green. We've got to the point now where we can begin to draw a line under this, because Green has got everything he deserved."

I'll lay a pound to a pinch of **** that the sentence is reduced on appeal.

Yet More Torture In The Community

To the names of David Atherton, Steven Hoskin and Kevin Davies, "vulnerable individuals" living "in the community" who were abused, tortured and killed we have to add the name of Brent Martin.

A gang of youths beat and tortured a disabled man to death for "sport", a court heard today. Brent Martin was repeatedly punched, kicked, stamped on and head butted by three youths who bet each other £5 they could knock him out, the jury was told. The court heard that William Hughes and two teenagers, aged 16 and 17, chased Brent across two estates in Sunderland, subjecting him to a series of brutal assaults. Finally he was left dying in a pool of blood next to a parked car in Baxter Road, Town End Farm.

Hughes, 21, of Washington Road, Sunderland, and the 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, yesterday pleaded guilty to murder. The 17-year-old, also from Sunderland, went on trial today accused of murder.

Prosecutor Toby Hedworth QC told the court: "On the evening of August 23 last year on the Town End Farm Estate 23-year-old Brent Martin, a young man who had learning disabilities and had spent nine years of his life in psychiatric hospitals, was systematically attacked, demeaned, headbutted and beaten by people whom he misguidedly believed to be his friends. They behaved like a pack of animals as they repeatedly punched, kicked, headbutted and stamped on Brent Martin. That man Brent Martin never lifted an aggressive finger towards them and they did that to him until he was dead. They did that for their own sport."

The court was told that the attack began at a bus stop when the 17-year-old bet £5 that the 16-year-old - both were trained as boxers - could not knock out Brent with his right hand. The 16-year-old kissed his right fist, then his left fist before repeatedly knocking down Brent with single punches. The disabled man was then chased across the Town End Farm and Hylton Castle estates for around a mile where on at least four occasions he was attacked. Then Brent would get up, apologise to his attackers, shake their hands and would often buy alcohol and cigarettes for them. Mr Hedworth said the gang deliberately chose grassed areas to attack him so that he would not hit his head when they knocked him down.

"Say the Crown, they set quite deliberately to do such serious harm to Brent Martin for their own amusement and no doubt to make themselves look big among their friends," Mr Hedworth said. "As the attack went on, its nature, ferocity and perseverance make it quite clear they were not happy until he was dead. At that time they were using that violence towards him they had no such sensibility, no restraint, no qualms and no mercy."

As Brent was brutally beaten, eyewitnesses reported him shouting: "Nah, nah, no please." After the final murderous attack in Baxter Road the three posed for pictures, the court heard. One witness described them as "appearing to be happy from what they had done - getting a buzz out of it". The court heard that the 17-year-old defendant later told witnesses: "I am not going down for a muppet." Mr Hedworth said Brent had been admitted to psychiatric hospitals as a teenager and had only been released into the care of his mother three months before his death. Brent had saved £3,000 during his time in hospital and in the three months since his release he had spent almost all of it. "He was a gentle and easily-led child who thought everyone was his mate. People took advantage of him," the barrister said.

On the evening of the attack he asked his sister for money so he could "buy some drinks for the lads", warning her he would get his "head kicked in". Brent died in Sunderland Royal Hospital surrounded by his family, including his mother Brenda and twin sister Danielle, on August 25, having never regained consciousness. A post-mortem examination revealed he died from a massive head injury and had suffered at least 18 separate blows to the head and neck.

A 47-year-old woman - the mother of the 16-year-old - is also on trial accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice. She is accused of destroying evidence by washing the blood-stained clothing of her son.

Cut'n'paste is not the most creative form of blogging. But what is there to say, other than to tell the story ?

More Torture In The Community

Torturers and murderers - Craig Dodd (left), aged 17 and Ryan Palin, aged 15



Victim - David Atherton

That's the third trial this year in England of people for torturing and killing "vulnerable individuals". The other two are here.

The court heard Ryan Palin, of Grasmere Avenue, Orford, and Craig Dodd, of Lisguard Close, Runcorn spent months systematically abusing the victim, who had severe learning difficulties, in a process they nicknamed 'terroring'.

