Haunting footage of man who was 'tormented to death'

[Liberal_in_LA]

13 seconds of film. Awful! You really feel his pain. No one likes to be teased.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7059812.ece

Haunting footage has emerged showing a man with learning difficulties being abused by a group of hoodies – the kind of abuse which neighbours say ultimately led to his death.

David Askew, 64, died of a suspected heart attack on Wednesday after collapsing during a confrontation with youths outside his home near Hyde, in Greater Manchester.

Neighbours said that he had suffered more than a decade of abuse from local youths, who mocked his speech impediment and followed him down the street. One neighbour said that he had been "tormented to death".

Mobile phone footage taken during a recent confrontation and obtained by ITV News shows how Mr Askew's tormentors would gather at the fence of the home he shared with a brother and his elderly mother, Rose, 88. The clip shows his mother leaving the house on the Hattersley estate, as if to confront the youths. There is no proof that the youths in the film are the same as those who allegedly tormented Mr Askew when he died.

Mr Askew is said to have spent his days wandering between his home and a nearby shopping precinct.

To residents he was a gentle man, a kind neighbour and protective son, but to generations of unruly teenagers he was “Dopey Dave”, a vulnerable man they took pleasure in provoking into a fury.

He collapsed and died after confronting several shadowy figures in the front garden who were shouting at him. Police were today questioning an18-year-old man arrested last night on suspicion of manslaughter.

[slackmaster]

1. Kids are acting out because they were spanked

Or maybe they need to be spanked.

[vadawg]

5. its the UK, remember you are not even allowed to defend yourself anymore if attacked

even if its inside your own home, so what chance did this guy ever have...

[Aristus]

7. "Its the UK, remember you are not even allowed to defend yourself anymore if attacked"

Really? :puke:

That stinks like yesterday's stale NRA propaganda...

[vadawg]

8. yeah you know the truth sometimes does stink

thats the reason why people wont step up, if they get involved they are the ones in court, or they start to get persecuted. The law and the popo in the UK make it very hard for any individual to fight back in all but the most severe of cases..

[depakid]

20. You wouldn't know the truth about this if it smacked you upside the head with a 2 x 4

Though as is often the case with Americans discussing other nations, it doesn't mean that you're inclined to keep your mouth shut about it.

[proteus_lives]

28. So....

After you post something like that, do you go find a real Australian to scratch you behind the ears?

[MUAD_DIB]

10. It a child of mine were involved in that then spanking would be the least of his worries.

[slackmaster]

13. If a child of mine were involved, I'd hide in shame

Total FAIL of parenting and policing and schooling and just about everything else a child needs.

[Brickbat]

2. Why didn't his neighbors stick up for him?

Where were the police? This is so sad.

ETA: I just read another story that said the council was trying to get him rehoused and it was taking some time because his mother didn't want to move. Well, NO SHIT. Why should they have to move? Why not move the assholes who were doing this to him?

[vadawg]

6. problems with identifying who they were and there were probuably a lot of them

so it would be easier to rehouse him and his family than the so called hoodies, dosent make it right but its the way the council would have looked at it..

[Odin2005]

3. There are no words.

:(

[1620rock]

4. My God what is wrong with people???

[slackmaster]

9. I recommend Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange, written in 1962

It's about just this kind of thing.

The movie adaptation done by Stanley Kubrick is good too, but it's not quite the same.

[vadawg]

12. people havent changed, basically we are all the same regardless of place of time

there are people who are good, bad, some are predators some are prey, its been the same way since the beginning of time and will probuably outlive us..

[slackmaster]

14. Some people need to be "equalized"

[MUAD_DIB]

11. People are inherently evil.

[bigmonkey]

15. Reading Augustine recently? n/t

[MUAD_DIB]

16. Nope. Just a daily observation. If humans were inherently good then

we would live in a Utopian land where reason and good will were prized above all else.

[bigmonkey]

17. Nope, human nature is good.

If humans were inherently bad, then kindness would be news, and altruism headlines.

[apocalypsehow]

18. Nope, human nature is essentially rotten. It's how Evolution works; our very genes are self-centered

It's the intellect - the ability to think & reason - that mitigates what nature hath wrought. At least somewhat.

Astonishing that anyone who has even slightly perused human history over the last 10,000 years can type "human nature is good" without blushing beet red. It's a statement ungrounded in any sort of factual evidence.

