Forum Topic

Today's society

Apologies for the length, but I came across this recently. How have we arrived at a situation like this? How on earth have their respective parents managed to produce such vermin?    "Two teenagers have been jailed for life after trying to decapitate a factory supervisor as they hacked at him more than 100 times with a samurai sword.Kiyran Earnshaw, 18, and Luke Gaukroger, 16, admitted murdering Robert Wilson in the "frenzied and senseless attack" in Huddersfield in January this year.Mr Wilson, 53, had approached Earnshaw and Gaukroger as they loitered outside the Thornton and Ross Pharmaceutical plant.CCTV footage played in court showed how the teenagers later passed a 20-inch blue samurai sword between them in an attack that lasted around 10 minutes.Audio recorded from the factory supervisor's phone call to a security firm during the attack captured Gaukroger, who was 15 at the time, shouting "get his head, I want to cut his head, Kia I want to cut his head".Mr Wilson's pleas to the youths to stop the attack were also captured in the recording that was played at Leeds Crown Court.Peter Makepeace, QC, prosecuting, said Earnshaw was the first to begin hacking at Mr Wilson after producing the weapon from his tracksuit bottoms.The prosecutor added that Gaukroger could be heard saying "pass me the shank, pass me the shank".Mr Makepeace said Earnshaw passed the sword to the younger teenager after delivering multiple blows and kicks to Mr Wilson.The prosecutor added that the pair paused at one point to catch their breath and to rifle through Mr Wilson's pockets, taking his coat.Mr Makepeace went on to say that Earnshaw and Gaukroger held the sword together, crouched towards Mr Wilson's body, and seemed to "make a concerted effort to saw the head from the shoulders".He continued: "Both then jointly stab the upper body using their combined force."Police who arrived at the scene reported seeing one of the pair "using the sword in sawing motion to the neck area of the deceased as if trying to detach the head from the body".Mr Makepeace said Earnshaw was shot with a Taser twice before he was arrested and officers used an incapacitant spray on Gaukroger.Mr Wilson had left the plant to talk to the youths in the car park outside the factory with his colleagues Paul Thewliss and John Badejo.The prosecutor said Mr Badejo was seriously injured as he tried to help his friend and both he and Mr Thewliss were forced to flee for their lives.Mr Makepeace said the defendants were seen taking tablets "washed down with vodka and other alcohol" as they hung around Huddersfield with friends before the incident in January.He said that Earnshaw was slurring his speech and was asking why he had been arrested and complaining of police harassment.He told officers he had taken cocaine and the tranquilliser Xanax.Tests on drugs Earnshaw had in his possession found they were Flualprazolam - an artificial substance similar to Xanax which produces drowsiness, confusion and disinhibition.Both defendants admitted murdering Mr Wilson and causing Mr Badejo grievous bodily harm with intent.Judge Mr Justice Lavender sentenced Earnshaw and Gaukroger to life with minimum terms of 22 years and 16 years, eight months respectively.Elaine Wilson, the night shift worker's widow, confronted the killers in court and asked: "How on Earth have we come to this and why?"Mrs Wilson said she was sickened to receive a letter from one of the defendants saying it was the "worst night of my life and 'I'm sorry'".She told the judge she had been shocked to "feel so much hate".Mrs Wilson said to the defendants: "I want you to know you have taken the life of a much respected, admired and good man."Mr Wilson had two stepchildren and enjoyed gardening, golf and walking in the Yorkshire Dales, the court heard.Sentencing the teenagers, Mr Justice Lavender said: "As he lay dying, you used the sword in repeated attempts to cut off his head."You ended his life and you brought lifelong misery and grief to his wife, his two stepchildren and his other family and friends."The judge noted that both teenagers had committed offences of violence in the past.He said this included an incident in October 2016 when Earnshaw used a knife to stab a fellow student at his school twice in the stomach".Mind you, one of them did say sorry to his widow, so that makes things so much better. Earnshaw will be out when he's 40, and the other piece of s**t before he's 33.  

