The shocking news of the murder of in Norwich of good samaritan Frank McGarahan, the man killed on a night out because he intervened to stop a group of men assaulting a homeless man on the streets says much about our sick society.
The problem though for me is that this type of attack is not uncommon in Norwich, only the fact that this ended in a murder has made this more significant.
A son of a friend of mine was lefft for dead a few years ago after being kicked and punched by a group of youths outside a club. At the time the bouncers outside the club stood on and watched only shouting a warning to the attackers that "the police are here" when a police car turned up. Despite the number of winesses, the case presented by the police was flimsy, with it taking the mother of the victim to ask witnesses she knew to go to the police station and demand to make a statement. Then, when the new stronger case came to court, the CPS nearly loused the whole thing up by losing files and failing to tell witnesses properly that the case had been moved before finally allowing the attackers to plead guilty to a lesser charge and be effectively slappped on the wrist for the near murder they had committed.
The victim, who was beaten unconscious made a remarkable recovery, and this in part seemed to affect the seriousness with which both the CPS and police treated the case. He could have easily died, but that seemed to matter little.
The truth is that there are thugs out each and every week looking for fights and looking for an easy victim to beat black and blue, but the legal system and policing in this country seems completely disinterested until a murder happens.
Sadly people like Frank McGarahan pay the ultimate price for this.
2 comments:
Not long ago I witnessed a group of drunken youths walking along a mainline railway tracks throwing clinkers at neighbouring houses.One of my windows was shattered.It took the police 3 DAYS to call round after dialling 999. Answering the door the PC said 'Hi, I've come about the damage to your car'
Despite showing the PC cctv footage of the youths, which he identified as serial offenders, I never heard from him again.
After leaving my house late one night, a friend of mine got smashed in the face with a claw hammer by 3 blokes. After ringing 999, the police were uninterested, and said they didn't understand why I was ringing them as I hadn't been assaulted. After saying, 'you are the police and I thought you might want to know that theres a group going round hitting people with a hammer' they agreed to send a car. Even though the group hung around at the scene for half an hour, they were long gone when the police arrived an hour later. It took letters to the council and local paper - who did 2 stories on it - for them to properly investigate.
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