Teenager drop-kicked for saying you need female genitals to be a woman

Is this the video at the steps to a tube station, or something? Where the people concerned turn as though to leave than lunge back for some more, while the guy is on the floor wrapping his arms around his head?

If so, I cant imagine what someone would have to say to deserve that response, or to provoke it.

Thanks everyone.
Kicking someone in the head is in my mind a deliberate act that has an intention to kill and at the very least cause brain damage.
What the judge has now shown is that a certain group of people are allowed to get away with attempting to murder or brain damage other people.

Retributive justice happens where an offender is found guilty and punished within our legal system.

Otherwise it's just revenge in all its varied forms.

@thenightsky

Men exhibiting male violence. Nothing unusual to see here.

Indeed. However, will it go into statistics as violence perpetrated by males or females?...

1) No, and I really don't think to do so would help. Victim blaming (via the principle of provocation) has long been a part of our justice system, rightly so.

This is a bollox answer. I asked whether you could show that provocation was a mitigating factor for violent disorder. It isn't as far as I can tell but please provide a reference if you reckon you're right. It's irrelevant whether you think it would help or not.

2) I agree with you.

No you don't. You said 'Victim blaming (via the principle of provocation) has long been a part of our justice system, rightly so.' Clearly you don't agree with me because this is the complete opposite of what I said.

We will have to disagree on retributive justice. Retribution is one of several aims of the sentencing process, including prevention and rehabilitation. Please don't make me pull up the authority!

Yes, go on, 'pull up the authority' on retributive justice. Explain how it makes it OK to kick the shit out of someone. Explain why you think the victim of a crime should be subjected to the sentencing process.

Hello @LangClegsInSpace. Thank you for the reply, and for your earlier excellently analysed post, especially for a non-lawyer. (Although I do think that this has very little to do with feminism.)

1. No, and I really don't think to do so would help. Victim blaming (via the principle of provocation) has long been a part of our justice system, rightly so.

2. I agree with you.

3. It would be interesting, and perhaps more appropriate to this board!

We will have to disagree on retributive justice. Retribution is one of several aims of the sentencing process, including prevention and rehabilitation. Please don't make me pull up the authority!

1. this isn't an assault charge. For whatever reason, CPS chose to go with a public order offence instead of assault. Can you show where provocation is a mitigating factor for violent disorder?

2. In assault charges where provocation is a mitigating factor the aim is not retribution. The law recognises that if someone is severely provoked they may be less able to control their behaviour. This doesn't make what they did less wrong and it doesn't in any way mean that the victim deserved what was done to them.

3. Whole other thread about what degree of provocation should be 'normally expected' if you're a woman.

We don't do retributive justice. Beating the shit out of anybody is always wrong.

The assailants were convicted of violent disorder which is a public order offence. They were not convicted of assault, which is an offence against the person. I don't understand why, CPS guidance says that where they meet the thresholds for both they should be prosecuted for both, or in some circumstances, assault only.

The threshold for violent disorder is 3 or more people using or threatening unlawful violence such that 'a person of reasonable firmness' present at the scene would fear for their personal safety.

By prosecuting a public order offence rather than an offence against the person, the victim disappears. They weren't convicted for the harm they did to this young person, they were convicted for scaring the public while they were doing it.

Sentencing guidelines appear roughly similar for both offences. There may be technical reasons why it was better to go for the public order offence on its own. IANAL so if there's a reason it would be great if someone could explain because this was very obviously an assault against a person.

According to CPS guidance this attack also meets the threshold for ABH. PP implied that it didn't because the victim only sustained severe abrasions and a black eye. My layperson's reading is that while the actual injuries sustained by the victim are relevant, there are other factors to take into account, e.g. where there has been 'significant violence' or where there has been 'punching, kicking or head-butting'.

Sentencing guidelines for ABH include 'Use of weapon or weapon equivalent (for example, shod foot ...' as an aggravating factor. Also 'Intention to commit more serious harm than actually resulted'. I've seen the video, we all have. The victim was lucky that the assault happened in such a public place and was stopped quickly.

Clearly they should have dragged him out of the tube station and into a dark alley before kicking the shit out of him.

www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/public-order-offences-incorporating-charging-standard

www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/violent-disorder-2/

www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/offences-against-person-incorporating-charging-standard

www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/item/assault-occasioning-actual-bodily-harm-racially-religiously-aggravated-abh/

Excellent posts, Cara.

