London again for the weekend. Regular visits there really do prevent a news story containing the phrase, “neighbours described the man at the centre of these tragic events as a quiet individual who kept himself to himself, though he’s never been quite right since he came back from Germany and he visited London regularly and you know what folk down there are like”.
Despite all the positives the capital has to offer, there’s always the nagging problem of expense. Everything costs more. Everything. Even some of the simplest of life’s gratifications. Just yesterday evening I was on Clapham Common looking for, well, the kind of thing that many over-18s enjoy (over 21 in some states, check your jurisdiction for details) and was shocked, shocked I tell you! Shocked at the amount of money I was being asked to pay for the most basic of pleasures.
₤7.05 for a pint and a gin and tonic? It’s a scandal! At least the men hanging around looking for random and illicit sexual encounters still do it just for the thrill (according to the lady from the church who warned about venturing there after dark, anyway).
Song playing as this was published: Zero 7 - “Crosses”
I hope you didn’t have a moment of madness while there. Or did you? Or is it Clapham Common where people go to look at badgers? I can never remember.
The “moment of madness” was getting a second round of drinks. I think it’s the Welsh Assembly for badgers…..
Mind you, I suppose I shouldn’t make light of Mr. Davies’s moment of madness a) because he seems vaguely like a diamond geezer and b) as Jody Dobrowski’s murder shows, going cruising on Clapham Common is not to be taken lightly. I’d sort of forgotten about his case, but have just been reminded of it in the last couple of days, and am glad to see that the f*ckwit scumkings who went there to kill have been tried and sentenced. Long may they rot. *unts. C*nts. Cu*ts. Cun*s. (My apologies.)
Apologies not required in this case. Incidentally, for an excellent article on asterisqué try this article in today’s Guardian.
As for Mr. Davies, well, I want to know how he managed to convince the tabloids that he was looking to get sexual gratification from some random, hot, man-love rather than doing lord-knows-what with a protected species, the sicko. Further comment about Welsh people and furry animals would be both unimaginative and unnecessary.
Jody Dobrowski is a different matter (hence new paragraph). His name also reminds me why I think Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act (the bit that allows tougher sentences for offences motivated or aggravated by the victim’s sexual orientation) is indefensibly discriminatory. Would beating somebody up so badly that they would die “because he was queer” really merit a harsher sentence than “because he was a lanky, sarcastic, four-eyed twat who sometimes used the term ‘one’ as the third person singular”? Put differently (and whilst acknowledging that homophobia exists), did his killers specifically want to “kill a queer” or does there exist, in modern Britain, a sub-set of “people” who would go out and beat the living daylights out of practically anyone and afterwards and depending upon their victim say “we just did over a queer/paki/granny/lanky, sarcastic, four-eyed twat who sometimes used the term ‘one’ as the third person singular”? Remember that I will use the knowledge that you’ve been to Stoke in any discussion.
Yes, I noticed that they were given extra punishment because he was gay, which I didn’t understand the point of, although they did go to Clapham Common to specifically kill a gay person, but I don’t think that is a harsher crime than killing anyone else (unless each other, in which case they might have been knighted, though posthumously).
I thought initially that you’d paid ₤7.05 for a pint OF gin and tonic, which seemed quite reasonable.
But say they’d killed *me* on Clapham Common - If I get killed by some knuckle-dragging Neanderthal homophobe I hope there’s as big an outcry as there would be if I was a barking, nancy boy poofter…
You frequent gay bars and clubs. If I thought the judge was being a bit lenient I could always produce THOSE pictures as evidence…
INOAP: Going out for one night with Ryan, Stairs & Sin does not equal “frequent”. That said, I did take small boy to what I can only describe as “gay cafés” in Stuttgart. If there’s a sure-fire way to win with women it’s to take toddlers to gay cafés: “He looks after his body, moisturises, talks about his emotions, likes shopping for clothes/shoes/soft furnishings AND he’s good with children! Let’s try and convert him to heterosexuality.” Works every time, although admittedly, the fact that I was dating said small boy’s mother made the need for even more women greedy/unnecessary/a sign of insanity.
Well, Mr. Dobrowski was targeted because he was gay, but I don’t think that is a worse crime than horrible murdering Neanderthals killing anyone else. But it shows that gay people face a greater risk amongst certain sections of people in love with violence. Morally, though, of course, if the scumkings were to kill a straight gentleman while out looking for someone to kill, it would be an identically heinous crime in my eyes.
I thought you hated gin and tonic…
R: I do, it’s repulsive, hence the pint as well. Washed the taste away…..
BiB: “.…it would be an identically heinous crime in my eyes.” That’s the whole point - if someone murders, they should be done for murder, there shouldn’t be an “anti-discriminatory” law that treats attacks on people differently depending upon their race/disability/sexual orientation. I’ve tried, very badly, to discuss this with TEFL Smiler before, and failed to get my point across.
I was going to tell you that I don’t know what it’s like to live under the fear of homophobic attack, but I know that within the past month I’ve been asked by a gentleman in a local hostelry, “Wot are you looking at, you fucking queer?” If, rather than just walking away, I’d been punched in the face, the prosecution would have demanded sentencing for aggravated (as opposed to “normal”) assault, with a 2 year, rather than 6 month sentence. It would have been, based upon my perceived sexuality, evinced by his use of the word “queer”, a homophobic attack. Lots of homosexuals are attacked, so are lots of people. I really don’t want to trivialise the problem, ‘but’… this country is a centre for random, senseless, violence - I’m sure that lots of homosexuals get mugged and beaten up, not because of their sexuality, but because it can happen to almost anyone. It’s not necessarily the kind of equality one might wish for though. Even in the case of Mr. Dobrowski I’m convinced that, although his attackers were cruising Clapham Common for victims (which gives you some idea of their target that week), that their previous form implies that they’d have beaten anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time to death.