They regularly broke into his council flat on St Katherine's Way, Howley, where they wrote graffiti on the walls, burnt his hair and daubed his face with paint. On the night of his death in May 2006, the boys were seen by neighbours beating him with planks of wood until he bled. Days later his body was discovered floating in the River Mersey in Westy, Warrington.

Nice chaps. Originally sentenced to "life", whatever that means, Judge Rix (must be Brian Rix, although apparently his name is Bernard. His decisions are certainly farcial enough) reduced them to a minimum of three and three and a half years.

You can see a whole pageful of the cretins who take such decisions here. Curse them, and may they pay for their crimes - for such they are.

They're reserving the long sentences for the really dangerous guys.


via Martin Kelly

We Are All Civilised Now

There's a wonderful quote in Peter Hitchens' book The Abolition of Britain about the late Woy Jenkins, architect of what he "rightly preferred to call the civilised society rather than the permissive society", to the effect that "Roy Jenkins was already marshalling his tanks on a five-hundred mile front". With his help, the criminal justice system moved from retribution to understanding (and the crime rate went up 1,000 %), abortion was legalised (200,000 a year - over 6 million since 1967), the death penalty abolished (murders tripled despite huge medical advances in trauma treatment) and homosexuality was legalised (and 11-year olds are now removed from foster-parents who aren't cool about uphill gardening).

We are so much more civilised now :

Miss Lakinski - who suffered a life of bullying - had collapsed on her doorstep as she returned home from visiting a friend. But instead of helping her, Anthony Anderson called her a "smackhead" and a drunk before kicking her feet and emptying a bowl of water on her head.

Teesside Crown Court heard that he then covered her in shaving foam, and urinated on her as a friend filmed the act on a mobile phone.

Anderson pleaded guilty to outraging public decency on July 26 when he appeared at Hartlepool Magistrates' Court last month.

So far so bad. This is what gets me :

The 27-year-old was watched by a laughing crowd as he carried out a series of humiliating attacks on the 50-year-old in Hartlepool. A court heard today that one of his friends filmed the incident on a mobile phone while one shouted: "This is YouTube material."

There have always been scumbags. There probably always will be, although I find it hard to imagine such an act in any other time before the cultural revolution. What's really telling is that he had an approving audience.

Here's another tale from our civilised land :

A mother who murdered her disabled daughter and killed herself by setting fire to the car they were in had been tormented by youths who mocked her child’s severe learning difficulties.

Fiona Ann Pilkington, 38, had repeatedly told Leicestershire police that a gang of children had embarked on a campaign of terror against her daughter, Francesca Hardwick, 18.

Neighbours told yesterday how children had taunted the disabled woman shouting “disabled bitch” and other obscenities as she stood at her window. On other occasions they would hurl stones and eggs at the windows and bang on the front door of the home Ms Pilkington shared with her daughter and son, Anthony, 16.

The women’s remains were discovered burnt beyond recognition after Ms Pilkington apparently doused the car with petrol and set it alight. It was discovered in a lay-by in Earl Shilton, Leicestershire, on Tuesday night.

Again, tormenting the 'different' is something boys have always done. Here's Frances Roper describing an Edwardian childhood with a Downs syndrome brother :

Poor little Ben was, as usual, the problem. The boys soon realized that he was not normal, and quite unable to take care of himself, and they would shout after him and pelt him with lumps of mud and sometimes stones, if he went down to the village by himself. As soon as Mother found out about this, he was never allowed out alone, and naturally the duty of keeping a constant eye on him devolved upon me. I was sent down to the village every day on some errand or other, and always had to take Ben with me. On one occasion he insisted on dragging a little trolley cart behind him, and this the village boys found irresistible. There was a long stretch of road between the end of the village and. the cluster of cottages round our house, and as soon as we left the village we were surrounded by a crowd of boys. They kept rushing up and dropping stones into Ben’s little cart, till it became so heavy that the poor little fellow could not pull it, and was on the verge of tears. Several times I tipped the stones out and turned indignantly upon our tormentors, but I was only one small girl trying to protect a tiny helpless boy, and my protests only drew forth more jeers and tormenting. Eventually I picked up the little cart and carried it under my arm. Thus foiled of their fun, the boys proceeded to slash my legs with their top-whips, and continued in this pleasant amusement till we were nearly within sight of home. By this time I was trembling all over with fright and fury, though fury certainly predominated, and I dashed in to Mother and showed the crimson wheals all over my legs.