Brian Coyle ● 2243d35 Comments

Utterly disgusting.

Pippa Meldrum ● 2243d

This is hardly just "today's" society.Just read Charles Dickens, consider Jack The Ripper, refer to any medieval history book, or consult the Old Testament for that matter.Certain human beings have been committing horrendous atrocities to other human beings ever since we learned to walk upright.Which doesn't of course excuse it or horrify us any less etc. But neither should it surprise us, or cause us to consider it to be a uniquely modern phenomenon.

Richard Cathcart ● 2243d

How have we arrived at a situation like this?" .the impious knight... suddenly set upon him and [shaved] off the summit of his crownwhich the sacred chrism consecrated to God... Then, with another blow received on the head, he remained firm. But with the third the stricken martyr bent his knees and elbows, offering himself as a living sacrifice, saying in  a low voice, "For the name of Jesus and the protection of the church I am ready to embrace death." But the third knight inflicted a grave wound on the fallen one; with this blow... his crown, which was large, separated from his head so that the blood turned  white from the brain yet no less did the brain turn red from the blood; it purpled the appearance of the church... The fifth – not a knight but a cleric who had entered with the knights... placed his foot on the neck of the holy priest and precious martyr and (it is horrible to say) scattered the brains with the blood across the floor, exclaiming to the rest, "We can leave this place, knights, he will not get up again."The murder of Thomas a Becket Archbishop of Canterbury by the four knights Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy and Richard le Breton, December 29th 1170michael adams...

Michael Adams ● 2243d

I feel physically sick.

Georgina Flint ● 2243d

"Certain human beings have been committing horrendous atrocities to other human beings ever since we learned to walk upright".I think we are all aware of that Richard. Have we learned nothing since then?

Brian Coyle ● 2243d

And as well as such horrific attacks on people there is much deliberate violence by sub-humans to animals. Of course, cruelty to animals is appalling in itself, but what seems to be ignored, with the light sentences given for truly evil behaviour including deliberate maiming and torture, is that in many cases thugs start by harming animals and then move on to humans. If the signs were picked up earlier and punishment/treatment meted out accordingly, we might have less of this behaviour.

Claire Moran ● 2243d

I agree with you Claire

Georgina Flint ● 2243d

Richard m'dear..Try and not squawk too loud ...  But your words back there beyond  "certain humans beings”  could as well have been spoken by Mary Bennet at the dinner table in a W4 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice....  many years earlier yet still on echo...xx

Stuart Kerr ● 2243d

And then there was the Viking's favourite, the Blood Eagle.....

Richard Greenhough ● 2243d

As a species, humans are disgusting and the sooner we all die out, the better. What some humans do to others (humans and animals alike) is almost beyond comprehension - there is a site which shows the full horrors of what vile acts are carried out by some. Whatever went on back in history, we are supposed to be more civilized, more humane because we are more knowledgeable but we are not.We merely have more tools to use and phones to video what we do.Humans are the sickest animal that ever walked the planet.

Delilah Hall ● 2243d

Sub-humans?

Stewart Jones ● 2243d

It is a very small minority though. The murder rate in the UK is about as low as it can get, given there is bound to be some killing. Murder by strangers is still very uncommon. I go for walks all over London alone, down alleyways, through woods, across heaths, down back streets where I’ve seen drug dealing going on and, really, i am not sure I can say I have been properly frightened. Most people you meet are civilised and friendly.

Vivienne Cox ● 2243d

I agree with most of your post, Delilah.  Having seen what so-called humans to do each other, the planet incluiding wildlife, it's easy to despair. I quite often have sleepless nights with the images haunting me from social media of the really terrible cruelty to animals and the crimes against our planet which is endemic.  But then I look at other posts and talk to other people who are as committed as I am to stopping all this.  The trouble is, we are small, committed boats in a huge sea controlled by corrupt people who only care about living an indulgent life provided by taxpayers.

