Steven Hoskin had strong feelings about his killers. They had abused, exploited and humiliated him over a year, taking his money, treating him as their slave and making him wear his own dog's collar and lead. Eventually, having forced him to swallow 70 painkillers, they took him to the top of a railway viaduct and made him hang from the railings as one member of the gang, a girl aged 16, stamped on his hands until he fell 30 metres to his death.This report was tweeted on Tuesday by BendyGirl and picked up by Tim Worstall.
The abuse of vulnerable adults has been highlighted many times by Laban Tall, and the stories make utterly heartrending reading:
Yet these were the people the 38-year-old, who had severe learning disabilities, had boasted excitedly of counting as friends. "He thought they were the cat's whiskers," says Morley Richards, who had known Hoskin before he met the group. "He would say, 'They're my mates, I've got my own mates now.'"My god, you could just weep...
Of course, this could have been foreseen:
As more individuals are given the chance to live independently, the unwelcome side effect is that they are more likely to fall prey to criminals.Once, however, those criminals would have been dealt with, harshly. Now, they are left free to prey on the weak by the same progressive ideologues who demanded a closure of the old asylums…
The Association for Real Change (ARC) has been researching mate crime for the past year in Calderdale, west Yorkshire, and in north Devon, after a groundswell of concern among its members who are service providers for people with learning disabilities.Once we had 'support staff'. Now, we have 'service providers'. We've come a long way, eh?
The victim may not realise that what is happening is wrong. "There can be a feeling of, 'He's my friend, that's what friends do,'" says Grundy. "People with learning disabilities have fewer friends. For some, any friends is better than no friends, even if they're spending all your money.The whole of their lives? Or just once they are cut adrift from family and urged to seek their new found independence?
"It involves a lot of issues [around] self-belief and self-worth: thinking it's all right for people to walk all over them all the time, because that's what's happened to them the whole of their lives."
Rod Landman, from the north Devon project, likens the situation to domestic violence.In the refusal of the victim to appreciate that he/she is a victim, perhaps. But I can't help but wonder what the feminists are going to make of a comparison to people with learning difficulties!
Some families and frontline social care staff are still unaware of what constitutes a disability hate crime and what to do when one happens, says Grundy. Abusive relationships may get flagged up to adult safeguarding teams, but their primary aim is to keep the individual safe by removing them from the situation, rather than report those committing the crimes.Because it's just part of the same idealogy that insists these people are better off independent in the first place, no matter whether it's what they want or can cope with.
The 'it's all society's fault!' brigade, the 'their mothers never hugged them enough!' mob and the 'all crime is down to deprivation' group. They all refuse to see what's right in front of their noses - some people are predatory, born without empathy and dedicated to ensuring that they get what they want regardless of who they have to hurt to do so.
The same impulse which tells a progressive that a chronically mentally disabled adult can live in the community also tells them that those that prey on them are 'disadvantaged', and shouldn't be punished for their crimes.
Naturally, this can all be made better with other people's money:
As cuts lead to the closure of day centres and potentially less support for vulnerable people, there are fears that the situation could get worse.How about we build more prisons, then, to ensure that the sort of people who prey on the weak stay behind bars?
No?
Thought not...
Prison does work, if it is run correctly. In this case, I'd advocate a rope, or a bullet, not fussy really.
ReplyDeleteThere's a spectrum running from selfish, user, sociopath to psychopath. For many of us it's hard enough to tell where people are in that range so God knows how mentally damaged people are supposed to work it out ...
ReplyDeleteReading those stories is yet another reminder of how utterly useless our justice system is at dealing with real crime. If there is any use at all for Authority it should be to protect the most vulnerable among us from predators. Yet we see, time and again, nothing useful happening except indifference, irritation with the victim or buck-passing.
More prisons? Yes, please. Or at least use them to house the real criminals rather than those committing thought crimes...
What ever anyone thinks about prison I defy them to dispute that whilst a criminal is behind bars for that period all persons and property are safe from harm by that person.
ReplyDeleteI think you've missed a bit of parlance: those who use the services provided by 'service providers' are not 'people with learning disabilities' or indeed 'vunerable adults' but 'service users.'
ReplyDeleteYou must not have received the latest Newspeak Dictionary!
Building more prisons is not the answer, but a regime change certainly is. Cells like a room in the "Holiday Inn", takeaway food and colour TVs is a better life than most of them could live on the outside, so where's the deterrent?
ReplyDeleteI agree prisons should be for real criminals and not thought crimes.
Prison food should be nutritious, not particularly appetizing and not a lot of it but just enough that the hunger pangs are gnawing an hour before their next feed.
Cells should contain no more than a concrete slab, a foam mattress, pillow and quilt and go back to slopping out.
Prison should also have a hard labour element to it too, 14hrs a day breaking rocks ought to do it, but yes use of carrot and stick should be encouraged and those who toe the line earn privileges, the "I'm not doing that and you can't make me" brigade can be fed gruel while the others tuck into meat and tattie pie.