[MUAD_DIB]

24. Let's start with the Haiti earthquake.

Stores being looted not for sustenance, but for goods to be sold to others by those who do not own them.

Christian missionaries trying to round up/run off with children. Mass chaos, everybody for themselves.


Let's look at the Holy Land... Do I even need to start?

How about the Catholic Church?

How about the Mormon Church?

How about the Scientologists?

China's treatment of prisoners?

Africa: Always exploited by somebody.

The USA: The ever widening divide between the haves and the have not's. Mind numbing pablum called TV. American Idol. Titillation vs substance. Education in the shitter. Bottom line cutting everything but keeping large police forces. Wall Street CEO 50 million dollar bonuses. Drug dealers + Meth heads. And on and on...


There are small islands of shining intelligence, technology, art, love and justice, but compared to the immense oceans of discontent they are but a speck in the void.

[MUAD_DIB]

21. Don't delude yourself.

History is full of war, cruelty, slavery, murder, and so is the present day world.

Name me one good thing and I will name you 4 bad ones.


On edit..


Here's some of the bad for you...just a splinter.


Let's start with the Haiti earthquake.

Stores being looted not for sustenance, but for goods to be sold to others by those who do not own them.

Christian missionaries trying to round up/run off with children. Mass chaos, everybody for themselves.


Let's look at the Holy Land... Do I even need to start?

How about the Catholic Church?

How about the Mormon Church?

How about the Scientologists?

China's treatment of prisoners?

Africa: Always exploited by somebody.

The USA: The ever widening divide between the haves and the have not's. Mind numbing pablum called TV. American Idol. Titillation vs substance. Education in the shitter. Bottom line cutting everything but keeping large police forces. Wall Street CEO 50 million dollar bonuses. Drug dealers + Meth heads. And on and on...


There are small islands of shining intelligence, technology, art, love and justice, but compared to the immense oceans of discontent they are but a speck in the void.

[bigmonkey]

22. You're proving my point, you silly person.

I have billions of ordinary, kind, altruistic events to mention, but we'd both find them boring. That's the point, that the headlines of history are all terrible. The reason they're terrible, that they're remembered, is that they were anomalous.

[MUAD_DIB]

25. Don't give me anecdotal fluffery.

If you aren't interested in putting up then kindly refrain from wasting bandwidth.

[Maru Kitteh]

26. So who died and made you the king of bandwidth?

That was a really dumb, unnecessarily vicious response to a genuinely held, freely given opinion that many believe holds substantial validity.

How is any skin off your back anyway? If bigmonkey or others hold the idea that people are basically good, do your bicycle tires go flat or something?

[MUAD_DIB]

29. Do you believe in Santa as well?

Now, if bigmonkey isn't able to defend his/her premise that everybody is generally, good without using the tried and failed "because I believe it so it is true", defense then I will call him/her on it.

No apologies.

[bigmonkey]

27. Perhaps you're suffering from chronic pain.

You aren't the arbiter of this matter. There's plenty of bandwidth available, more coming soon.

The evidence for my side is obvious, but mundane. You could rethink your perspective. You've filtered the acceptable evidence with a project in mind.

I have no animus against you, but whence all the energy? You're on a progressive/Democratic board, but you're proselytizing for a dark view of human nature that helps virtually no-one, jibes with narratives that Karl Rove or Pat Robertson might utter, and is contradicted by the preponderance of human experience outside of narrative structures. What is your aim? Who are you helping? Are you just telling a story that validates your own dark view?

[MUAD_DIB]

32. You're still in fail mode. Another one.

You've offered nothing to prove your point. An excess of warm-hearted feelings does not wash away the world of reality...of the history that human nature is dark, is motivated by greed and cruelty, is prejudiced, is inclined towards war, and to sum it up human experience loves to proclaim itself more noble than it actually is.

And as usual you're just another in a long line of DUers that fall back on the "you're like a mean republican" argument because you aren't able to defend your position beyond your belief in Santa.

You've offered up nothing in exchange for real discussion.



What's my aim? Who am I helping? Am I just telling a story that validates my own dark view?

Where do you guys get this pablum from?


At least I'm getting my view from a place called reality and history.

[Kievan Rus]

30. Anybody that thinks human nature is good is willfully ignoring human nature

[Last_Stand]

19. +1

Humans are filth.

[Kievan Rus]

31. And stupid too

[-..__...]

23. Sounds like a variation of "Happy Slapping"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_slapping