Heartland

Right folks,

There's a petition been started to get the definition hate crime changed to include "crimes committed against a person or persons, on the basis of their appearance or subcultural interests."

Fairly obviously, this is the result of the murder and attempted murder, of Sophie Lancaster and her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, while walking through Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Rossendale in Lancashire, last year.

To recap upon what happened:

While returning home, Lancaster and Maltby were subjected to a "vicious mob attack" from "a large group of people" between 01:10 hours and 01:20 hours on Saturday, 11 August 2007, at the skate park area of Stubby Lee Park, Bacup.[2] The couple were walking home and came across a group of teenagers at the entrance to the park. The group followed them but there was no trouble till some of them suddenly assaulted Robert Maltby without provocation. When he was knocked unconscious the gang attacked Sophie Lancaster, who was trying to protect him by cradling him in her arms. One witness a 15-year-old boy, told police: "They were running over and just kicking her in the head and jumping up and down on her head." One distraught witness used a mobile to call for emergency services saying: "We need, we need an ambulance at Bacup Park, this mosher’s just been banged because he’s a mosher." [5] Witnesses revealed that afterwards: "The killers celebrated their attack on the goths - or "moshers" - by telling friends afterwards that they had "done summat good", and claiming: "There's two moshers nearly dead up Bacup park - you wanna see them -they're a right mess." " [6]

Police said soon afterwards it was "a sustained attack during the course of which the pair received serious head injuries and their faces were so swollen we could not ascertain which one was female and which one was male." Both were hospitalised as a result of the attack, first at Rochdale Infirmary.[1] Maltby's injuries left him in a coma with bleeding on the brain, but he gradually recovered over the next two weeks. Lancaster, in a deep coma, was moved to Fairfield Hospital - Bury then to the Neurology unit at Hope Hospital in Salford. It became clear to hospital staff she would not recover from her injuries and on August 24, 2007 her family agreed to switch off life support and Lancaster died.

Meanwhile, the trail has started.

Clicky.

There has also been released a recording of the 999 call that was made from the scene.

If you're resident in the UK, please sign the petition.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/goth-hatecrimes/

Thank you.

Signed.

Me and my Dawnrazor peeps have actioned this, thanks in large to Wild Bill and his overtly large heart

Now all I need is a petition to hang the little bastards....

I'm going to pass it on to my England residing friends.
Ta muchly

weebleswobble wrote:Me and my Dawnrazor peeps have actioned this, thanks in large to Wild Bill and his overtly large heart

:notworthy

Now all I need is a petition to hang the little bastards....

You're confusing "petition" with "cue" there weebs.

Signed, lets just hope the government take notice.

EDIT: Hope you don't mind, but I've copied and pasted the first post with the links to put on a bikers forum that I go on.

Andy Christ 666 wrote:Signed, lets just hope the government take notice.

EDIT: Hope you don't mind, but I've copied and pasted the first post with the links to put on a bikers forum that I go on.

Of course I don't mind mate.

Hexe Luciferia wrote:I'm going to pass it on to my England residing friends.
Ta muchly

Remiss of me not to thank you sooner Hexe. And you too Korin

Signed.

reactiv8 wrote:Signed.

Cheers mate.

The least I can do ...

Signed and posted on the London Goth Meet Up group website.

@Syberberg: that is the least one can do.

robertzombie wrote:Signed and posted on the London Goth Meet Up group website.

Cheers robert.

Signed and passed on.

Ignorance is p*ss.

Almiche V wrote:Signed and passed on.

Ignorance is p*ss.

Cheers mate.

Well, here's the result:

http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page15282.asp

Dark wrote:Well, here's the result:

http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page15282.asp

Within this broad definition, legislation focuses on hate crimes on the basis of race, faith, sexual orientation, disability and gender identity - and it is these categories which are currently monitored. We do not plan to extend this to include hatred against people on the basis of their appearance or sub-cultural interests. These are not intrinsic characteristics of a person and could be potentially be very wide ranging, including for example allegiance to football teams - which makes this a very difficult category to legislate for. However, it is important to remember that this is within a legal framework that assumes that all violence is a very serious matter; and in addition, judges have discretion to look at a wide range of mitigating and aggravating factors when they are sentencing - and are likely to view attacks motivated by hatred of this kind as very serious indeed.

