Prisoner admits attempted murder of Ian Huntley

[haranguerer]

At least they're more thought out answers, fair play. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion. I'm not arguing for the sake of it however - its an issue which really really annoys me - not the treatment of child killers/rapists (btw, Huntley killed two girls, its accepted he didnt sexually abuse them nor was that the motive), but mob mentality whipped up by the media, which essentially gives people who couldnt be bothered thinking for themselves a crusade to go on. Thats what the initial post by seafoid ws about, and thats the angle he keeps trying to bring the thread back towards.

I'm not suggesting either of you couldnt be bothered thinking for yourselves, i just wanted to point out where I think your point of views are damaging. I notice that above everyone will always use extreme examples. The fact of the matter is, its almost entirely one big grey area. Child killers should be killed? What about John Venables? He was a child himself. The father who jumped off the balcony with his child in an attempt at suicide? He survived, the child didnt. Should he be killed?

For me its a sign of the times as I said before that people either can't, or dont want to think for themselves, so they follow the crowd, safe to cry 'witch' at everyone when they're in the middle of a mob. This frenzy is fed by the meida, who are constantly lookig for the next victim (like the landlord in the Joanna yeats case). People in general want to find common ground with those around them, so they seek the views noone is likely to disagree with - kill paedos, etc etc - it makes them seem like they have strongly held convictions when in actual fact they are just being sheep.

[screenmachine]

Every case is different.  I think there is quite a difference when a child kills a child rather than an adult killing a child.  In the case of Venables, was he not recently reconvicted of possession of child pornography or something along those lines.  Clearly a sick individual who's childhood traits have carried on into his adult life and yet the system still tries to protect him by masking his identity and letting him move freely in a community (up until his recent re-arrest anyway.)  If someone was to dispose of Venables, in prison or elsewhere, I wouldn't lose too much sleep.  The world would be a better place without him in my opinion.

Suicide is definitely a grey area which very few people fully understand and why this man jumped of a balcony with his child is a question I can't answer.  I would still look upon it very differently from someone who abducts and murders a child.

[HiMucker]

no harm lad you are talking nonsense.  1) You are trying to say that all murd er is the same is just bonkers.  And to be fair it 2) does seem to look like your arguing for the sake of it, no matter how well constructed your sentences are

1) No I'm not - I'm questioning whether the age of a victim makes a murder (or any other violent crime) a "worse" or a more horrific crime. Screenmachine put forward the hypothetical scenario of him being in prison for a crime like murder. Now presumably this murder was that of an innocent person. However, based on what I consider to warped logic, he appears to feel that this would lead him to some twisted moral high ground where he would do in another murderer, one who had murdered an innocent child as he'd be serving a long sentence anyway. Why should someone not do him in for having committed murder simply because his victim was an adult?

2) You do understand the concept of how a discussion board works, yes? Perhaps my sentences are well constructed as I'm trying to articulate an opinion - you could maybe consider said opinion and come back to me on it, challenge it by all means, rather than putting words in my mouth and dismissing it offhand.

Right chap I wasnt putting words in your mouth.  I was actually paying you a complement that your posts were very well articulated even though they were flawed.  However I thought you were expressing an opinion though from your last post you seem to suggest that you are playing devils advocate and merely asking the question is one murder worse than the other.  So I will take Tonys stance and keep it short and sweet. Yes I do think that the murder for a child  is worse than the same said murder of an adult.
Maybe the next time you can to me the honour of separating your opinion from the question, as I am tad slow 

[HiMucker]

Haranguerer, you have alot of different arguments going on in your last post.  I fully understand the point you are making about the media hype, and how it influences peoples opinions and decisons.  I fully agree with it.  There is many many different scenarios you can look at, but from my earlier post, I was trying to shorten the perspective, and to look at it from the point of view of one man protecting his family.  You never told me what you would do?