Yes, Cara. I heard that interview too. He is an impressive man.

Kicking someone in the head is the act of a feral, mindless thug. Also, the worst kind of inadequate coward does things like that in gangs.

Hear, hear, Cara. What an amazing man.

Sorry, on a bit of a hobby horse on this one. There was a "one year on" interview with one of the guys who wrestled with the Fishmonger's Hall attacker.

He was very interesting. Because, being an incredibly brave and genuinely decent person, even as he held the attacker down, he tried (verbally) to stop others kicking the attacker in the head. Then he didn't get off when the police asked him to, because he thought the suicide belt was real, and was terrified that if he let go, the attacker would blow everyone in the vicinity sky high.

I want to live in a society with people who react like that man, not like the bastards who carried out this attack (or like frog - though I suspect frog is all mouth and would actually piss themselves if really in that situation).

If I saw someone subjecting others to racial and transphobic abuse I'd be tempted to kick them in the head too.

In fact the more I read this sentence, the more I think how Hobbesian what you're proposing is.

I note that you leave out sexist abuse from your reasons for kicking someone's head in. I'm guessing oversight on your part rather than deliberate omission.

But it's very revealing, because (a) sexist abuse doesn't turn a crime into a hate crime (it's left off the list, despite sex being a protected characteristic under the EA) and (b) it would be simply too far fetched to imagine a woman on the receiving end of sexist abuse turning on the man abusing her and "kicking his head in" because... well, actual sexual dimorphism. She'd come out worse from the encounter. Way worse.

Which is why we need the rule of law, impartially and fairly applied to everyone, rather than revenge attacks and vigilantism. Because the weak - the people most at risk of attack - can't rely on being able to defend themselves, even if such lawless revenge beatings were morally justifiable, which they're not.

They kind of proved his point thought didn’t they. Bit of an own goal!

Guess who goes to the wall first in the sort of society that tolerates meeting violence with violence, eye-for-an-eye stuff?

Handy hint - it isn't able bodied heterosexual white men in their 20s and 30s.

I have no sympathy at all for the boy. If I saw someone subjecting others to racial and transphobic abuse I'd be tempted to kick them in the head too.

Blimey Michelle I've just learned another new word (I thought it was a typo at first 😁)

The link he posted actually said 'transgender women' so yup. He knew. Not the brightest spark really. He is VERY TWAW though, so presumably thinks the transgender part doesn't matter, so it IS a group of women attacking a man.

First I read of this story was a woke friend using it as a gotcha against feminists who talk about 'male violence'. Apparently 'explain this, if most violence is by males? A group of women attacking a bloke'

Really? Jaysus. Was your friend aware these were transwomen? Because I struggle to believe anyone would be so...well, ignorant.

Ugh. First I read of this story was a woke friend using it as a gotcha against feminists who talk about 'male violence'. Apparently 'explain this, if most violence is by males? A group of women attacking a bloke'

While he does indeed sound like a not nice person, thats no excuse for a group attacking him! That being said on FWR is..weird. Mind, we have many antifeminists here these days I guess.

transphobic issues are particularly sensitive

Yes, the public are repeatedly told this. See: ipsedixitism.

It is used to mean this is something you are not allowed to question or talk about, this is something you may not argue with regardless of right, wrong or evidence, this is something too complicated for you to understand (so leave it to those who know better and will tell you what to think), and it all serves the same purpose.

No, I don't believe that, I don't agree with that, and I think that very message in itself is a major problem. In the world of safeguarding and mental health the message is that nothing is so bad that it can't be talked about. The sensitive, tricky stuff needs talking about more, not less. It needs unpacking, addressing, facing. No sacred cows, no forbidden subjects, no dramatic and dogmatic lines drawn by those who never quite explain why their voices matter but others don't, and no quietly and undemocratically acquired power over others through using this kind of strategy. Because that way nothing good lies.

transphobic issues are particularly sensitive

NO SHIT.

transphobic issues are particularly sensitive

I think I might start doing my jogging in steel toe caps ready for when I need to stamp on the next bloke who shouts at me to get my tits out. It's all alright apparently, 'cause I'm particularly sensitive to perverts and sexism, and it seems we're allowed to ignore the law as long as our feelings are adequately hurt.