Claire Moran ● 2243d

Almost certainly apocryphal. No contemporary accounts of the rite exist, and the scant references in the sagas are several hundred years after the Christianization of Scandinavia.

Huw Burford-Taylor ● 2243d

‘The sooner we all die out the better’Do you really mean that?  It seems a very bleak outlook on life, if it is.

Stewart Jones ● 2242d

"Do you really mean that?  It seems a very bleak outlook on life, if it is."I am in 100% agreement with Delilah.  To save the planet the human race MUST die out very soon. We have caused the most damage during our very short time on earth. We are a failed experiment!

Steve Taylor ● 2242d

So, what to do about that then, for those who believe?

Keith Iddon ● 2242d

"So, what to do about that then, for those who believe?"Develop a virus that jumps from animals to humans and spreads like wildfire across the globe and wipes out the population ? Of course, such a scheme would need a less harmful virus to be tested first to see if it would work. Oh, hang on a minute.....

Richard Greenhough ● 2242d

Thank you both Delilah and Vivienne for your postings.There were both enjoyable to read and digest.Sad we don't have Forum Meet-ups these days.

Jim Lawes ● 2242d

But we already know that the earth will disappear into the sun in 4billion time and that the creatures who will see the last days of earth are not going resemble humans at all.To wish to hasten the disappearance of the human race is a very bleak outlook. It will eventually happen anyway. It’s throwing your hat in the ring with religious fanatics who think that the destruction of this world gets them to another world.

Stewart Jones ● 2242d

Untermenschen auf deutsch

Anne England ● 2242d

"It’s throwing your hat in the ring with religious fanatics"No it isn't. Having a certain viewpoint is not signing allegiance to anyone in particular.

Steve Taylor ● 2242d

Perhaps not exactly throwing you hat in the ring in the sense of allying yourself with them but it is a shared value.

Stewart Jones ● 2242d

"but it is a shared value."I still can't agree. Stating that the human race should end does not share the value that we will all go to a better place or even a worse place. We will simply cease to be. I don't think any religious fantatics would want to be allied to anyone with such views.

Steve Taylor ● 2242d

There was a time, in the happy days of Diccon Adams and Chris (now in NZ) when the forum related to Chiswick w4 matters.Then the brexit remainers seized a futile  initiative.Now the forum is trying to be all things to all men.Nothing to do with our particular neck of the woodsLets go back to the halcyon days?

James Roy ● 2242d

1 Samuel 15King James Version15 Samuel also said unto Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord.2 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.5 And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley.6 And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.7 And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt.8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.9 But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.10 Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying,11 It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the Lord all night.12 And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.13 And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord.14 And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?15 And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.16 Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel?18 And the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.19 Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord?20 And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal.22 And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.24 And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.25 Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord.26 And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.27 And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent.28 And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou.29 And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.30 Then he said, I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord thy God.31 So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the Lord.32 Then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past.33 And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.34 Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul.35 And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Cllr Sam Hearn ● 2242d

The shared value is that you want it to end.

Stewart Jones ● 2242d

The vast majority of current threads relate to local matters.  Just a handful relate to more general issues.  And it has always been like this in the ten years or so I’ve been paying attention to this forum.  No ‘halcyon days’.And considering the lying and law-breaking of this government and the breakdown of Brexit talks, it’s surprising there hasn’t been more comment on this.

Alastair Banton ● 2242d

I agree, Adrian. You post here at your peril. You can expect some unhinged and vile personal abuse if you dare to question some people on the forum.

Stewart Jones ● 2242d

Some people dont pay attention to detail either

Julian Pavey ● 2242d

Who's Adrian?

Anne England ● 2242d

Sorry, I meant Alistair

Stewart Jones ● 2242d

Alastair, even

Stewart Jones ● 2242d

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Julian Pavey ● 2242d

Julian Pavey ● 2242d