I dont no every detail of the huntley case, you said that it was accepted that it was not sexually motivated.  I thought that he was running a bath for them.  Is this true or balls?  Not disagreeing with you here, just interested.  Maybe I heard that through the tripe that some of the tabloids put out?

[haranguerer]

What I would do is irrelevant, as is what you would do. When it comes down to the situation where your family is in immediate danger, I would say any reasonable force is acceptable. To give an example, if someone who had broke into a house was killed by the homeowner and there is no evidence that they used clearly unaccepatable means - e.g had completely subdued them but then shot them in the head, I dont think that person should be convicted, becuase if you are defending yourself and your family, you cant take chances that that person will get up and kill all around them - add panic and fear into the equation and there are a lot of mitigating circumstances.

However, if someone has been caught, convicted etc, we can't allow summary justice. Its not even anything to do with a sense of morality, although imo it would be immoral - its that it would be opening a whole can of worms which would consume civilised society.

Re Huntley - no, it was murder, and it may even have been accidental as such i.e he hadnt intended to kill them

[tyrone girl]

Are you in a sense sympathising with Huntley as in he may not even have meant to do it or am i getting the total wrong end of the stick here 

[seafoid]

Huntley had a record of s*x with underage girls according to Wiki.

[haranguerer]

Are you in a sense sympathising with Huntley as in he may not even have meant to do it or am i getting the total wrong end of the stick here 

Guess. You've got the end of the stick you usually get, which will happen when you dont consider what it was in response to.

Huntley isnt the issue in my post at all, but since thats the part that was focussed on - as 'child abuser/killer' had been used interchangeably it seems in relation to him which seemed to make him fairer game for retribution, I pointed out that there were no mention of him abusing the girls he killed, nor was there any evidence of there having been an intention to do so -it seems it wasnt premeditated and may have been accidental. Noone knows but him I suppose.

Why do you ask? Is it just because if I had answered 'yes' you'd have had a chance to shout 'witch' as i suspect??

[tyrone girl]

Shout Witch? You suspect wrongly!
I asked out of interest plain and simple as i have been glancing over responses in this thread and that bit stood out at the end. Was interested in the point of view.
What do you mean though when you say it wasnt premeditated? I presume you mean the murder itself or do you mean the capture of the girls at the outset? If there wasnt any sexual nature intended or to hurt or kill them wasnt intended and was accidental why did he entice them into the house in the first place?
What do you think he intended to do with them?

[haranguerer]

How should I know? I dont know much about the Huntley case at all - I just pointed out that he was never found to have abused the girls.

If you were glancing over the posts you will see that Huntleys individual case has little to do with any of my posts, I was just commenting on the labelling of him as a child abuser as an aside because it had some relevance to the wider argument of summary justice.

[tyrone girl]

Fair enough.
Im of the opinion though that anyone who hurts/ abuses/ murders a child is fair game for whatever retribution will come their way. I would have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever nor could i care less what would happen someone.
The issue i would have is that if i was inside for whatever reason i dont see how id feel the need to take it upon myself to kill the person. If it was a member of my family certainly and id make no apologies for it but i dont see how some randomer in jail can have the support of people for killing a sc**bag.
Granted if he had killed huntley id be glad he got what was coming to him but at the same time does it not just make this fella a murdering sc**bag as well.
After reading this post it actually doesnt make much sense but its best way i can explain it (in me own head anyway)

[seafoid]

Fair enough.
Im of the opinion though that anyone who hurts/ abuses/ murders a child is fair game for whatever retribution will come their way. I would have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever nor could i care less what would happen someone.
The issue i would have is that if i was inside for whatever reason i dont see how id feel the need to take it upon myself to kill the person. If it was a member of my family certainly and id make no apologies for it but i dont see how some randomer in jail can have the support of people for killing a sc**bag.
Granted if he had killed huntley id be glad he got what was coming to him but at the same time does it not just make this fella a murdering sc**bag as well.
After reading this post it actually doesnt make much sense but its best way i can explain it (in me own head anyway)

That is why capital punishment is never going to be put to a vote in Europe and why they'll never stop executing criminals in Texas.

