Skip to main content

Eid 2013: Somali rape gang

It may seem odd to begin a blog named after Chelsey Wright, with a story about an apparently unrelated, albeit similar attack, in another part of the country, but this was the one that first alerted me to the depth of our decline as a law abiding nation.

There are many disturbing aspects of this case:
  • The reaction of the defendants
  • The reaction of the defendant's families 
  • The religious context
  • The media coverage
  • The prosecution
It was this last point that really bothered me, and still does, because the case was widely reported as a young girl who went willingly to meet a man she did not know, and then 'accompanied' him to meet a larger group of men she also did not know, in a hotel where she otherwise had no business to be. 

The circumstances were set and the 'victim' seemed anything but an innocent party to the events that followed. 

But after their conviction, the girl released a statement detailing how she had been corralled by the men and forced into the hotel, in effect, she had been abducted from the street in broad daylight. You can read her full impact statement here, but the more important statement comes from the prosecutor, Henry Blackshaw who reportedly said of her  meeting with Jama:

"He then made reference to 'his boys' that were at the Victoria Park hotel, so she accompanied him".

She accompanied him?

Contrast that with the victim's account: 

"They kind of boxed me in, one behind me, one in front, and one on the side. I started to get frightened..." 

Does that sound like she accompanied him?

Perhaps in the old fashioned "You are under arrest. Please accompany me to the police station."  sense, but in any other way voluntary?

But the issue here is that statement came from the prosecuting attorney, so the whole case against this gang of rapists and thieves, was based on their own version of events, therefore the greatest wonder is how they were found guilty at all. We can only conclude that the evidence must have been truly devastating for their conviction to have been secured, because it appears to have little to do with the competence or intensity of their prosecution.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jim Gardiner

It seems that the British Justice system is continuing to over reach it's prerogative in dealing with British citizens. A recent case, which on first viewing, seems rather silly and an unnecessary waste of police and court's time, on further scrutiny, looks like an absolute and nonsensical  miscarriage of justice . It concerns a British burger vendor , who, in conversation with a customer, stated that there was a problem with muslim "no-go" zones in Manchester, at which point the customer, a Mr. Palmer, denounced the claim as an urban myth. The vendor (Mr. Gardiner) promptly produced evidence supporting his statement which the customer refused to read, preferring to remain in ignorance of the facts. The vendor was understandably upset that his truthful and heartfelt assertions had been slighted by someone who refused to examine the facts that he had helpfully prepared. He then refused to serve the customer who reported him to the police. So far so good. A co
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Chelsey?

In all the cases involving rape gangs here in the UK, the victim's right to anonymity has meant that we had only statistics to help us understand what was happening. Although the statistics are appalling, for example in Rotherham, a town of some 110,000 inhabitants, over 1400 children and young girls were groomed and sexually abused and exploited between 1997-2013. Most of the girls were aged 11-15 and at least one, Laura Wilson, was murdered . So we finally have a name and a face, unfortunately, she has become another, even more tragic, statistic. There are many more towns, with many more statistics to peruse  but we also now have a victim brave enough to forgo anonymity and tell us her story. Chelsey Wright is not a child victim and was not groomed for abuse nor had knowledge of, or relationship with any of her attackers, but the rest is predictably similar: a gang of muslim men ready to rape and assault at their first opportunity. There is another uncomfortably familiar
Post a Comment
Read more