NJ_Dave

£750,000 divided between 30 million tax payers? I'd gladly pay my 2.5p to keep a child killer locked up for an extra 30 years. Calling it revenge is absolutely absurd.

CarlM

It does seem a short time - but remember what happens to child killers in Prison.. every day.. for at least 13 years... Those 'boiling water with dissolved sugar' baths are very uncomfortable!

Celtic_Angel

The murder trial heard that Bonini had taken pot shots at a fire crew before he fired the pellet which killed Andrew Morton.

<snip>

He said that attacks on crews with air weapons were not unheard of, although it was more usual for bricks and bottles to be thrown.

While the firefighters were the focus of such attacks, he said that their presence in areas like Easterhouse tended to attract a large crowd - which meant that children and other bystanders could be in danger if the crews were being targeted.

bloody hell...so it's the norm for grown men to hurl bricks bottles and even fire air-guns at Fire Fighters? this guy should be locked up any way...what a loser....not only could he have prevented the fire truck from getting to an emergancy but he accidentaly killed a 2 year old..what a scum bag.....

Dant3

Unfortunately, it's pretty common. When I worked in Hull there were entire estates that buses refused to drive through because they would be attacked by kids (and adults) with bricks. It was common for people to dial 999 and report a fire just so they could stone the fire truck when it showed up. And then they had the nerve to turn round and blame the Kosavan refugees for all the trouble! There are many, many people with an extremely disturbed sense of acceptable behaviour, something I find FAR more worrying than short prison sentences.

Piccolo

I would agree with that. We have been out of the UK on and off for last 15 years. What has happened to the people?

When I was young girl in Glasgow boys would have air rifles and took great pleasure of stinging you in the legs but it was a habit they grew out off by the time they were about 14 or had the guns taken from them. ( no polis involved!)

NJ_Dave

A quote from the killer, according to a friend who was in his flat at the time of the shooting: "this is where I shoot the school children in the morning". At least he won't be shooting any more school children. At least not for the next 13 years

krizzy

If someone killed my kid they'd want to spend the rest of their life in jail...cus I'll be waiting outside the gates for them when they get out.....and I'm a very good shot.......

Taking the life of a child is one of the only crimes I believe should be life in prison or death........

Celtic_Angel

actually I think I remember you mentioning that on another thread, where are the cops? where is the community? why aren't people seriously fined or imprisioned?...and this individual was clearly a grown man not a bored teenager......I can't imagine living in a society where attacking emergancy vehicles is acceptable as entertainment.......and now an innocent child was killed ....they seem to be focusing on air guns when the real problem is morons attacking fire trucks

Celtic_Angel

I whole heartedly agree with you..I know what you mean but what about the murdererd 35 year old? still someones child..still their baby...I know I'll never stop seeing my kids as anything less whatever their age.

Dant3

Every country has it's problems and every country has it's cretins, but the UK seems to be breeding a particular kind of mindless, antisocial imbecile, and at an increasing rate. Rather than just turning a blind eye and waiting for one of them to blow up and kill somebody, THEN spend a few million on 'punishing' them, I'd like to see some real effort being made to figure out why so many poeple are behaving in this way in the first place. There is a general increase in the level of disrespect not simply for the law (I have little respect for the law myself), but for basic humanity. There must be a reason for that.

When Margaret Thatcher said "There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families." she was heralding a future when the only people that mattered were yourself and those living in your house, and fuck everyone else. The difference is that she thought it was a good thing, and most sane people think it's not.

NJ_Dave

Why do you have little respect for the law, if you don't mind me asking? I don't disagree with you in preventing crime, but there still needs to be a system in place for those who still decide to commit an offence.

krizzy

I know what you mean about always being someones baby....but a line has to be drawn......and a school age child is still in the care of its parents and that child is taken away from its close family........

Dant3

I just don't believe that something being legal or illegal has, historically, been a very good indicator of what is right or wrong. Simply because an atrocity is legal, does not mean that it is morally acceptable. Similarly, just because an act is illegal, doesn't necessarily mean that it is immoral (importing a copy of Cannibal Ferox into the UK, for example, or smoking some pot with friends on a summer evening, or sneaking into a pub when you're 16, or walking across a deserted road where there isn't a designated crossing). Laws are only as good as the governments that makes them, and I have absolutely no faith in governments. Morality and legality are not always mutually inclusive.

psb182

you are frigging joking arn't you.....if 13 years is what everyone got for murder then there would be a hell of a lot more people murdered.........give me a break 13 years in a cell.....poor guy.......life WITHOUT parole sounds more like a better sentance......get a grip

Dant3

Explain to me how a 13 year sentence has any baring on an increased murder rate.

Research done by the Scottish parliament shows that the average man is convicted of murder at 18 and serves an average of 11 years of a life sentence, an amount that has, contrary to popular opinion, gone up over the years.

The Sentencing Advisory Panel's guidelines suggest a minimum murder sentence of 8 to 16 years depending on the circumstances.

So a 13 year MINIMUM sentence is actually perfectly in keeping with British sentencing traditions of the last few decades, and not a freakish one-off incident as you would suggest.