But we're in the Edwardian age, whan all adults had authority over all children.

For once Father and Mother were thoroughly roused. Father asked me if I should be able to recognise the boys, and on my assurance that I should, he clapped on his hat, seized my hand, and we raced off down the hill to the village. The group of boys were playing with their tops, and I pointed them out to Father. Dropping my hand Father burst upon the group with unintelligible howls and yells, whirling his arms round and round like windmills. After one horrified glance the boys shot over a low wall and fled down the adjoining field with Father in hot pursuit. He did not lay hands on any of them though he could easily have done so, contented himself with giving tongue to a series of terrifying snarls and growls without a single spoken word, which struck the most abject terror into the hearts of my tormentors. One of them tripped and fell flat at Father’s feet, and lay there howling, while Father took a flying leap over him in his headlong stampede. I climbed on the wall and bounced up and down clapping and cheering, nearly hysterical with excitement and delight. Having chased his quarry out of sight Father returned, breathless with running and yelling, and completely helpless with laughter ...
That party of boys never again showed any lack of respect to Ben or me, and caps were sheepishly touched whenever we met.

Not so for poor Fiona Ann Pilkington. In our age boys are still boys - with the pack instinct to run down the wounded - only there's nothing you can do - and nothing anyone else will do :

Leicester police said yesterday that they were treating the incident as murder and suicide, adding that detectives would now reinvestigate a series of complaints about antisocial behaviour in the family’s neighbourhood. The Times has learnt that the women’s deaths came only three weeks after the mother last contacted police to complain that her family’s lives were being made a misery.

Ann Jones, who lived opposite Ms Pilkington, said that the single parent had simply “had enough” of being harassed by local youths. “If the police had done their job she would have been here today,” Mrs Jones, 55, said. The family lived in Bardon Road, Barwell, an area, neighbours said, that was plagued with children wreaking havoc on the streets at night. Other neighbours told how the gangs of children would hang around, making the family virtual prisoners.

There's another factor of course - extended adolescence. I imagine poor Ms Pilkington's tormentors were a bit older than Ben's.

There's a sixteen year old boy who's lost a mother and a sister. How in God's name must that child be feeling tonight ?

UPDATE/correction - Francesca's brother is now being looked after by his father.

It Takes A Village ... To Abuse and Kill The Village Idiot ...

It looks as though the policy of encouraging those who were once called 'simples' or 'naturals' to live an independent life in the "community" has among its drawbacks that some people will discover the pleasure of abusing and torturing them.

The jury at the Truro Crown Court heard Mr Hoskin, who had the reading ability of a six-year-old, was burnt with cigarettes, walked around on a dog lead and was forced to confess to being a paedophile. He was also forced to eat 70 paracetamol tablets.

The teenage girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court a plan was then hatched to take him to the top of a viaduct in Trenance Road, St Austell "to scare him". Steven Hoskin, 38, from St Austell, Cornwall, was humiliated and abused for hours by a gang, a court heard. He was drugged, taken to a viaduct and forced to hang from railings. The 17-year-old girl stamped on his hands causing him to fall 100ft to his death.

Darren Stewart, 30, was jailed for life and the girl detained. Another man was convicted of manslaughter. Martin Pollard, 21, had also been accused of murder but was convicted of the lesser charge by a jury at Truro Crown Court. Two 17-year-old boys, who cannot be named, were also found guilty of assault and false imprisonment.

The West Country seems to be a dangerous place for vulnerable people.

Not content with keeping Kevin Davies prisoner in a garden shed for six weeks, his captors also forced him to make a disturbing hostage-style video. In it an emaciated, weak and scared looking Kevin tells the camera he is being fed perfectly. But in fact he was given only a few potato peelings and other scraps and there were traces of weed killer in his body when he died.

Kevin Davies was beaten and burned repeatedly in a shed belonging to Amanda Baggus and her boyfriend David Lehane at a house in Badgers Way, Bream, Gloucestershire, and only allowed out to do chores for his captors. He was found dead at the house on 26 September 2006.