I guarantee that 6 strokes of the lash on the town hall steps on a saturday morning for persistent violent antisocial chavvy scrotes would temper this behavior to next to zero. They don't look quite so hard screaming for mummy (and they will) as a 16st police sargeant flays the hide from their back, a liberal rubbing of salt into the wounds to help the healing process and the knowledge that it will still hurt 2 weeks later as bruised ribs hurt everytime you move and even breathe.
The likes of Hindley, Brady and Huntley should have danced the Tyburn jig years ago, nuff said.
I actually did weep when I saw this story.
ReplyDeletePS: I also felt sorry for the cat in the bin, but compare the outcries. There is something rotten in the state of...
ReplyDeleteIt would be of some consolation to know a point exists on the cruelty scale when all stomachs heave.
ReplyDeleteSteven Hoskin was sadly unaware that there was no basis for his trust in a gang bound by neither inherent constraints nor anything like conscience. This was an utterly depressing story of shared indifference to torture and suffering.
My nephew is well below average IQ, he is now in his twenties but mentally half that age.
ReplyDeleteAfter several "muggings" which were really just his so called mates taking his mobile or money and walking off, the social services suggested that he might be better living somewhere else and he was given a flat in another town.
Of course the same thing is now happening in the new place and social services now suggest moving back home again.
Nothing ever gets done about the thefts and it turns out that the real reason for wanting to move him around is to pass the buck to the other town's social services so that he will be somebody else's problem.
Simply heartbreaking. I'm beyond words.
ReplyDeleteSomebody said recently in some far flung place that we don't do the difficult things if we can avoid them these days. Caring for the vulnerable requires effort; much easier to say the good, caring-typ words and tick boxes than actually do something.
ReplyDeleteIt's what I call the 'speed-bump' mentality: a Council will hurry round installing raised tarmac patches to slow motorists but does nothing to repair the whole road as it too costly and too involved. The easy options are so much more attractive now.
Let's move a problem on until it isn't a problem any more.
"I can't help but wonder what the feminists are going to make of a comparison to people with learning difficulties!"
ReplyDeleteNot a damn thing, I would guess! Their minds don't work like that.
"For many of us it's hard enough to tell where people are in that range so God knows how mentally damaged people are supposed to work it out ..."
ReplyDeleteQuite!
"What ever anyone thinks about prison I defy them to dispute that whilst a criminal is behind bars for that period all persons and property are safe from harm by that person."
No disputing that, that's for sure.
"I agree prisons should be for real criminals and not thought crimes."
And certainly not - unless you've ignored other sentences - non-violent crimes.
"PS: I also felt sorry for the cat in the bin, but compare the outcries. There is something rotten in the state of..."
And yet, other animal outrages don't get that publicity...
"...it turns out that the real reason for wanting to move him around is to pass the buck to the other town's social services so that he will be somebody else's problem."
Indeed! 'Speed bump' mentality, it seems...
"Not a damn thing, I would guess! Their minds don't work like that."
I'm not sure their minds work, full stop!
Misanthropy levels at Chez Exile now nudging 11 again. What the hell is to be done with such scum? I don't trust the state with the power of death over its citizens and its not likely I ever will, and yet paying for these animals upkeep in a nick is just as distasteful. I think it's time to bring back banishment. Britain has hundreds of little islands, many of which are in waters that make swimming back to the mainland an iffy proposition. Surely a few of them would be suitable as a social landfill for these bipedal maggots in fake Burberry. I'm sure some hand wringers would worry about a Lord of the Flies situation developing but firstly, who gives a fuck? And secondly, isn't that happening in towns all over the country because of these same kind of 'people'? Give the bastards a few sacks of seeds, a book on growing vegetables, a few rabbit traps and tinderboxes, and a one way trip to an island that could sustain them indefinitely but lacks the resources to enable them to get back on their own. If they last, fine, and if not the place will become available for more like them before long.
ReplyDeleteMany conservatives were forceful advocates for the care in the community programme.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Tyburn Jig sounds about right. Then a suite of rooms in hell.
"I think it's time to bring back banishment. Britain has hundreds of little islands, many of which are in waters that make swimming back to the mainland an iffy proposition."
ReplyDeleteHmmm. Can we find one with poisonous snakes and spiders, venomous jellyfish and huge sharks off the coast, giant predatory reptiles in the rivers, and one which is mostly desert in the middle?
That'd be perfect! ;)
"Many conservatives were forceful advocates for the care in the community programme."
Yup, it was one of their biggest mistakes.
"Hmmm. Can we find one with poisonous snakes and spiders, venomous jellyfish and huge sharks off the coast, giant predatory reptiles in the rivers, and one which is mostly desert in the middle? "
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of transportation here of course, but these days it's much too nice for 'em. It wants to be some where without much of the magnificent, awe inspiring desolation and lots of the mind numbing, soul shrivelling kind. It should be cold, miserable, joyless and incapable of receiving a mobile phone signal. No trees, or at least nothing big enough to make a raft out of, much less any kind of boat. Gruinard Island might have done the job except for the fact that it's a bit too close to the mainland and they cleaned up all the anthrax, but I'd suggest something along those lines.