ONLY SIX YEARS FOR THIS?

Two “feral” youths who subjected a man with learning difficulties to months of bullying before beating him to death and throwing him into a river were sentenced yesterday to be detained for life. [Which does NOT mean life in Britain]

Craig Dodd and Ryan Palin were aged 14 and 16 when they killed Raymond Atherton, 40, a vulnerable man who was defenceless against what the judge at Warrington Crown Court called their “aggressive and loutish behaviour”. The pair were leading members of a teenage gang that subjected their victims to a game called “terroring”. They would abuse and humiliate their victims by pouring drinks and food over them, daub their faces with ink and make-up, burn their hair, urinate over them and vandalise their property.

Mr Atherton, known as Ray, had alcohol problems but was considered to be friendly by social workers and neighbours in the Cheshire town. The court was told that he was forced into allowing the gang to use his flat to drink and smoke cannabis. They subjected him to “terroring”, which included regular beatings. Patrick Harrington, QC, for the prosecution, said: “The two defendants, often with others, were involved in a campaign of terror and violence directed at Mr Atherton. “Ultimately, and almost inevitably, the result was that the two defendants killed Mr Atherton by beating him savagely and throwing him into the River Mersey. Mr Atherton was, in their words, terrored.”

Mr Harrington described the lives of the two teenagers, who spent their days drinking, taking drugs and committing crime, as “dreadful and appalling”. He said: “If one were to search for a single adjective to describe their behaviour, it would be ‘feral’. They were wild and untamed.”

On May 9 last year Philip Wilson, a neighbour, heard the sounds of Mr Atherton being beaten in his flat. He found Mr Atherton with a bruised and bloodied face. He invited him to take refuge in his flat but the confused victim was led away by the two teenagers. It emerged that the boys walked him to a secluded river-bank, continued to beat him and then threw him into the Mersey. They then boasted to friends that they “winged him into the water”, meaning that each held a leg and an arm and then tossed him in. The body was found a week later after one of the boys’ friends offered to show Cheshire police officers a dead body if they would give him a lift home.

Mr Justice Hodge sentenced the teenagers, who had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, to be detained for life. He ordered Dodd to serve a minimum of seven years and Palin six years.

The judge told them: “You both treated Mr Atherton as a punchbag. What you did was not opportunistic. It was premeditated. It was a savage attack — cruel, brutal and vicious — and on a very vulnerable man.” After the hearing Detective Inspector Christine Heming-way said: “The youths who made their pastime the tormenting of one of the most vulnerable members of our community have learnt today that such behaviour is not acceptable.”

Report here




(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today)