Okay, putting it slightly differently, Britain is a nasty, violent place. I honestly don’t believe being heterosexual makes one that much/at all safer. People who’d only attack gays do exist, as do those who attack prostitutes, students, foreigners (carry on list) etc. Scarier, much, much scarier is (in my mind at least) the idea that thanks to the media I know Ron Davies as the guy from the lay-by with the “badgers” as opposed to the architect of Welsh Devolution. Nutters who attack people for whatever absurd reason are, unfortunately, probably always going to exist…
I’ve found the discussion you’re referring to, and I think it’s a little bit different.
In my mind, it wasn’t about the rights and wrongs of sentencing criminals according to the identity of their victims.
It was about recognising that certain groups can be targeted more in certain contexts, and that by gathering the data the authorities will be in a better position to make informed decisions.
David (TEFL): Sorry for any misrepresentation. The thing is, how many of those people are attacked/murdered because they were gay and how many were attacked/murdered for other ridiculous reasons AND were gay? I don’t think I need to point out that neither is acceptable. I suppose I’d like to see a situation where the sexuality of the victim wasn’t important because why could it matter? Or better still that there were no victims……. Now if you’ll excuse me, Sunday’s sermon won’t write itself…..
Well, it’s true what you say - but surely that in itself is good reason for collecting data? Only once the authorities have a clearer understanding of the nature of the beast within any particular context can they know what type of preventative measures to take - either general or specific.
Personally, I feel that there is a difference between a random murder and a targeted ‘hate crime’ murder. Not to the victim’s family and friends, of course. But rather as being symbolic for a discriminatory view that is (to a legal extent?) condemned by society. And thus, the criminal has commited two crimes: both murder, and an action of discrimination or hatred towards a member of a specific group.
I’m no lawyer, and so I can’t comment on the multiple purposes of sentences, but I think it comes as no surprise that a ‘double crime’, as I’m calling it due to my lack of knowledge of the normal terminology, would come with a harsher sentence.
David (TEFL): 1. I can’t see how one can actually know, really know, in most cases, the difference between a “crime” and a “targetted hate crime”. Although…
2. It shouldn’t make a difference. Attacking someone because they are gay shouldn’t make any more difference than if the victim is black, muslim, wears glasses, has a posh voice and is walking through Byker, has a northern accent and is walking through Battersea or is wearing a Celtic shirt in the wrong part of Glasgow. It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t be taken into account by the jury - it’s not an excuse. To accept that homophobia should be treated differently by the law is to accept that homosexuals should be treated differently per se. The alternative is to say that attacking someone “because they were gay” should be dealt with more harshly than attacking me, “because I am straight.” It’s the very opposite of everything equal rights campaigners should stand for. There is no excuse. Demanding extra sentencing because of the “different” sexuality of the victim does sort of reduce the “we’re all the same” argument slightly.
That said, although attacking someone because of their perceived sexuality (or whatever) shouldn’t make a difference - it should count as an unprovoked attack - being gay/straight/white/black/asian/disabled is not a provocation - lock the bastards up for as long as possible…….
Or, put another way, if I’m ever on jury duty on a case where someone was attacked merely for their way of life - the defendant had better have a damned good alibi…..
ADDED NOTE: I’m aware that my point of view may not be shared by all of society, and that some juries wouldn’t necessarily vote my way, but I can’t demand extra rights for certain segments of society. That doesn’t mean I have to be happy with the status quo, though…..
But are there not different degrees of killing someone? (Pre-meditated) murder, manslaughter, etc? To follow your argument would mean that a doctor convicted of assisting someone to die would be treated the same as a violent serial killer, right?
Isn’t this more a question of seeing such sentencing as an extension of positive discrimination/affirmative action? And then it takes on a rather different complexity.
My own view is that positive discrimination is a good idea for a certain period of time, but that society has to be weaned off it after a while. How you define how long it’s necessary is a sticking point. But I’d say that given the history of the treatment of minority groups in the UK, then it’s a good idea to have such a structure in place at the current time, too. And it makes sense to me that it is reflected in the sentencing for murder,
The day there’s less discrimination and less need to protect minorities, and there’s therefore more equality in general, then I think we can talk about equality in murder cases, too.
David: We’re probably going to disagree over positive discrimination/affirmative action too, but I suspect that how we’d want society to treat any minority groups are going to be pretty similar….
Yes, there are different degrees of killing and I didn’t mean that premeditated murder should be treated the same as medically assisted suicide (although I know there are people who would say it’s exactly the same thing). To twist your argument, should a doctor prosecuted for assisted suicide be given a mandatory harsher sentence if his terminally ill patient was gay?
I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one, David. Maybe I’m just being selfish, but if I’m ever murdered on Clapham Common by someone who really, really hates joggers, I don’t want the last thing that goes through my mind to be, “If only I’d been gay, he’d get an extra 10 years for this…..” because that really isn’t equality either.
If it was proved that the doctor set out with the malicious intent only to kill/assist in the deaths of gay patients, and that it was due to a hatred of gays, then yes, as that would make it also a hate crime.
Joggers? With their long history of jogger-bashing, and discrimination in the work place, the public sphere, family law, etc…
I think you’re right about needing to agree to disagree on this one!