Homophobic attack on two women on London bus.

Caporegime
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Of course in a perfect world, where everybody behaves like robots - they should have just gotten off the bus, caught the next one and forgotten about it, but we're not robots, and we don't live in a perfect world do we?


I want you to imagine a situation.

Suppose every other day for the last year, you've had some sort of abuse thrown at you, dirty looks, blokes shouting 'get your pasty out' people being horrible all the time, on the bus, in the street, in the shops, at the gym, on the internet - everywhere.

Suppose that you get on that bus and those kids start throwing coins and asking you to strip off (or whatever they were asking)

Has it dawned on you, even for a minute, that maybe - just maybe they'd had enough? Amid all your embarrassing probably-false internet tough-talk, have you stopped to think about what makes people angry and how unpredictably they behave when they get angry? Because once you stop to think about that, then that might change your outlook on situations like this quite considerably.

Everybody has a limit, a fuse - it's different lengths for different people, but some people get to the point where they can't take it anymore and it doesn't matter if there are 5x blokes or 50x blokes - they'll lose their temper, and do something that will end up in them getting hurt, because that's how human beings behave when they get upset.

If that's what happened - we shouldn't criticise them for it, because nobody can be expected to perform a text-book exercise in de-escalating a violent situation they didn't prepare or ask for, because it's ridiculous to expect that from anyone other than a police officer.

if that is your mentality and type of thinking then you need to see a shrink.

having things build up over time isn't good. you should let it out and forget them and move on.
 
Soldato
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I like how Screeech is making up these scenarios in his head where lesbians are bullied on a daily basis, I've only ever witnessed someone bullied for being gay once as an adult and the person doing the bullying was set straight by me. I bet the guys virtue signalling in here haven't put their body in the line to stop actual homophobic bullying.
 
Soldato
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Going over the same ground again.....

My post was to try and get to the matter of *if* the reports turn out not to be true and there was no forcing of kissing or mention of sexuality, would this still be a homophobic attack purely because it was an attack on some people that happened to be lesbians, or is it AUTOMATICALLY a hate crime because of their sexuality.

***I am not, and most posters are not, questioning the facts of this case, just the possibilities as there is nothing proven here only victim reports which are being taken as the only version of truth at this time and rightly so.***

I want to understand where we are going here in terms of potentially having different levels of punishment depending on the group identity of victims and what proof is required to dish out said punishment, no matter how much these scumbags deserve it, it needs to be transparent and consistent. You have Jussie Smollet to thank for this cynicism.

Well, we won't know the exact details which will likely come out in the trial.

I haven't seen anything that casts any doubt on the reports, the police are calling it a homophobic attack, they're the ones with the evidence and probably the eyewitness statements and any CCTV evidence - they'll have charged the defendants accordingly based on the evidence, so at this time - there's nothing to suggest any of this is wrong, or the police have made any mistakes. However we'll have to wait until the trial to know for sure (if it's even publicised, as some of the defendants are under 18)

In terms of different punishments for different crimes, my understanding (which may well be wrong) is that the defendants were charged with robbery and aggravated GBH. Aggravated GBH usually carries with it a number of factors which make it worse than regular GBH, these include things where it may be racially or religiously motivated, motivated based on a sexual orientation or if the victim is disabled, there can be other factors such as a high degree of pre-meditation, being a gang leader and so on.

If it turns out, the reports are true - that two girls were on a bus together minding their own business, one happens to kiss the other - and some lads on the bus decide to start throwing homophobic insults at them, which ultimately ends up with the women in question taking a beating, then it quite clearly gets it over the line as aggravated GBH.

The police would need to prove to the CPS that the aggravating factors (the homophobic abuse) were present, because if they weren't any lawyer worth his salt would be all over it at trial and the whole case could collapse. If the reports are false and the women were essentially randomly targeted and no homophobic abuse was given, then it wouldn't be aggravated GBH, it would be GBH, it's not a homophobic hate crime if the victim just so happens to be gay - there has to be an element of aggravation to take it to the next level, in terms of the charging guidelines.

The aggravating factor will be considered at the trial and in sentencing if found guilty and probably will result in a harsher punishment being applied, because of the higher level of culpability, essentially - the fact they were essentially attacked for being lesbians (which is why the defendants would have been charged with that offence) is a more serious crime, than if they'd just attacked some random women, because then it wouldn't be aggravated GBH.


Think about it another way;

Crime #1. Some random blokes get on a bus and randomly beat up a black guy, then steal his phone and run off.

Crime #2. Some random blokes get on a bus, start throwing racial insults at a black guy, beat him up whilst screaming the N word at him, steal his phone and run off.

