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Boys who killed a man by throwing stones - Got two years

From the sound of this report from the Guardian is seems some of them we're expecting to get a slap on the wrist. Police officer on radio was very pleased as two years is a very long sentance for such young children.

Five boys who hurled stones, chunks of wood and abuse at a father playing cricket with his son, triggering a fatal heart attack, burst into tears yesterday as an Old Bailey jury convicted them of manslaughter and violent disorder.
They clutched their parents in the dock at the end of a month-long trial which heard how they had carried out the vicious onslaught when none of them was over 12 and one had just turned 10.

Among the youngest defendants to appear at the central criminal court, they were bailed for reports before sentencing by a judge who earlier warned about their behaviour during the hearing.
After Old Bailey staff complained of the five wandering around, hanging out of windows and potentially causing mischief, Judge Warwick McKinnon ordered the boys' parents to keep them under control.

Even after that, one of the defendants screwed up his jumper into a pillow and dozed off during the trial, which was conducted informally without wigs or robes. The misbehaviour coincided with prosecution arguments to the jury that the boys' youth was no excuse for their attack and they knew their violence was wrong.

Their victim was 67-year-old Ernest Norton, described as an easy-going house husband, who was giving informal cricket practice to his teenage son James while his wife used the nearby gym at Erith leisure centre, in Kent, in February last year.

The court heard that Mr Norton and James, who was 17 at the time and getting ready for A-levels, had just set up stumps in an open-air tennis court when about 20 boys arrived and started hurling abuse.

After shouts such as "Rubbish bowler" and "Get back to the old people's home", Mr Norton went to confront the crowd and was met with spitting and a hail of missiles. He was hit by half-a-dozen stones and bits of broken plank.

One rock, the size of half a brick, hit him on the temple and a second, not much smaller, fractured his cheekbone. As his son watched incredulously, he fell to the ground with a heart attack.

David Fisher QC, prosecuting, told the jury that the boys had been roaming the area earlier, looking for trouble. They had arranged a gang fight but were scared off by a passer-by who confiscated a baseball bat one of them was carrying.

They turned to smashing windows in an empty factory before deciding to hang around the leisure centre, aiming verbal abuse at staff. The arrival of the Nortons gave them an easy target.

"We were keeping ourselves to ourselves," James told the trial. "It seemed they just wanted to pick on someone."

The boys belonged to a local gang called TNE - for The New Estate - but Nicholas Valios QC, for the youngest defendant, asked the jury not to be swayed by current publicity about gang culture. "Every day one has read about gangs killing, knifing, shooting and terrorising estates. That really isn't so in this case."

As an off-duty police officer and other passers-by tried to help Mr Norton, the court heard, the boys ran off. One was heard saying "I think I got him", but another, in tears as he struggled to keep up with the pack, kept shouting: "He's dead, he's dead."

Only one of the five, now 14, gave evidence, admitting that he spat at Mr Norton and that his behaviour had been "stupid, revolting and appalling". He told the court that he had thrown stones but only to try to topple the stumps and wreck the Nortons' game "for a bit of fun".

Mrs Norton's wife, Linda, 56, who was fetched from the gym by James and held her husband's hand as he died, said that he had been fit and well and led an active life after heart bypass surgery in 1977.

Comments

  • Good, I know they're young but it has to be a serious sentence for a serious crime, and the victim's family sound happy with the sentence too.
  • Very sad in many ways...
  • i know they were kids but this is still too short a sentence, although i'm shocked they even got two years.
  • Will they actually serve two years though?

    You can divide adult sentences by two to arrive at the "real" rather than "headline" sentence.
  • That's what i was wondering Len, and unfortunately there's a chance that after a short spell in some detention centre they'll come out bigger a###holes than they already are!
  • Agreed. I don't think that 2 years is long enough and doubt they will serve more than 1 anyway.

    Should have been 5 years. At least that way they would have served 2-3 years and it would hopefully act as a deterrant to others.
  • Will they be any different when they are released? I doubt it
  • 2 or even 1 year for a 12 year old seems like a long time to me but they brought it upon themselves and deserve to go away.

    Maybe they will come out worse than when they went it (which is the arguement for NOT sending people to prison) but maybe the message to other kids like them is that you could go away. Hopefully a few will think twice next time.
  • Thing is, having a 1 or 2 year jail term to their name could be something they're proud of, similar to the ASBO thing...
  • [cite]Posted By: Medders[/cite]Thing is, having a 1 or 2 year jail term to their name could be something they're proud of, similar to the ASBO thing...

    who can tell but the report reads like they saw the court case as a big joke and then reality hit when they found out they were going away. Good. Maybe too late for them but as I say perhaps a deterent for others and they won't kill anyone while they are inside.
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  • I doubt if the deterrent effect really works on kids as young as this. What they really need is their parents to teach them some respect for other people.
  • [cite]Posted By: Airman Brown[/cite]I doubt if the deterrent effect really works on kids as young as this. What they really need is their parents to teach them some respect for other people.

