Really - 10 weeks????

Sickening thing to do.

Absolutely unbelievable!!

For things like tha bringing back public birching would be more than justified. You would no doubt get some bleeding heart social worker saying his mummy was mean to him, though.

nanna8

For things like tha bringing back public birching would be more than justified. You would no doubt get some bleeding heart social worker saying his mummy was mean to him, though.

You are joking yes ? The birch?

Would hate to go back to that- however I am at a loss to know what the solution is?? They do such dreadful things simply because they can ! Prison does not seem to help and may even encourage their criminal ideas. If physical punishment is out of the question what is the answer?

OMG. How could anyone - of any age ever want to bring back birching (public or otherwise). !!!!!

How could anyone be so vicious???

I'm not sure how much good 10 weeks in jail would do really. This person needs to be made to understand the ghastly nature of what he did. He's obviously not the brightest and a prison record will condemn him for employment purposes at least for a while. I wish there was a more worthwhile way of addressing
his offending behaviour. Something more like a new form of National service involving longer term residential involvement in active work to improve lives for others.

How could anyone- of any age- kick an elderly man into a river and leave him to drown?
How could anyone be so vicious???

Did he know the man, did they speak before he pushed the man in the river or did he approach the man and pushed him

What was the pensioner's hobby, and was he 74 or 78?

Anniebach

Did he know the man, did they speak before he pushed the man in the river or did he approach the man and pushed him

What does that matter. Violence is inexcusable

Franbern

OMG. How could anyone - of any age ever want to bring back birching (public or otherwise). !!!!!

How could anyone be so vicious???

Yes
how could anyone be so vicious as to push an elderly man into a river and run away not caring if the poor chap lived or died.

Sometimes the only way to stop this behaviour is to be equally vicious and maybe public humiliation is the way to go?

Then you are the same.

The teenager was 19 , had previously been subject to supervision from the youth offending service for two years
but had failed to cooperate in full.

I was surprised at the sentence. No, Anniebach they weren't known to each other. He did go straight to the police to hand himself in and was very apologetic. He hadn't realised the age of the gentleman. Which is no excuse. Maybe that was why he got a light sentence. He's an idiot but it seems he's a remorseful idiot and did plead guilty.

He just pushed him in. The older man was u aware of his presence until he ended up in the water. Two 14 ( I think) year old girls helped him out immediately. Birching etc has no place in today's society.

The age of the gentleman is irrelevant - would he have considered his actions less serious if it had been a child or a middle aged person? 10 weeks seems a very short sentence considering his past record of failing to co-operate with youth offending services. Perhaps every weekend for 6 months being made to pick litter and clean graffiti would have more effect.

eazybee

How could anyone- of any age- kick an elderly man into a river and leave him to drown?
How could anyone be so vicious???

Good response eazybee

Of course birching is not the answer but the charge was probably wrong in the first place.

Perhaps attempted murder would have been an appropriate charge with a sentence to match.

He just pushed him in.

As you do

I only know this, and I'm certainly not saying we should return to old barbaric punishments, but - throughout my fairly long life I have seen the erosion of many of the old punishments alongside the decline in behaviour generally.

My grandma always used to say "Bring back the birch", and nowadays she`d be even more for it. I`m not sure about the birch, but surely some kind of physical punishment could be considered, seeing as the soft treatment isn`t working? Or something that they`d really hate, such as being parted from mobile phones and the internet for 6 months?

Callistemon

^He just pushed him in.^

As you do

Didn't mean to sound callous. I was answering question in previous posts that had asked if there had been any conversation between the two before he ended up in the water. Which there hadn't been. I need to clarify my comments, obviously

There is a school of thought that suggests that a first short sentence can be more of a deterrent than a longer one because it is such a shock. A longer sentence can start to make the prison experience become normalised and not as frightening.

Anyone to talk about bringing back the birch is as bad as the offender he should be given an appropriate sentence which would be for me putting something back as in under strict supervision to do the mans garden /shopping /housework for him for a year
Although 19 is just a teenager he could well be a man in size etc prison will probably only pull him into more violence and degradation
I would like to know the back story the ‘whys’ etc strange that he handed himself in straight after I feel there has to be more to this story than we are being told