The other question is whether or not people can be reformed in prison. Or do their crimes define them forever? 

[tyrone girl]

I dont believe that anyone who sexually abuses or murders a child can ever be reformed in prison. Petty criminals maybe but murderers / rapists no.

[seafoid]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/dec/17/prison-justice-baby-p-shannon-matthews?INTCMP=SRCH

Alongside sex offenders, those in prison for harming children are the most reviled on a prison landing, by many members of staff as well as prisoners it should be said. As the two attacks so far on Donovan illustrate, such offenders quickly discover that there are no hiding places in prison. Even when they are held on special, so called "protection units" - or VPUs (vulnerable prisoners' unit) under prison rule 45 (removal from general association for own protection,) they are rarely safe. Everyone in prison has to move around the prison at some point, for trips to the healthcare centre, for visits, (if they have anyone outside who is prepared to visit) or simply to be transferred to another unit or out of the prison. When it comes to the meting out of so called "prison justice", windows of opportunity abound.


But who are these self-appointed judges and executioners who take it upon themselves to dish out extra judicial violence on fellow prisoners of whom they disapprove? Either they are just nasty sanctimonious bullies, so ashamed of their own failings that they prey on anyone they see as more vulnerable than themselves. Or they are inadequate dullards, vulnerable and easily goaded into senseless assaults on strangers by their sharper neighbours, "the chaps" who get their kicks by playing the morally bankrupt "prison code" game. And cowardice always looms large when attacks are being considered. As the wise heads on the landings say, "If a man five feet nothing is convicted of something to do with sex or children he's a nonce - if he's over six feet, there might be some doubt about his conviction."


The scale of the hypocrisy of such prison barbarism must be mindboggling to right thinking people who have never experienced the reality of the vagaries of prison life. But the more sinister brand of hypocrisy, I believe, is that practised by the counterparts of the prison attackers on the outside lording in their own self-righteousness and probably getting some sort of vicarious kick too from condoning and encouraging this animalistic behaviour.


Reminiscent of David Blunkett's comment when he was home secretary that it was time to "crack open a bottle" when he heard the news that mass murderer Harold Shipman had hanged himself, last week an un-named minister was reported as commenting that Shannon Matthews's mother Karen would "get hers in jail". Coupled with her branding as "pure evil" by the police and tabloid newspapers, Matthews's status as a legitimate target upon whom any pathetic malcontent on the landings may vent their own self-loathing was assured.


It will be the same for the abusers of Baby P. In spite of their court-ordered anonymity, everyone in prison will know who they are and where they are. And when the attacks are reported there will be plenty on the outside who will rejoice. "I hope they get beaten on a daily basis," one woman who contacted a radio phone-in show told the presenter last week. "I hope that continues until they are beaten so badly that they die," she said. That might yet happen. But if it does, it will not be a victory for justice. On the contrary, it will be just another stain on the tragic memory of their victim.

[haranguerer]

Fair enough.
Im of the opinion though that anyone who hurts/ abuses/ murders a child is fair game for whatever retribution will come their way. I would have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever nor could i care less what would happen someone.
The issue i would have is that if i was inside for whatever reason i dont see how id feel the need to take it upon myself to kill the person. If it was a member of my family certainly and id make no apologies for it but i dont see how some randomer in jail can have the support of people for killing a sc**bag.
Granted if he had killed huntley id be glad he got what was coming to him but at the same time does it not just make this fella a murdering sc**bag as well.
After reading this post it actually doesnt make much sense but its best way i can explain it (in me own head anyway)

It doesnt make much sense and you can't explain it because its essentially a stream of populist views you've strung together in an attempt to appear as though you are articulating your own opinion.

Seafoid, I suspect you had that article in mind when you started the thread!