Posted on 06/22/2005 9:55:59 AM PDT by ambrose
Mon 20 Jun 2005
'Happy Slap' Teenager Not to Face Charges
By Pat Hurst and Hugo Duncan, PA
A teenager who left a schoolgirl battered and unconscious in a “happy slap” attack will not face charges, it was revealed today.
The youngster attacked Becky Smith, 16, so friends could film the assault for fun on their mobile phones in a youth craze known as “happy slapping”.
But the police have decided Becky’s attacker should only receive a caution for the assault.
Becky was left with a black eye, bruises and cuts in a “sick” attack launched by a fellow school pupil in Blackley, Manchester.
She was jumped from behind by the youngster, also 16, knocked to the ground and spent two days in hospital.
A gang of five boys filmed the attack and the video clip was passed around school via mobile phones, and was shown to Becky’s brother Craig, 13.
The victim’s mother, Georgina Smith, 39, described the incident as “sickening” and said her daughter had been left terrified and did not want to go back to school because other pupils had watched the video of the attack.
Becky, who is taking her GCSEs at Plant Hill High School in Blackley, was attacked on May 9, and spent two days at North Manchester General Hospital before going home.
A spokeswoman for Greater Manchester Police said a 16-year-old girl was due to answer to bail tomorrow and it was “very likely” she would receive a caution over the incident.
The attack on Becky was the latest in a string of violent “happy slapping” incidents – including the alleged rape of an 11-year-old girl.
It involves children attacking other youngsters or random passers-by and recording the attacks on their mobiles.
Videos of the “slaps” are then exchanged between phones and posted on the Internet as a joke.
Last month, two 18-year-olds were jailed for six-and-half years each after setting fire to a stranger and filming the attack on a phone.
Victim Matthew Kitchen, 41, had fallen asleep in a bus shelter in Bury, Greater Manchester, when Benjamin Mortenson and David Smolinski set him alight. Mr Kitchen nearly died.
The video footage was shown at Bolton Crown Court, and features the pair shouting: “This is the funniest thing I have ever seen ... We’re gonna kill him ... He’s on fire.”
For these scumbags who actually lit a guy on fire? 6 1/2 years is way too short considering what the victim will have to live with for the rest of his life.
I swear sometimes I wish we could do an eye-for-an-eye on these sick, perverse sociopaths.
Wyattearp,
Remind me never to tick you off.
Try it here. We will invent a new craze called "Very, Very Unhappy Slappers"
Sue them.
It seems that you shot from the hip on that one. Cell phones are an effective safety tool.
The grappling arts take much longer to achieve proficiency in than striking arts. Just the fact that you cannot practice without a partner makes it so.
The fact that the standards are higher, and involve actually fighting against (and being successful against) a resisting opponent as the standard for promotion - these are the things that make BJJ it so hard to get a black belt in.
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