W@nkers

Will you let it rest there?
I don't know how much chances you have to bring on this petition, but as I see it, the PM took a pretty weak point saying mainly "We do as we do, BUBBA!".
As you didn't claim only goths to be protected by that change of law you targeted achieving a public benefit as I see it.
The chav-type of folks that attacked Sophie would be protected by that law as much from attacks by Skins or Mods or whaever is floating around in their pond to bite them the same. Maybe the title of that petition was chosen a bit misleadingly. I think of retrying as a good idea.
And the petiton as such seems to be a very decent idea to me.

I'm not entirely sure that I agree with the concept of a "hate crime" - it's been said by people more eloquent than I in other places but if someone beats someone else to death then does it really matter if it was because the victim was black, gay, or Jedi? What matters is that a crime has been committed, and that the person responsible is brought to book. Once you start saying "Beating the crap out of someone will get you 1 year in prison, but beating the crap out of a gay person for being gay will get you 5 years," you're making one rule for one group and one rule for another.

If we want a society where all people are equal in the eyes of the law then we need to start punishing all crimes with equal rigour. While there may be mitigating circumstances that need to be taken into account ("I beat the crap out of this person because he broke into my house and raped my tortoise"), ultimately crime is crime, and it makes no difference against home it is perpetrated. If I were to be set upon by a group of white middle-class men and beaten to death should they receive a lesser sentence than if I were an old black lady or a young pakistani lesbian?

All I can say is I do protect my own kind of people...

Whatever it takes however small I may seem...

EvilBastard wrote:I'm not entirely sure that I agree with the concept of a "hate crime" - it's been said by people more eloquent than I in other places but if someone beats someone else to death then does it really matter if it was because the victim was black, gay, or Jedi? What matters is that a crime has been committed, and that the person responsible is brought to book. Once you start saying "Beating the crap out of someone will get you 1 year in prison, but beating the crap out of a gay person for being gay will get you 5 years," you're making one rule for one group and one rule for another.

If we want a society where all people are equal in the eyes of the law then we need to start punishing all crimes with equal rigour. While there may be mitigating circumstances that need to be taken into account ("I beat the crap out of this person because he broke into my house and raped my tortoise"), ultimately crime is crime, and it makes no difference against home it is perpetrated. If I were to be set upon by a group of white middle-class men and beaten to death should they receive a lesser sentence than if I were an old black lady or a young pakistani lesbian?

I think you've misunderstood the intent of hate crime laws slightly. They make the motive itself a crime. It's a tool, albeit an extremely blunt one, to discourage discrimination. What it means legally is that you can dislike a person for being different, but you can't murder them for it. IF it helps to stop people from killing each other just because they have a different skin colour, sexuality or dress sense, then I see it as a good thing. In an ideal world, of course, no one would feel the need to kill each other for the utterly pathetic reason that "they were chavs/punks/goths/gay/black/Asian/French/etc.." The only legitimate reason for killing another human being is self defense.

On the other hand, the concept hate crime legislation raises an interesting question: Are they the beginnings of Thought Crime?

I would be happy to sign it - but the end date has passed :-( - should another be put up I will sigh that.

Andy TG wrote:I would be happy to sign it - but the end date has passed :-( - should another be put up I will sigh that.

What Andy TG says!

I think this all comes from wanting to reinforce to the ignorant that appearance/race/class/sex/age is not a reason to judge or hate a person. Everybody has the same basic feelings and needs, but still in the 21st century there are people who don't understand this. Ignorance and narrow mindedness are still rife in this age, no matter how much we or the government (us and them) kid ourselves that they aren't.

I think introducing a law relating to racism etc would be a good thing, even if to just reinforce these basic rights and wrongs. It would make headlines and make an impact. Maybe not a clean sweep, but it would start to make a difference.