Tuesday 13 September 2011

The Family Don’t Have Any Commitments!

A teenager from a family from hell which was given £2,500 by the council to move away from fed-up neighbours appeared in court yesterday.

Southampton Youth Court heard how the 14-year-old boy was arrested by police on suspicion of breaking his neighbour’s window where he lived in Millbrook.

When officers led him away to the police van he escaped and ran off along a nearby footpath, the court was told.

An officer gave chase and managed to handcuff the boy, who was later charged with resisting arrest. He admitted the charge in court and was handed a six-month conditional discharge by magistrates yesterday.
Still, he wasn’t too lonely in the court waiting for his non-punishment, since the rest of his scummy family decided to get in on the action too:
On the day of the incident, June 24, four members of the family of ten were arrested in the incident, including the child’s mother. None of the family can be identified for legal reasons.
Dear god, what sort of family must they be?
Defending, Sarah Barnard said the boy admitted what he did but said he ran away because he was “fed up of being accused of things and arrested for things” he had not done. She said: “That day I was on the phone to my clients and the neighbours were screaming like harpies before the telephone call ended. It was not one-sided.”
What exactly were ‘the neighbours’ screaming? Come to think of it, how do you know it was ‘the neighbours’ who were screaming?

We don’t get to hear that, though…
Sentencing, chairman of the bench Pamela Butt told the boy that he must ensure he gets an education so he can read and write.

She warned: “If you get into trouble when you are 15, magistrates have far more ways of punishing you than at 14.”
But just as many of avoiding any punishment at all.

What does anyone think is more likely in this case, since all he received for this offence was a suspended sentence?
No costs were awarded because she said: “We feel the family has enough commitments.”
What commitments do they have? I can’t quite figure it out myself.

It’s not like they haven’t got the money to pay court fines, unless they’ve spent the £2500 on flat-screen TVs and beer…

7 comments:

Angry Exile said...

Are we talking "committed for trial" type commitments or something else?

Tattyfalarr said...

Yet again every able bodied neighbour sits back and allows this to happen. There's clearly a gap in the market for some enterprising private individuals to ensure these people behave.

Anonymous said...

The quote from Pamela Butt implies that the 14 year old boy can't read or write?!
I hope that's not the case as the little darling will have to have extra benefits for someone to fill his forms in and explain them to him in a couple of years.

Woman on a Raft said...

what sort of family must they be?

The sort with a minor. The paper will have to apply to have the normal restrictions on identification lifted because if they identify a member of the family they also identify him.

Now, had the elderly neighbour been accused of having a gollywog in the window....

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

The paper did all right, though; naming and shaming Pamela Butt, the perjurer on the bench. She is the real criminal here.

JuliaM said...

"Are we talking "committed for trial" type commitments or something else?"

Good point!

"Yet again every able bodied neighbour sits back and allows this to happen."

Because they don't want to be arrested for harassment.

"The quote from Pamela Butt implies that the 14 year old boy can't read or write?!"

I gather that's no longer such a shock these days...

"The sort with a minor. The paper will have to apply to have the normal restrictions on identification lifted because if they identify a member of the family they also identify him. "

I expect they are named on various social forums, and everyone who has had the misfortune of living near them will know them.....

Tattyfalarr said...

"Because they don't want to be arrested for harassment."

Haven't they heard ? You can "harrass" people for years on end without anything being done about it.

All you need is to know the rules and come up with the "right" excuses at the right time.

There's an entire system designed to be utterly ineffectual against such problems and it's just begging to be played. You fight fire with fire...not more bloody petrol !