Crime 1 would be GBH, Crime 2 would be aggravated GBH, because it carries with it an additional level of malice that was not present in crime 1 (The fact it was preceded by racial insults)

For me, it seems logical to apply a tougher sentence for crime 2 than 1, because crime 2 is essentially more serious, because it contains racial elements - which I think makes sense from a legislative position.
 
Man of Honour
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Why is this even a debate? Its a homophobic attack...end of story.

ocukgonnaocuk.jpg
 
Caporegime
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Ah so not a "didn't happen at all" like some had alluded to for pointless reasons. Little scrotes, thank goodness for Priti Patel huh, maybe she can do it herself.
 
Caporegime
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Ah so not a "didn't happen at all" like some had alluded to for pointless reasons. Little scrotes, thank goodness for Priti Patel huh, maybe she can do it herself.

A lot more information has come out since the original post was made and to be fair the presumption of innocence is (or was) the bedrock of our legal system, the onus is on the prosecution to prove the accusations are true. That's much more preferable to the "we must believe the victim!" herd metallity that has become so prevalent in recent times.

They're still only charged btw but obviously the evidence appears to be heavily against them now.

Additionally, one of the victims pretty much confirmed a bit of polishing and mainstream media fake news, this is the sort of thing that riles up the social media lynch mobs.

She agreed there was a difference between a statement she gave the following month to what she told police at the scene, and said a Guardian article she wrote about the attack was "heavily edited".
 
Soldato
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Additionally, one of the victims pretty much confirmed a bit of polishing and mainstream media fake news, this is the sort of thing that riles up the social media lynch mobs.

Especially silly when the CCTV shows it was the blonde "adult" female who was the first to use physical violence on an under 16 boy (so technically a child) by running 20ft upto him and then punching the kid in the face before getting beaten up in return (self-defense?).

Kids are idiots for verbally stirring trouble, the blonde violent adult is absolutely out of order for punching a kid 20ft away from the situation forcing him to fight back and the kids who nicked the bag are idiots too and whoever punched the dark haired girl who just seemed to want to break things up deserves jail time too - so no-one comes away from this story as an innocent victim as the initial reports stated!
 
Caporegime
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Video wouldn’t play, semi circle just kept going around, while
WARNING, FILM SHOWING ATTACK ON BUS appeared on screen.
If it proved anything one way or another, I’ll never know.
It showed blondie on the top deck running from the stairs towards the back slapping some typical urban youth. Then a scuffle with 4 or so people, a youth stealing a random brown bag, I think, and going downstairs, more punches and the females coming very much off worse from the start. The whole fight moves from the back of the top deck to the stairwell as the youths start bailing out.
A women gets hit to the floor.

It's all very fast 20 seconds or less.

It looks like she responded to vocal provocation initially. Bad move. Took a beating as did her gf.
Opportunity knocks, and they stole a bag.

Well it's part and parcel of living in a big city.
Never go upstairs on a bus after 10 pm, jesus I learned this age 16.

Homophobia? Maybe the initial taunting but it wasn't the cause of the escalation to violence,, certainly the catalyst?

Whatever.... Happens every day.
 
Caporegime
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The CCTV you are watching only shows from the point the violence started.

The boys surrounded/harrased the women well before that happened. The whole thing lasted 9 minutes.
 
Soldato
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Never go upstairs on a bus after 10 pm, jesus I learned this age 16.

100% this, you're just asking for trouble. I sometimes get on a bus here in London with my Spanish girlfriend after a night out and have to tell her how bloody stupid it is when she starts walking up the stairs, you're just asking for trouble.
 
Caporegime
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Norrbotten, Sweden.
The CCTV you are watching only shows from the point the violence started.

The boys surrounded/harrased the women well before that happened. The whole thing lasted 9 minutes.

Yeah and they are scum for that.
Would she have taken a beating if she hadn't have snapped. Probably not.

Whatever Though. The kids are gonna get full punishment because it's a hate crime and the girls are girls.

I actually don't care. Crap like this is normal. It just got blown up because xxxxphobia was high in the news that week.
 
Soldato
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I like how people are judging based on a video, just wait for the court judgment.

Or as the courts call it........."evidence" i.e. the exact thing people should be basing a judgement on, and the video shows no violence occurs until the blonde woman punches a kid which then starts the whole chain of violence and theft. Still doesn't make the kids any less wrong for their verbal abuse of the women etc but the fact remains that the video evidence shows that the violence was started by the blonde woman, which is definitely NOT how the story was reported initially.
 
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