...you'll be seeing it again:
A man who attacked a teenager with a hammer in a Brighouse park after he "looked at him in a funny way" has been spared jail.
Was it a robbery? A falling out amongst friends?
Ryan Thomas-Rothery, 22, set about 18 year-old Ben Croft when the pair met in Wellholme Park on August 27 last year.
Prosecutor Nick Adlington told Bradford Crown Court that Mr Croft had been with a group of friends when Thomas-Rothery approached them and tried to make conversation.
Hmmm...
He was said to have offered the group some MDMA, or ecstasy, and when they refused, the court heard that the defendant poured a bag of the drug into a can of lager before then drinking it.
*alarm bells*
Mr Adlington said Thomas-Rothery then started talking in a "strange manner", talking about killing people and burying them on the moors.
As the group continued to ignore him, Thomas-Rothery was said to have approached Mr Croft before hitting him repeatedly over the head with an eight-inch glass hammer.
Yikes! How's he going to get out of this one?
Stephen Wood, mitigating, said his client had apologised to Mr Croft immediately after the attack and then again via an e-mail.
He said a psychological report into Thomas-Rothery had identified "serious concerns", with a recommended treatment programme of "mentalisation-based therapy."
He's already mental, mate!
Imposing a suspended jail term, Judge David Hatton QC told Thomas-Rothery he must engage with the probation service or face being sent to custody.
He said: "This was a particularly serious assault, entirely unprovoked, and in public in the presence of others.
"You struck him about the head. Happily, on the evidence I have seen, the effects were relatively short-lived."
Referencing the findings of the psychological report, he said: "You are a young man who has had, to say the least, a number of problems not of your own making for a large part of your life."
Yes.
He's the victim.
12 comments:
MDMA...? Ever since West Yorkshire Plod began selling large quantities of confiscated drugs back to the market, misunderstandings and labelling issues have created even greater problems.
MTG
And did the judge order that he pay his victim 20,000 squids? If not, why not? The Courts have fallen into a habit of disregarding the public / the victims of crime, and handing down such ridiculous 'awards' that soon the public / victims will consider it necessary to take the punitive aspects of the Law off the courts and do it themselves.
I'm going to regret exposing my ignorance but having read the article I'm none the wiser. When they say 'glass hammer' do they mean a hammer made of glass or one of those small pointy hammers for breaking glass? These sorts of details are important.
@Amfortas
And withholding the police precept from our council tax, as we are getting very little from it:- its main purpose appears to be funding exotic teutonic automotive engineering for senior Plod, and funding the Facebook & Twitter patrols.
Glass Hammer - a small instrument with pointed ends for breaking glass windows to facilitate an emergency exit...or a WC Jaded.
Getting embarrassing Melvin.
Jaded
Or shattering a pain, Melv (misspelling intentional).
'Their like a dolt of lightening'...just be sure to accuse the write suspect, Jaded.
MTG
You know i's going to sound very un-sympathetic but I read stories like this and sometimes think we need a new approach to dealing with people like this.
As a straw man for discussion, I suggest the introduction of "Russian Roulette" sentencing for cases like this. When the drug-addled monsters are found guilty, take them out he back and Russian Roulette them. 5 empty chambers, 1 loaded one. If you survive then you go to prison. If not, then they weren't exactly contributing to society except to bulge the benefits stats.
And perhaps even the *possibility* that justice would be immediate and final might be enough to deter some of these morons. What is society supposed to do with someone who smashes another's head in with a hammer because he won't buy MDMA? Some of these people are just irredeemable, and should be treated as such.
AS glass hammer.
A stealth weapon.
You won't see it coming.
@John M
Revolvers are so old technology: I like your idea of 'Russian Roulette' but as it's the 21st century, surely we should be offering them a semi-automatic pistol loaded with one round?
"The Courts have fallen into a habit of disregarding the public / the victims of crime..."
They work for the benefit of the courts, not society. Never forget that.
"...I read stories like this and sometimes think we need a new approach to dealing with people like this."
I can think of several very old ways of dealing with people like this!
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