    Which is pretty hard when the parents don't show respect for others...
  • edited October 2007
    Ex Labour councillor in "I blame the parents shock" ; - )

    Back to the topic I agree that ultimately the parents and their peers need to teach consideration (Only Aretha should be allowed to use the 'R' word) for others but these sentances may wake up a few parents as well.

    As for deterrents for children this young I think they are more likely to work at a younger age when children are more impressionable and not so fixed in their thinking and attitudes.
  • Deterrents only work if you expect to be caught and punished. I don't think that prospect is there, and that's due to a wider breakdown in responsibility - not failings of the police, etc.

    I did a lot of work with the police on low-level nuisance behaviour when I was on the council and they were very good at addressing it within the constraints of their resources. The problem is that the kids need reining in by adults before they get to the stage where they are a problem to others and that has not been happening.

    Of course the kids are going to be a problem if the parents don't have those values in the first place.
  • Getting caught AND punished is a real deterent as speed cameras prove. Most people see them and slow down. QED.
  • But then you speed up again as soon as the speed camera is behind you....
  • [cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]Getting caught AND punished is a real deterent as speed cameras prove. Most people see them and slow down. QED.


    like most things, they're only a deterent to otherwise law-abiding citizens...'most people' isn't everybody...
  • [cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]

    Back to the topic I agree that ultimately the parents and their peers need to teach consideration (Only Aretha should be allowed to use the 'R' word) for others but these sentances may wake up a few parents as well.

    .

    This is an interesting statement even if it was made jokingly. What is 'respect'?

    I always think the word 'respect' is over-used. I ask myself if you can 'respect' someone you don't know or know nothing about. Is it possible? You can show consideration and even compassion but not respect. Discuss.
  • [cite]Posted By: jimmymelrose[/cite]
    [cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]

    Back to the topic I agree that ultimately the parents and their peers need to teach consideration (Only Aretha should be allowed to use the 'R' word) for others but these sentances may wake up a few parents as well.

    .

    This is an interesting statement even if it was made jokingly. What is 'respect'?

    I always think the word 'respect' is over-used. I ask myself if you can 'respect' someone you don't know or know nothing about. Is it possible? You can show consideration and even compassion but not respect. Discuss.

    That's what I was hinting at. The 'R' word is now used to mean "verify my status and worth by not challenging me and accepting everything I say at face value" and not just by kids.

    Consideration is the realisation that your actions and words have an impact on others and acting accordingly.
  • [cite]Posted By: ltgtr[/cite]
    [cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]Getting caught AND punished is a real deterent as speed cameras prove. Most people see them and slow down. QED.


    like most things, they're only a deterent to otherwise law-abiding citizens...'most people' isn't everybody...

    And those people get caught which is why cameras work. Whether those people are otherwise law abiding is not the point, the cameras and the increased possibility of being caught has altered their behaviour
    [cite]Posted By: Medders[/cite]But then you speed up again as soon as the speed camera is behind you....

    QED
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  • edited October 2007
    or they use an untaxed, uninsured car...or they use a cloned car and somebody else gets the tickets...or they just ignore the tickets...or they pay somebody to claim that they were driving instead...
  • [cite]Posted By: ltgtr[/cite]or they use an untaxed, uninsured car...or they use a cloned car and somebody else gets the tickets...or they just ignore the tickets...or they pay somebody to claim that they were driving instead...

    All good arguements for speed cameras as they are obviously so effective that they are driving law breakers to ever more desperate, and so detectable, methods to avoid them.
  • I fear speed cameras but does that mean I respect them?

    Another interesting debate.
  • [cite]Posted By: jimmymelrose[/cite]I fear speed cameras but does that mean I respect them?

    Another interesting debate.

    LOL but you certainly give then consideration
  • Not half Henry. I'm thinking about either them or my boss getting me all the time.
  • Five boys aged 12 to 14, sentenced to two years' detention each for killing a man as he played cricket, have had manslaughter convictions overturned.

    Ernest Norton, 67, was pelted with stones and rocks at a south-east London leisure centre in February 2006.

    Two of the stones hit Mr Norton on the head and he suffered a heart attack.

    Lord Justice Gage, at the Court of Appeal, said reasons would be given later for releasing the boys, who had been sentenced on 19 October.

    full story - it's now going to the Old Bailey. This ain't going to help anyone.
  • That's disgraceful.

    I remember when I first heard this story thinking I was glad they had to serve some time for their behaviour but this just sends out the wrong impression completely.

    This makes me very sad and angry!

    I am be a decent law abiding citizen, perhaps drive a bit too quickly from time to time yet I pay fortunes in income tax, I get raped for car insurance every year and so on.......yet as soon as I get caught speeding I am treated like public enemy number one and the scum of the earth. No leniency whatsoever

    these little shits will get away with this and carry on being little shits

    Grrrrrrrrrrrr
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